stuck and not moving forward (idiom); stagnant
Although the CFA held a meeting of middle-level cadres on Feb. 21 to study and deploy key recent soccer efforts, there has been at least no further news about the head coach of the Chinese men's national soccer team. However, the Chinese men's national soccer team will visit New Zealand during the FIFA-designated national team window at the end of March, and two warm-up matches with the national team are still on the schedule. I have to say that the overall current situation is becoming increasingly unfavorable for Chinese men's soccer itself.
On February 13, the day after the Chinese Football Association (CFA) held an expert meeting in Foshan, it reported the plan to a higher level of sports management, as well as to a higher level of relevant management, in the hope that China's men's national team would immediately organize training to complete two warm-up matches against the New Zealand national team in late March, as well as to prepare for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, which will be held in full in November this year. But so far, the Chinese Football Association has not received any feedback. Because of this, what should the Chinese men's soccer team do? Not only the fans are concerned, but even the Chinese Football Association cannot give a clear statement.
According to the preliminary plan of the CFA, in addition to bilateral sports exchanges, China also hopes to improve the ranking of the FIFA men's soccer team through these two warm-up matches, because the ranking is directly related to the future of the Asian Cup finals and the 2026 preseason draw, if it can be entered into the World Cup qualifying rounds, of course, more conducive to the team to enter the top 18; once you can only participate as the second in the group draw, the group opponents are obviously much stronger, and the qualifying difficulty will be greatly increased.
Over the years, Chinese soccer has become a "social phlegm" that has constantly aroused public opinion, and the most fundamental reason for this is the lack of results. Nowadays, all the work has been greatly affected in the current situation, but the whole international soccer competition will not be completely suspended due to the anti-corruption work of Chinese soccer. Therefore, the work of Chinese soccer, especially the construction of the national team has been postponed, it is likely that the current results will be further affected. Once it fails to meet the requirements and achievements that outsiders hope for, it will be further in trouble. In other words, Chinese soccer is currently in this vicious circle.
From another perspective, China's current ranking and technical points in FIFA, which ranked in the top nine in the world rankings released by FIFA on July 20 this year, could be quite a slim prospect. In the world rankings released by FIFA on December 22 last year, China was ranked 11th in Asia with 1305.06 technical points. Oman was ranked 75th in the world and 9th in Asia with 1321.24 points. At the 25th Gulf Cup in January this year, Oman made a clean sweep of the finals and ended up as runners-up, which earned Oman 8.48 technical points and therefore currently has 1329.72 technical points.
China is 24.66 points away from the ninth Omani technical score in Asia when China will meet New Zealand in March.The Oman Football Association initially sent a team to the 10th West Asia Championship, but after the UAE dropped out of hosting the tournament, the Oman Football Association announced that it would be playing a warm-up match against Lebanon, with a second warm-up match currently under negotiation. In other words, Oman has not given up on the chance to earn a FIFA technical score. As a result, China's chances and hopes of overtaking Oman and moving into the top nine in Asia to be seeded among the top 36 teams in the second phase of the 2026 World Cup qualifying tournament are essentially impossible. As a result, there has been no significant change in the fortunes of the Chinese men's national team.
As for what to do with the next national team? I'm afraid we need to wait further.
