On August 31, the Chinese men's soccer team announced its upcoming international matchday schedule, including opponents, times and venues, as well as a new batch of preparation rosters. This is an important warm-up opportunity before the start of the World Qualifiers. It is really indispensable for the players of the national soccer team and coach Jankovic. It is also particularly important.
Positioning, opponents and organization
In terms of matches, the national football team, like other national teams, has scheduled two warm-up matches, on September 9 against the Malaysia Men's National Team and on September 12 against the Syria Men's National Team. All venues were arranged in the city of Chengdu. The match venue is Phoenix Hill Stadium, which is also the match venue in Chengdu Rongcheng. It should not be unfamiliar to Chinese Super League fans. This match venue has been through the baptism of top level matches and should have good hosting capacity.
As for the opponents, Malaysia's role is naturally to mimic Thailand's small and fast team. The styles of the two teams are similar in many ways. The Chinese team can practice how to break through the intensive defense; how to arrange themselves more appropriately when they meet a dominant team. The match against Syria is an encounter and collision with a team with relatively good hardware, similar to the state of South Korea.
These two hypothetical opponents are really not high in the rankings. The national soccer team should do their best to win, find their own way of fighting, build confidence and choose in-form players to back up.
There are some "surprises" in and out of the roster.
As for the personnel, Coach Jankovic picked a total of 23+1 players for the preparation list, which is a bit out of everyone's range. Compared to the choices he made when he started coaching the Chinese team, Wei Shihao, Liu Yang, Zhang Jiaqi and tomorrow's players are fewer, while Wu Xi, Barton, Li Ke and Li Shuai are more. It's just that in terms of age, it's really a lot "older". After all, the selected players are all around 30 years old and have more experience.
In other words, there's really no one available, so they had to call the veterans back to help. Wu Xi, in particular, was basically planning to over-retire before. Unexpectedly, this time he came back to become the team's replacement. You know, he's already 34 years old.
In the 23+1 list, there are only 9 people under the age of 30, which shows that the age distribution of the national players is really inappropriate, and the young forces are really few and far between. In terms of naturalization, there is Ekson in the tournament, Jiang Guangtai was selected, but that's about it; Alan and Luo Guofu, who contributed before, were not selected. Guess they basically said goodbye to the national team and never got another chance.
If Gaurat was a human error, then it's really a shame about these guys. They really wanted to play for their country, but they were hampered by various issues. Ackerson and Wu Lei are definitely the team's mainstays on the offensive end. If they want to score, they have to rely on them.
New people aren't "new".
As for Chen Pu and Sun Guowen, they were selected for the national soccer team for the first time and this was a milestone moment for them. In Shandong Taishan, Chen Pu played well and excelled. This selection brings the help of side blitz. He can also retreat to help his teammates to defend and is opponents.
As for Sun Guo Wen, there's a lot of controversy. He hasn't had many fights in the CFL. Although he has performed well several times, is the frequency a bit low? How is he viewed and how will Jankovic place him? If it's a wingback, it seems to be much more than he's ranked. If it's a reverse foot, it's a real risk.
