The U23 Asian Cup 2024 sees its grand opening in Qatar on the night of April 15, Beijing time. Hosts Qatar will welcome the Indonesian Olympic team to their home turf, followed by the Chinese team who will make their debut on the night of the 16th against group leaders Japan. Immediately after, China will make their debut on the night of April 16th, challenging group leaders Japan. 16 teams have been divided into four groups, with the top three in each group advancing directly to the Paris Olympics, while the fourth place team will have to compete against African teams in a play-off for the Olympic ticket. Facing the challenging "Group of Death", the realistic goal for the Chinese team is to energize the team and break through the group stage.
The Chinese team's lineup of opponents included Japan, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. In the preparation matches in Doha and Dubai, the Chinese team defeated Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Malaysia and Jordan by scores of 2-0, 2-0, 2-1 and 1-0, respectively, but lost the last warm-up match against Uzbekistan by a score of 0-2. After the warm-up match against Uzbekistan on the 11th, the Chinese Olympic team quickly returned to Doha to begin the intense final days of preparation. Yang Xu, vice president of the Chinese Football Association, also arrived in Doha recently, exclusively for the Paris Olympic tour.
The Olympic team shared a hotel with Uzbekistan and had three daily training sessions at the Alsal Training Base. Compared to the Asian Cup, the standard of the U23 Asian Cup has been lowered, with the organizing committee providing only five training bases and 10 training venues for the 16 teams, who need to book in advance in order to seize valuable training time.
In terms of venues, only four stadiums will be available for this year's U23 Asian Cup. The first match between the Chinese Olympic team and Japan will be played at the Jassim Hamad Stadium, which is affectionately known as the "Al-Sadd" Stadium by Chinese fans. Although the stadium was built in the early days, it has been renovated several times and the facilities are in excellent condition. The stadium can not only be closed, but also air-conditioned.
The stadium will also be the home of the Qatar Olympics, and the first match of the U23 Asian Cup will be held there. It is worth mentioning that China and Qatar's previous warm-up match was also played at this venue, so the players are more familiar with the environment.
The last two matches of the Chinese Olympic team will be shifted to the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium. According to the weather forecast, the Chinese team may encounter a rainy game. However, the organizing committee has thoughtfully taken this into consideration and will open the air conditioning for the teams at 4 p.m. when the local weather in Qatar is still hot.
The first match of the Sino-Japanese Olympics will be refereed by female referee Kathy Reibel from Australia, who refereed the match between China and England in last year's Women's World Cup. For this event, the refereeing team consists of two referees from Australia and Kyrgyzstan.
The head coach of the Japanese National Olympic team is Tsuyoshi Ohyan, who has been the head coach of Kashima Antlers and has led the team to several matches against teams from the Chinese Super League in the AFC Champions League. Since 2022, Tsuyoshi Oyen has shifted to coaching Japan's national youth and Olympic teams. Chinese fans are no strangers to this coach.
Talking about the first game against the Chinese Olympic team, Dayan just said that Chinese players "individual physical quality and intensity of the game feel very strong", and said that they will try to adjust the player's state, for the first game to be fully prepared.
