China's Wang Dalei in training on June 19th
At 19:35 on June 20, the Chinese men's soccer team will face their second opponent of this month's international cycle, Palestine, at the Barracuda Bay Soccer Stadium in Dalian. As with the match against Myanmar on the 16th, the national soccer team's minimum goal for this match is still to win. However, as one of the teams for the 2023 Asian Cup, Palestine is much stronger than Myanmar, making the match more informative for China, which is also preparing for the Asian Cup. Therefore, if the Chinese team wants to win the opponent, not only to maintain a strong attacking force, but also to "tighten the fence", to do both offense and defense. From the training situation in recent days, the Chinese team is likely to use the combination of personnel on the field in this game.
head-to-head record
The last time the national soccer team won against an opponent was 14 years ago
Palestine is now ranked 93rd in the world, only 12 behind China, is the rapid rise of Asian soccer teams in recent years, into the 2023 Asian Cup finals, China's opponent Lebanon third team, is China's Asian Cup preparations for the process of the appropriate "imaginary enemy".
The data shows that the two teams have played five matches since the end of the 2006 Asian Cup qualifiers. China dominates with an unbeaten record of three wins and two draws. However, the national soccer team's most recent win over their opponents came 14 years ago in July 2009. At that time, the national soccer team beat their opponents 3-0 thanks to goals from Qu Bo, Gao Lin and Yang Hao.
China and Pakistan last met on November 20, 2018 . At that time, in Haikou, the Chinese team led by Lippi drew 1-1 with a goal from Feng Xiaoting. That match was actually the last official international warm-up match that the national soccer team played before the 2019 Asian Cup. It was because of the national soccer team's weak performance on the field that there was a general lack of optimism about the team's prospects of competing at the Asian Cup.
Home Team Preparation
Likely to stay with the 442 formation
For the Jankovic-led national soccer team, facing an opponent is only one aspect of the work ethic. In order to achieve its goal of victory, the team must first prepare itself. Judging from the training sessions in March and June, Jankovic has built the national soccer team into a disciplined squad, but what is needed most is hard power. When the post-80s and post-85s players represented by Zheng Zhi, Hao Junmin, Feng Xiaoting, Gao Lin and Huang Bowen faded out of the national soccer team one after another, the biggest problem faced by the Chinese team is still the lack of supply of good players, which can be proved by the panic of the Chinese defense line and the team's slow tempo of attack-defense transitions in the China-Myanmar game a few days ago.
In the China-Myanmar match, Jankovic introduced a flexible formation of 343 in attack and 442 in defense for the national football team. If Myanmar converts one or two counter-attacking chances created into goals, the game could change dramatically. In contrast, Palestine, who have already entered the Asian Cup, have more offensive firepower, so China must be more cautious in defense.
During the outdoor training on the morning of the 18th, defenders Wang and Wei Zhen, who missed the China-Myanmar game and the joint training for health reasons in the previous days, appeared at the training. Only one simply trained with the team and the other did not participate in the joint training at all. Judging from their current physical condition, it is difficult for them to participate in the match on the evening of the 20th. The Chinese team has encountered problems with the arrangement of defense personnel.
Of course, according to the habit of leading the army, Jankovic will not easily adjust the main tactics or personnel. Therefore, the Chinese team is likely to adopt the 442 formation on the night of the 20th, pursuing a balance between offense and defense. The starting candidates will not change much from the 16th, and even the possibility of remaining completely unchanged cannot be ruled out. It is worth noting that in the China-Myanmar match, besides Wang Shenchao and Wei Zhen, only Li Lei, Ming Ming, Liu Dengzheng and Xie Pengfei failed to play.
information about the opponent
Palestine currently has a number of naturalized players
The national soccer team chose relatively weak Myanmar and Palestine as their opponents for this month's warm-up matches, obviously in pursuit of a total win and regaining confidence. However, facing the rapidly rising Palestinian team in recent years, with the help of many naturalized players, it will not be easy for the national football team to win.
The Palestinian Football Association officially became one of the member associations of FIFA in 1998. At that time, due to various objective factors, the level of Palestinian soccer was generally low in the Asian soccer context, and could only participate in low-level tournaments such as the AFC Challenge Cup. However, in the past 10 years, the Palestinian Football Association has been determined to reform, not only importing naturalized players from Europe and the United States, but also hiring foreign coaches to coach the national team, greatly improving the team's strength. In the case of the Palestinian team that beat China on the road in 2018, the head coach at the time was Algeria's Noureddine Ali. During the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup, Palestine went undefeated, defeating the Philippines in the final to win the title and reach the Asian Cup final for the first time in their history.
With the help of naturalized players, Palestine did well in the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers and even almost reached the round of 12. Of course, they managed to advance to the 2019 Asian Cup finals. Stats show that Palestine went on a 12-match unbeaten streak from 2016 to 2018, with FIFA setting a new all-time high in February 2018 (73rd in the world). From this perspective, it is no coincidence that this team has reached three consecutive Asian Cup finals.
Although China is once again playing at home this time, the strength of the opponent, Palestine, should not be underestimated. In March this year, Palestine played against Bahrain. At that time, the team had six naturalized players, including goalkeeper Kaddoura, defender Telmanini, striker Marouf, center back Hamid, midfielder Kandirana and striker Zihadr. In addition, in recent years, naturalized players from Europe and the United States, such as strikers Islami and Zedan, midfielder Abdullah, central defender Salam, midfielder Rashid and right back Eid, have been selected for Palestine.
More noteworthy for China is that Palestine also has some players playing in top leagues in Europe and the United States. For example, 24-year-old striker Dabah, who plays for Alouca in the Portuguese Super League, is worth 1.5 million euros and is Palestine's most valuable player. Marouf, who was born in Sweden, played for the Swiss Super League. In addition, Palestinian players have appeared in Sweden, Chile, Egypt, Thailand, Indonesia and even Israel.
Palestine has been in good competitive form for the past two years. They beat Yemen 5-0 and the Philippines 4-0 in last year's Asian Cup qualifiers. In March, they beat Bahrain 2-1 in a warm-up match and won four consecutive international matches. In the Arab Cup at the end of 2021, Palestine drew 1-1 with Saudi Arabia U23.In the Qatar 2019 World Qualifying Round of 40, Palestine beat Uzbekistan 2-0 and drew 0-0 with Saudi Arabia. This makes it not easy for China to win against their opponents.
