At 18:00 on July 26, right on Beijing time, the Chinese women's soccer team is about to catch up with the ultimate opponent of the East Asian Championships, the hosts Japan women's soccer team.
In the view of the Chinese women's soccer team, which beat the Chinese Taipei women's soccer team and drew with the South Korean women's soccer team, competing with the hosts for the championship is not the primary goal. The team is more interested in whether it can realize the expected purpose of the exercise according to the planning of the coaching team.
The Chinese women's soccer team is steadily getting younger.
In the match against the South Korean women's soccer team, the Chinese women's soccer team conceded the first goal and then equalized the score, and head coach Shui Qingxia has a clear understanding of this.
"Korea excelled in tactical offensive line and aggressiveness, we were slow to adapt and have a lot of room for improvement." Shui Qingxia said in an interview, "What's good to see is that we didn't give up when we fell behind and more young players got a chance to work out."
In the past two games, a number of young players were put to the test. Facing the South Korean women's football team's "revenge battle", the main players Xiao Yuyi, Wang Frost, Tang Jiali, etc. in the second half of the game, and Wang Linlin, Zhang Linyan, Wan Jiayao three 00 players continue to debut, China's women's football team practicing with obvious intentions.
It's not a pity that we couldn't beat Korea again, and the result of the Sino-Japanese duel won't affect the team too much, because the young players need to be honed by the international A-level tournaments. The performance of the young players also satisfied the coaching staff:
In the match between China and South Korea, Wang Linlin defended well and pressed to the opponent's goal in the corner kick tactics to equalize the score, and her and Wang Xiaoxue's combination of central defenders is gradually winning more trust.
In the next two years, the Chinese women's soccer team will face two major challenges: the World Cup and the Olympic qualifiers. With the current practical ability, it is extremely difficult to achieve good results in the two events (targeting the top 8 in the World Championship). For long term development, China Women's Soccer needs to complete the transition of the old and the new as soon as possible to consolidate its position in the first group in Asia.
The 2023 Women's World Cup will be held in Australia and New Zealand, which is the first Women's World Cup with 32 teams (as of press time, 12 teams, including the Chinese women's soccer team, have already qualified). For the Chinese women's soccer team, "expansion" means increased risk.
Whereas in the past a group finish equaled a place in the last 8, after the expansion a group finish is only a place in the round of 16, and a knockout round is needed to make it to the top 8.
As can be seen from the ongoing Women's European Cup and the Central and North American Women's Gold Cup, thanks to UEFA's vigorous promotion in recent years, the world's women's soccer is still in a stage of rapid development.
In the Women's European Cup, for example, Sweden, Germany, France and host England made it to the top 4, and the semifinals will be held on July 27 and 28, Beijing time. the overall strength, speed, attack and defense rhythm of the top 4 teams tend to be more manly, and even the toughness of the physical confrontation has made fans have a new perception of women's football.
More than 140,000 tickets have been sold for this year's Women's Europa League, with more than 50,000 tickets sold for the upcoming final on Aug. 1 at Wembley Stadium, according to figures provided by UEFA.
In the era of increasing professionalism and commercial value of women's football in the world, China's women's football team can't rely only on closed-door training to achieve the strategic goal of "returning women's football to the ranks of the world's first-class teams" in the overall program of China's soccer reform and development. The best platform to measure the gap and find the right positioning is the 2023 Women's World Cup and the 2024 Paris Olympics qualifiers.
There are only 2 tickets for the Asian women's soccer team for the 2024 Paris Olympics (Tokyo 2020 hosts Japan women's soccer team did not participate in the Asian qualifiers). There will be a grueling battle between 5 teams of equal strength, including the Chinese women's soccer team, the Japanese women's soccer team, the South Korean women's soccer team, the Australian women's soccer team and the unbanned North Korean women's soccer team.
China's women's soccer team returned from the Tokyo Olympics in defeat, and won the Asian Cup this year, but came back from a deficit in both the semifinals and the final. If you want to break into the top 8 in the World Cup and stand out in the Asian qualifiers for the Paris Olympics, in addition to relying on strong willpower to complete the perseverance, substantial improvement in the technical and tactical level is also essential.
This is the reason why the Chinese women's soccer team is extremely interested in the U.S. training after the East Asian Championship.
According to the Chinese women's soccer team's preparation plan, on July 28, the whole team went to the United States from Japan to carry out a month-long high-intensity training, at that time in Europe, the United States clubs playing Shen Mengyu, Shen Menglu, Zhao Yujie and other overseas players will meet with the team, and together to complete about 10 matches with the professional league team's rivalry:
Enhancing the strength of young players, polishing the lineup, and perfecting the technical and tactical play are the strength upgrades that the Chinese women's soccer team must accomplish behind their strong willpower.
It is worth mentioning that the 19th Asian Games, which was originally scheduled to be held in Hangzhou in September 2022, has been postponed to September 23, 2023 for a definite opening date. China's women's soccer team will no longer have the opportunity to hammer the team through official competitions before the World Cup to be held in July next year. And from the current East Asian Championship this year's reserves, is the Chinese women's football World Cup campaign "home base".
