China's U20 national youth team, which arrived in Zagreb, Croatia this week, had its first warm-up match of European training. The opponents were Latvian National Youth Team, a fourth or fifth rate team in Europe. In the end, when China was down 0-2, they relied on a 2-minute, 2-goal attack in the second half to draw 2-2. They didn't have much advantage in big hits.
Last month, China's U20 men's national soccer team, led by head coach Antonio, spent some time training in Dubai, UAE, and played five warm-up matches against the UAE, Oman, and Syria, recording one win, two draws, and two losses, scoring four goals and conceding five. The main reason for the overall poor performance was a lack of strength.
Not long ago, the Chinese team flew to Croatia to begin the second phase of overseas training. According to the plan, the team will play a number of warm-up matches in the next three weeks, with the Latvian national youth team being the first opponent.
Like Dubai in the UAE, China continues to agree that opponents cannot stream live video to keep tactics under wraps, but domestic fans will need official releases through the opposing soccer associations to get a simple idea of how the game will go and the exact outcome.
In the latest world rankings, China's men's soccer team is ranked 80th and Latvia's men's soccer team is ranked 133rd, not as good as Asia's Thailand, Tajikistan and India.
It was a big game in which Latvia were both in the U19 age group and China were in the U20 age group. After the start, Latvia controlled the game, scoring a goal in the 15th minute of the first half, then extending the lead in the 29th minute to lead China 2-0 at halftime. Going into the second half, China gradually found their form, pulling a goal back in the 72nd minute and then adding another in the 74th minute to bring the score back to a 2-2 tie within two minutes.
It really wasn't easy for China to complete a burst of desperation and what was initially a complete loss, eventually turned around and turned into a draw. However, China still didn't have the advantage and could have equalized in the second half, which had to do with the fact that their opponents fielded substitutes.
This Chinese men's soccer team will travel to Uzbekistan for the U20 Asian Cup finals early next month. Group opponents include Japan, Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan. It's even harder to break out of the Group of Death now that they can't even win against Latvia.
Statistically, China is aiming to reach the 2023 U20 World Cup in Indonesia, and with the last time they participated in the World Junior Championships in 2005, hopes are now slim.
