Shortly after the international match days in September, FIFA officially released the latest rankings of the world's nations. Japan and South Korea moved up in the rankings as they performed well on International Match Day.
Facing the weak Asian teams Malaysia and Syria, China dropped 7.53 points in FIFA, but the ranking remained unchanged, still ranked 80th in the world, which surprised many fans. After all, China's men's soccer team has become a third-rate level in Asia, and the continuing downward trend has not been curbed in time. It can still be ranked 80th in the world and 11th in Asia, which is obviously true to its name.
In order to help the national soccer team regain confidence as soon as possible and prepare for the two World Preliminary Group matches in November. The Chinese Football Association (CFA) has found two less powerful opponents - Malaysia and Syria - especially for the national soccer team. However, as the national soccer team has Asian Games duties, many young players who have performed well in the Chinese Super League have been called up to the National Soccer Asian Games in Hangzhou.
As a result, there are still many old faces of the national soccer team in the latest national team formed by Jankovic. Veterans such as Wu Lei, Yan Junling, Zhang Linpeng, Wang Shenchao, Wu Xi, Li Lei, and Ekerson have all been selected for the current national team. Only Li Shuai and Wei Zhen from Shanghai Port are "newcomers" to the national team.
One can only imagine what such a twilight national soccer team can show in a warm-up match. So playing in Malaysia, Syria is also within the expectations of many fans. Nonetheless, FIFA still gave the national soccer team a "face" and only deducted 7.53 points, which allowed the national soccer team to maintain the 11th position in Asia. However, we all know the position of the national football team in Asian soccer.
Japan and South Korea had much stronger warm-up matches in September compared to their national soccer teams, but they performed much better. Japan beat two European teams, Germany and Turkey, while South Korea drew with Wales and beat Saudi Arabia 1-0 away.
Due to Japan's outstanding performance on international match days, Japan's world ranking has risen to 19th and South Korea's ranking has risen to 26th. Entering the world's top 30 shows that Japan and South Korea have become world-class teams, with the national soccer teams becoming more and more distant from Japan and South Korea.
Syria just beat the national soccer team in a warm-up match and is currently only ranked 93rd in the world, 13 places worse than the national soccer team. It's easy to see from these numbers that there is clearly something wrong with FIFA's ranking algorithm, as the national soccer team can't beat Syria at all right now.
It is also worth noting that former Asian fish-belly team Vietnam has now risen to 95th in the world rankings, having just beaten the national soccer team at home in last year's world preliminaries. If the national soccer team fails to curb its downward trend, it could be overtaken by Syria and Vietnam next year.
This November, the national soccer team will have two group matches in the World Qualifiers, away against Thailand and at home against South Korea. As things stand, one point for the national soccer team in these two matches is a win.
After the Asian Games, Yankovic will reportedly raise some Asian Games players to the adult national soccer team in the hope that the addition of these new players will bring positive changes to the national soccer team and bring some surprises to the Chinese fans in the world preliminaries.
