On March 18, the U20 national soccer team returned to the top eight after nine years at the Asian Cup. In an interview with Football Night, captain Shao Jiayi summarized the Asian Cup.
-Talking about why we need to go back to the Asian Eight
Shao Jiayi:The most important thing is the head coach Antonio. Being able to consistently lead the team for such a long period of time with good results on all three occasions.First time out of the Asian Junior Championships in 2019. The second time was last September in the qualifying round of the AYC in Saudi Arabia. Once again, they reached the final stage of the Asian Youth Championships, making it to the Elite Eight. Our Chinese coaches have benefited greatly from Coach Antonio's rigor in controlling the details of the game and preparing for all aspects.
--Talking about facing Japan
Shao: As for Japan, we know that Japan has a strong passing and controlling ability, so we won't give them too much space, so we will be relatively backward in defense in the game. For the Saudi Arabia game, since Saudi Arabia has more individual ability, if we retreat deep, we will give them a lot of chances. So it's important to put the line in front, create some trouble in the midfield and press them up front. The truth is that this is the kind of game on the pitch where we can keep that patience and look for the opponent's flaws. We don't care who he is, we only care about the score on the pitch, we only care if we can win the final game.
-Summary of the Asian Cup
Shao Jiayi:I think that since we have achieved a lot of very good results and scenarios in this tournament, why don't we stick to them? We have shown in this tournament that we are very competitive in Asia in many aspects. Despite being our weakness in some areas, we will do our best to improve in the coming training and matches. But we must do our best to maintain our strengths. Improve it and make it even better.
