A miracle? It's not easy to talk about. Even though the Chinese women's soccer team swept Vietnam 6-1 in the final round of the U20 Asian Cup Group B group stage, they still missed out on qualifying for the World Youth Championships due to their third-last place in the group. Missing out on the World Youth Championships for the second consecutive time was a nail in the coffin. Nowadays, the development of women's football around the world is becoming more male-oriented, and the Chinese women's football team is following the same trend. They are gradually going the way of Chinese men's soccer. In Asia, it is an open secret that the former world-class status of the Chinese women's soccer team has been reduced to second-rate.
Looking back at the first two rounds, China's U20 women's soccer team has only gained a draw and a loss, drawing 1-1 with North Korea but losing 0-2 to Japan, and is now in the third place in the group, while Vietnam has lost for two consecutive rounds. This campaign has been an exceptionally bumpy road for the Chinese women's soccer team to advance. Not only did we have to ensure that our goal difference exceeded Vietnam's by 8 goals, but we also had to hope that the DPRK women's soccer team would lose to Japan. However, both conditions were not met. North Korea beat Japan 1-0, while the Chinese women's soccer team won 6-1. In the end, the Chinese women's soccer team finished third in the group with one win, one draw and one loss, while Japan and North Korea advanced together.
It is worth mentioning that the last Asian Cup, Chinese women's football and Japan, South Korea in the same group, also failed to advance, which is enough to show that, just as the Chinese men's football perennial embarrassment in the face of Japan and South Korea and even North Korea, the Chinese women's soccer team is difficult to take advantage of these opponents in front of the upper hand. Even if the battle against Vietnam, but from the scene, the Chinese women's soccer team still lack of teamwork, more rely on individual physical advantage to force breakthrough. This style of play in the face of Japan, South Korea and even Europe and the United States strong team, often just futile. Moreover, Vietnam has only scored one goal in this Asian Cup, and this goal came from the match with China. The situation is worrisome with all three matches.
From last year's losses of Chinese women's soccer in the World Cup, Olympic preliminaries and Asian Games, to the fact that two consecutive youth women's soccer teams did not qualify for the World Youth Championships, the overall rate of decline of the Chinese women's soccer team is not comparable to that of the Chinese men's soccer team. The lack of domestic youth training talents, the stubbornness of national coaches at all levels, the lack of training opportunities for national team players in high-level tournaments, the low attention to domestic women's soccer, and the worrying quality of the game have all become problems for the development of Chinese women's soccer. But we are not discouraged. This is the bleakest page of Chinese women's soccer in the past decade. What we are worried about is that this will be the best starting point for Chinese women's soccer in the next decade.
