National football team prepares for World Qualifier
According to the established plan, nearly 80 members of our national team will depart from the Shanghai Resident Hotel in the evening of August 25, take the chartered flight at 1:00 a.m. on August 26, direct flight to Doha, Qatar, to prepare for the first two rounds of the upcoming World Preliminary Round Asian Zone 12 tournament. In the afternoon of the 25th before departure, the team will hold an internal teaching match at the Shanghai Houpaier Sports Park base. The coaching staff and management will finalize the travel roster based on the health status of the players and injuries after the warm-up matches.
Since August 18th, the national football team began a new period of training in Shanghai. Given that the players have just experienced an intensive league schedule and other objective factors, head coach Li Tie deliberately adjusted the intensity of some of the training days, and on the afternoon of August 20 to allow the players to move freely, and get together with friends and family.
However, given the daunting task of preparing for the Top 12, the team's outdoor training remains full. In the last two days, the focus of training has shifted from physical recovery to technical and tactical drills.
Together with the recent supplementary recruitment of Zheng Zheng, Wang Shangyuan and Wu Lei, who is in Spain, the current national football training list has 33 players. In the media forum on the 22nd, Li Tie emphasized that considering the difficulties of training and competing outside the country during the epidemic, the Chinese team will do its best to carry its players on the trip. This means that, as long as the physical condition allows, all the international players training in Shanghai are expected to go to Doha to prepare for and participate in the game.
However, the coaching staff initially recruited two additional players, to a large extent, because there are still injury risks in the team. Some players have suffered injuries of varying degrees after playing 9 or 10 games in a month in the league. If individual players have serious injuries and are unable to train with the team, the team will not rule out the possibility of keeping them at home to heal.
Affected by the epidemic, the Chinese team has been unable to arrange warm-up matches before the start of the Top 12. In order to test the effect of preparation, at the same time for the 12 strong warm-up, the coaching team finally decided to solve this problem by organizing internal confrontation matches. According to the plan, the whole team will have an internal teaching match in Shanghai on the afternoon of August 25, a few hours before the trip to West Asia. The coaching staff will also make the final selection of the travelers based on the warm-up situation and possible unexpected injuries.
It is reported that the national football team's trip to West Asia to fight in the Top 12 will be led by Chen Xuyuan, the chairman of the Football Association himself. Du Zhaocai, deputy director of the General Administration of Sport and party secretary of the Football Association, who traveled to the outpost of the tournament during the 40-team tournament, was unable to accompany the team to Qatar for some reason this time. However, he has been concerned about the team and has recently arrived in Shanghai to send encouragement and blessings to the team.
As of the afternoon of August 24, the Football Association is still actively communicating with the AFC, the Australian Football Association (AFA), the Qatar Football Association (QFA) and other parties to communicate the details of the first round of the 12-team tournament program. Australia-China match has been determined in Doha local time on September 2 afternoon, the specific kick-off time is still to be combined with the Australian FA event television broadcasting needs and other factors to determine the final.
