With the upcoming 2023 Asian Cup set for a grand opening in Qatar, the country's national soccer team is gearing up for its final preparations. According to news reports, the team is scheduled to depart from Abu Dhabi at noon on January 7 and head to Doha to officially kick off the Asian Cup campaign.
However, the national soccer team's performance in recent warm-up matches has not been satisfactory. Previously, they have lost to Oman and even defeated Hong Kong. Although they won 6-2 in their last warm-up match before leaving the UAE, this opponent was only a local low-level team and could not be used as a reference. It's a relief that the national soccer team won a game, and the players and coaches gained confidence as a result. But in the match with Oman and Hong Kong, China, the national football team suffered a defeat, the scene is very ugly. Despite the strength of the Asian Cup opponents, the performance of the national football team in the warm-up matches and closed matches makes it difficult to have confidence in its performance in the main event.
It is worth mentioning that Coach Jankovic was satisfied with the performance in the last match. In the last Asian Cup, the national soccer team had broken into the top 8 and defeated Thailand in the round of 16. But now, whether the national football team can reproduce the good results of four years ago is full of doubts. Compared with 2019, the strength of the players has not improved, or even declined; coupled with the fact that the ability of the head coach is not as good as that of Lippi at the time, and taking into account the unsatisfactory domestic soccer environment, we are worried about whether the national football team can achieve excellent results.
Technically speaking, the opponents that the national soccer team has been assigned in the group stage are not that strong. Neither Tajikistan nor Lebanon, both of which have national soccer teams capable of WWI. Even a team like Qatar is not as insurmountable as Japan, South Korea or Iran. Now, however, the national soccer team is always refreshing the lower limit of fans' perception, and there are almost no opponents that they dare not lose. Therefore, fans shouldn't be too surprised once the national soccer team fails to advance.
As a matter of fact, the FA has never set an Asian Cup target for the national soccer team. Of course, from the current situation, getting out of the group stage is the minimum expectation of the fans. However, considering that the national soccer team is currently ranked 11th in Asia, if they can make it to the top 8, they have already exceeded their task.
At present, China's national soccer team only Jiang Guangtai, a foreign player, and the main player Wu Lei last year has returned to China, the national team lineup has no one in the big five league players. Compared with South Korea and Japan, the national soccer team is indeed relatively weak, so we should not hold too much expectation in this Asian Cup.
