With November's International Match Day just around the corner, China's men's national soccer team begins its journey to the 2026 World Qualifiers. According to the schedule, the first group match will be away to Thailand Men's Football Team on November 16 at 8:30pm. A live broadcast will be arranged on CCTV Sports Channel Closed Circuit TV 5. According to media reports, the new president of the Football Association, Song Kai, will not be there to supervise the away match and the national soccer team will watch the match at home against South Korea.
In the last World Cup preliminaries, when the national soccer team had several naturalized players, they finally stopped the Top 12. Unfortunately, they did not return to the World Cup finals for the 20th consecutive year.
Now that FIFA has reformed the World Cup, expanding it to 48 teams from 2026, with 8.5 slots for Asia, it certainly increases the hopes of national soccer teams to advance.
According to the rules, the Asian World Qualifying Tournament is divided into four stages, the national soccer team is about to participate in the group stage belongs to the second stage, 36 teams are divided into 9 groups, the top two in each group to advance to the top 18, that is, the third stage, the national soccer team opponents include seeded South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, due to the strength of South Korea, Singapore's strength is the weakest, so Thailand has become the main qualification opponents of the national soccer team, the first game for the two teams The first match is very crucial to the qualification situation of the two teams. If the national soccer team loses to Thailand on the road, then the national soccer team basically announces its early exit.
Winning three points away from home against Thailand is a tough ask if the national soccer team wants to finish in the top 36, but it won't be easy for the current national soccer team - after all, the opponents aren't a former Asian fish-belly team, according to Oriental Sports Daily.
In the latest edition of the world rankings, the national soccer team is ranked 79th and Thailand is ranked 115th. Judging from the ranking comparison alone, the national soccer team is indeed much higher, but the national soccer team's ranking has more water. In fact, its strength is about the same as Thailand's. In recent years, the two teams have played each other and won and lost.
According to statistics, the two teams have met 28 times previously, with the national football team having a record of 19 wins, 3 draws and 6 losses. The last loss occurred in the last meeting between the two teams when they lost 0-1 to Thailand in March 2019 at the China Cup.
Judging by the current fan opinion, the road prospects for the national soccer team are not good. On the one hand, the new training roster has a lot of veterans, and on the other hand, the national soccer team has a poor road record in official games.
However, coach Jankovic doesn't see it that way, emphasizing that the national team is ready for the Top 36 and the team will try to bring back three points from Thailand.
In any case, the national soccer team should not be afraid of any opponent in order to enter the World Cup. Of course, the national soccer team can't repeat the same mistakes in the world qualifiers with the lowly amateur defense mistakes they made in the previous friendlies, so coach Jankovic needs to be careful with the use of Shanghai Port's defenders and goalkeepers.
