After the 24th round of the Chinese Super League, there will be a two-week break during which the quarter-finals of the AFC Cup will be played and international match days are scheduled. During this period, the National Football Team, the Asian Games Team and the National Olympic Team will all train and play a series of warm-up matches. This year, all three national teams will participate in very important competitions. The national soccer team will be playing World Cup qualifiers, the Asian Games team will be competing in the Hangzhou Asian Games, while the national Olympic team will also be playing U23 Asian Cup qualifiers and Olympic qualifiers.
The national soccer team has essentially decided to train in Chengdu and battle two international rivals, Malaysia and Syria. The Asian Games will convene around mid-September for the Asian Games journey. Before that, the National Olympics will take the lead in preparing for the Olympic preliminaries. The National Olympics held two warm-up matches in Dalian and Turkmenistan. After these two warm-up matches, the National Olympics will work for the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers against UAE, India and Maldives in Dalian.
Turkmenistan initially planned to play a weaker team to improve their form and confidence, but they suffered a crushing defeat in their first warm-up match against Turkmenistan. The Olympics played their first closed teaching match against Turkmenistan at the Barracuda Bay outfield in Dalian. In the end, the Olympics lost 0-2 to Turkmenistan. Although it was an internal teaching match where the coaching staff aimed to investigate the lineup and players, it was too surprising to lose 0-2 at home against Turkmenistan, who is ranked 138th in the world. We all know that in recent years, lower level national brand teams have not performed well. Many age group national brand teams don't even make it to the Asian level, but losing to the likes of Turkmenistan is unacceptable.
Currently, the famous local Olympic coach has become Yaodong, who has also been criticized for his leadership achievements. Three days later, the Olympics will hold the second teaching match with Turkmenistan. This game must not be lost again. Otherwise, the morale and confidence of the Olympics has dropped to a low point before the start of the U23 Asian Qualifiers. After the two matches against Turkmenistan, the national Olympics took a temporary break and officially faced UAE U23 on September 6 in Barracuda Bay, Dalian, to start the U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers.
The Chinese national team has been ranked around 80 in international tournaments, which is the third tier of Asian teams. Although we often express our disappointment and dissatisfaction with the national team, we have to admit that the current national team is probably the strongest for quite some time to come, as Chinese soccer has entered a stage where succession is not easy. While the national soccer team is still able to beat the likes of not-so-lowly ranked Syria in international tournaments, our lower-aged national team has begun to lose out to 138th-ranked Turkmenistan.
