Beijing time in the early morning of August 26, the Chinese team embarked on the Qatar Airways plane, departed from Shanghai, direct flight to Doha, preparation for the upcoming Qatar World Preliminary Asian Zone 12 rounds of the first two rounds. In this journey to the west, in addition to the intense preparation for the war, epidemic prevention and heat is also the team's main focus. According to the latest news, the Chinese team arrived in Doha, is likely to stay in the local Marriott Hotel, and training arrangements will be based on whether the venue has air-conditioning facilities to decide.
Recently, the Chinese team has been actively preparing for the Top 12 tournament in Shanghai. At the same time, the CFA working group is stepping up the implementation of various on and off the pitch security work. At present, all the players have received the travel arrangements for the flight from Shanghai to Doha in the early hours of the 26th Beijing time.
Despite the impact of the epidemic, the CFA was unable to send staff to Doha in advance to investigate the hotel, training and competition venues, but with the help of modern communication technology, the security team has a more detailed grasp of the local training, competition and reception conditions. It is worth mentioning that the Qatar Football Association has recently recommended two alternative resident hotels to the Australian Football Association and the Chinese Football Association, namely the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Marriott Hotel.
Since the AFC and the Qatar Football Association (QFA) have not committed to arranging separate hotels for the participating teams, the CFA has been very cautious in choosing hotels for the national football team. It is reported that the Australian team may choose the Ritz-Carlton Hotel as their residence, while the Chinese team is likely to choose the Marriott Hotel.
So, after the Chinese team stayed in Doha resident hotel, will it receive other travelers at the same time? There is no definite news yet. From the point of view of epidemic prevention, the CFA certainly hope that the national football delegation can be "alone" in a hotel. According to the Qatar Football Association last week released the game epidemic prevention requirements, the teams arrived in Doha to the departure, the whole will be in the "bubble type" epidemic prevention closed loop.
In addition to epidemic prevention, summer heat prevention is also the focus of the Chinese team after arriving in Doha. Data show that the recent Doha local daytime outdoor temperature is more than 40 degrees Celsius, the surface temperature is even higher.
Although the first round of the 12-team tournament for the national soccer team away to Australia and the second round of the tournament against Japan are scheduled to be held in the air-conditioned Khalifa International Stadium, there are still doubts whether the Qatar Football Association (QFA) will agree to the participating teams to conduct their daily trainings in air-conditioned stadiums due to the high cost of using air-conditioned stadiums.
It is worth noting that the AFC and the Qatar Football Association (QFA) have initially arranged for the Chinese and Australian teams to train on outdoor pitches every day at 4 p.m. locally. If the training is arranged in a non-air-conditioned stadium, it will be an ordeal for any team. If this is the case, the Chinese team does not rule out the possibility of negotiating with the local authorities to extend the training time to the evening.
As of the afternoon of Beijing time 23, the AFC and the Qatar Football Association (QFA) have not yet officially confirmed the detailed kickoff time for the September 2 match between Australia and China. However, judging from the above arrangements, the match is likely to kick off at around 4:00 p.m. local time.
