For the Chinese women's soccer team, 2023 can be called the "big test" year. The World Cup will be held in July and August, the Hangzhou Asian Games will be held in September, and the Paris Olympics women's soccer qualifying tournament will be held in October, with three major tournaments coming up one after another. Head coach Shui Qingxia and her disciples will be tested by the intensive schedule and strong opponents.
After a short Spring Festival holiday to adjust, the Chinese women's soccer team trained in Guangzhou on January 26th and will travel to Spain on February 10th for a warm-up match.
How to prepare for the three tournaments, what the team will try to achieve, and how players playing overseas will help the team. With these questions in mind, People's Daily Sport recently spoke with Chinese women's soccer head coach Shui Qingxia.
1. What are the priorities and goals of the 2023 preparation?
Shui Qingxia: This year's task is still relatively heavy because there are three competitions to participate in. For the team, each stage has a different importance, including the World Cup, Asian Games and Olympic qualifiers. The task is heavy, but we will adjust as well as possible.
From a World Cup perspective, we certainly hope to qualify for the group and advance to the top eight. Every game in the World Cup is tough, but one always has to have a goal and try to climb towards it. The same is true for the Asian Games because on our own doorstep, we certainly want to do well. In the Olympic qualifiers, the competition could be even tougher as there are relatively few places to advance. I think it is very important to play at different times, which requires us to plan and organize well.
2、How to position the Chinese women's soccer team in Asia and the world?
Shui Qingxia: To be honest, although the Chinese women's soccer team won the Asian Cup, we can't say we are the top team in Asia. There are a lot of accidents in soccer, but our team's strength is step by step. We also pay attention to some European matches. Compared with European teams, we still have a gap in many aspects, which requires us to have a correct positioning, that is, to continue to learn from the strong teams, to narrow the gap between technical and tactical and physical confrontation.
3、How can you help the players to relieve the pressure in the face of such an intensive competition in 2023?
Shui Qingxia: For the three matches this year, the players are aware of it, and we also said in the meeting exchange that this year is different from the past, all the matches are played in the same year. Therefore, the coaching staff will be stricter than before in this year's training, and we explain the situation to the players and reach a consensus. I think the most important thing is the mutual trust of everyone, the players trust me and I trust them. We have a unified goal to train with the best routine.
We don't think about what happened in the past or tomorrow, and it's hard to predict what we'll end up accomplishing in these three games. All we can do is prepare what we should prepare and that's enough.
4、With the rapid development of world soccer, how does the Chinese women's soccer team keep up with the world trend?
Shui Qingxia: First of all, our league should make a leap from the original foundation, such as conversion offense in high confrontation. World soccer has changed a lot now, and the requirements for physical confrontation, technique and tactical level will be higher. I think we should first have a clear understanding and then try our best to catch up with it.
China won the Women's Asian Cup at the award ceremony.
5. How do you see the phenomenon of increased attention to women's soccer?
Shui Qingxia: There are two possible scenarios for players after the increase in attention. One is that the pressure is too much, which makes them have emotional changes; the other is that the honor also affects the player's emotion. I think mature players can adjust themselves in this situation and they will face it calmly even if there is a lot of applause. After all, the Asian Cup title is in the past, which represents the past, but success shows us that we can achieve better goals through hard work.
The road ahead may be even more difficult, which means that we should still have firm confidence in difficult situations, no matter what, or face them correctly, and the more applause, the more sobering it will be.
6、More and more women's soccer players go to European leagues, how do you think about players studying abroad?
Shui Qingxia: I think the first step is to go out, and the Chinese women's soccer team is also taking such a path. First go out, then let the players see more of the outside world, see what the outside world is like. In the training process, the players understand the training advantages of foreign teams, maintain a high confrontation of offense and defense conversion rhythm every day, the understanding of the game may be different. In addition, going out helps a lot to improve players' self-confidence, discovering their strengths through training, expanding their strengths, and finding ways to improve their weaknesses.
Also, I want players to go out and play some high level games. At the very least you have to play on the field so that you can make sure that you look outside of your daily training to see how much of a challenge or pressure you can withstand in difficult situations.
