In the upcoming November, the two home matches of the 12-team tournament will again move to West Asia, and the internationals are mentally prepared for the challenge.
The schedule released by the AFC shows that our national soccer team will host Oman and Australia in the fifth and sixth rounds of the 12-team tournament on November 11th and 16th, respectively. Before the national football team went to West Asia to participate in the first four rounds of the tournament, China's Football Association has begun to prepare for the return of the two November 12-round home matches, and submitted a detailed tournament and epidemic prevention plan, waiting for the approval of the higher authorities. However, there are only two weeks left before our team's match with Oman in November, but the relevant plans have not yet been approved, and the possibility of implementation has been greatly reduced.
Contingency plans have been drawn up within our team and all players are fully prepared psychologically. Members of the security team have even contacted chartered flights in advance to ensure that our team will be able to participate in the two matches in November smoothly and safely. It is reported that if our team is forced to compete at a third-party venue, the preferred venue will be Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
Since returning home from Saudi Arabia after the fourth round of the tournament, our team has been undergoing isolated closed training in Suzhou, and is expected to end its 14-day isolation on the 28th, followed by a 7-day home isolation period. To this end, our team will travel to Shanghai at the end of October and is expected to depart around November 8 to resume its journey to the West.
After returning home, the international players generally relieved physical and mental fatigue, Li Tie also carried out targeted deployment. In this period of training, Li Tie has implemented a plan of two practices a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. At present, the physical condition of the international players has improved, in addition to Zhang Linpeng can not participate in the joint practice, other players are not serious injuries. However, due to some of the injuries within the national football team has not yet finalized the diagnosis, whether to add new international players into the team, has not yet been determined.
The Omani team's skipper was once the winning coach of the Super League.
In the fifth round of the 12-team tournament, our team will face Oman, which is also the finale of the first round of this 12-team tournament. In the previous 4 matches, Oman won 2 and lost 2 to accumulate 6 points, temporarily ranking third in the group. The result of this match will directly affect the final ranking of the two teams in the 12-team tournament. Recently, current Omani manager Ivanovic sent a message to greet our fans, saying that he shows respect to every opponent, but as a coach, he comes to the field to fight for victory. Ivanovic, who was the head coach of Shandong Luneng for two seasons, 2010 and 2011, and won the Chinese Super League title in the 2010 season, is more familiar with our national soccer team.
In addition, if the two rounds of the 12-team tournament in November are played in West Asia, there is a high probability that the third phase of the Chinese Super League tournament in December will have to be postponed as well.
