The Chinese men's national soccer team kicks off their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign as the clock ticks closer to the November international tournament. According to the established timeline, the first group showdown will be staged at 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 16, when we will witness the passionate clash of their away challenge against the Thai men's football team on CCTV Sports Channel CCTV 5, a closed-circuit television channel.
Looking back on the last World Cup qualifiers, even if the national team has a lot of naturalized players to help, but also failed to break the curse of the 12, regret for 20 consecutive years without the World Cup final round.
Now that FIFA has revolutionized the World Cup system, the 2026 World Cup will be expanded to 48 teams, with Asia's quota increasing to 8.5, which undoubtedly brings greater hopes for our national team to advance.
In accordance with the provisions of the Asian preliminaries are divided into four stages, our national team will participate in the second stage will face fierce competition from 36 teams, 36 teams were divided into 9 groups, the top two in each group will advance to the top 18, that is, the third stage. Among the opponents, South Korea as a seeded team strength should not be underestimated, while Singapore is relatively weak, Thailand has undoubtedly become the main opponent of our national team to advance. The first match is crucial to the fate of the two teams to advance, once the away loss, our national team or will bid farewell to the journey in advance.
According to Eastern Sports Daily, if our national team wants to achieve the goal of the top 36, it is not easy to beat Thailand on the road and win three points, after all, the opponent is not a former Asian fish.
In the latest edition of the world rankings, our national team is ranked 79th, while Thailand is ranked 115th. From the rankings alone, it seems that the national soccer team has the upper hand, but in reality, their strength is not far from Thailand's. In recent years, the two teams have played each other frequently. In recent years, the two teams have played each other frequently and have won and lost each other's matches.
According to statistics, the two teams have met 28 times in the past, and the national football team has a record of 19 wins, 3 draws and 6 losses. The last loss occurred in the China Cup in March 2019, when the country went down 0-1 to Thailand.
From the point of view of fan opinion, the situation of our national team's road trip is not optimistic. On the one hand, there are many veterans in the newly announced training list, and on the other hand, our national team has a poor record on the road in official matches.
Coach Jankovic, however, takes a different view, emphasizing that his team is fully prepared to advance to the Round of 36 and will go all out to bring back three points from Thailand.
Regardless of the outcome, our national team should not fear any opponent in order to return to the World Cup stage. Of course, the cheap defensive mistakes exposed in the previous friendlies must not be repeated in the World Qualifiers, so coach Jankovic needs to be careful in deploying Shanghai Port's defensive lineup.
