With the 2026 World Cup qualifying group draw finalized, our soccer team's preparation for the World Cup has been formally incorporated into the FA's strategic planning.
Unfortunately, the grouping for the qualifiers doesn't seem to be favorable for the national players. The rival of the same group, South Korea, has long been a difficult opponent for our team. Our soccer team's "Korea phobia" seems to have never been eradicated. Recently, the strong rise of Thai soccer has challenged our dominance in Southeast Asia.
For our soccer team, if they want to break through in the preliminaries, they will have to score on South Korea, and against Thailand they will have to go all out and try to beat their opponents at home, while trying to avoid a loss on the road. Only then can our team hope to advance to the second place in the group.
The preliminaries will kick off in November this year, leaving the national football team's preparation time is tight. For this reason, the FA deliberately arranged three warm-up matches for the national football team on the international match days in September and October. It is worth mentioning that the efficiency of the Football Association is quite high. At present, the national football team's warm-up opponents have been locked, respectively, Syria, Uzbekistan and Malaysia three Asian teams.
It can be seen that the national football team's choice of opponents for the warm-up match is quite targeted. Malaysia's strength is weak, which can be called the weakest opponent in the group stage. Uzbekistan's style is tough, the physical quality of the players is outstanding, the confrontation ability is outstanding, and the South Korean team has a few similarities. Syria's players have excellent individual skills, teamwork and tacit understanding, which can be called the example of our team to deal with Thailand.
In order to fully prepare for the World Qualifiers, the national soccer team will surely attach great importance to these three warm-up matches. I am sure that head coach Jankovic will field the strongest squad. Considering the age of many of the star players who represented the national soccer team last year. In addition, Zhang Yuning is out for the season due to a serious injury, Wei Shihao was fined heavily by the FA for insulting the referee, Wu Xinghan has been out of soccer for more than half a year due to the "junior incident", and Jin Jingdao was arrested for gambling. They are afraid to miss the national soccer team this year.
Therefore, this time the lineup of the national soccer team will certainly undergo significant changes. On the basis of maintaining the main framework of the national team, Jankovic will vigorously use newcomers, and players who have recently performed well in the Chinese Super League are expected to be selected for the national team. For example, Jiang Shenglong and Ma Zhen of Shenhua, Xie Weijun of Tianjin Jinmen Tigers, and Li Yuanyi of Shandong Taishan.
In addition, in order to improve the team's fighting strength, Jankovic needs to reintroduce naturalized players from the national team. Ackerson and Jiang Guangtai have been impressive for Chengdu Rongcheng and Shanghai Port this season, and Fernando is in breakout form for Taishan. As the team's substitute, he has been involved in two league matches and contributed an assist.
Similar to Fernando's performance was Guoan's naturalized player Li Ke. After the new head coach Soares took over, Li Ke was reused by the Portuguese coach and returned to the starting lineup.
The four naturalized players mentioned above have been performing well this season. Jankovic may let them participate in the national team's warm-up matches and test the form of these four naturalized players through three matches to decide whether or not to bring them to this year's preseason. However, Lok Guofu and Alan may not be risked by Jankovic as they have not been involved in the Chinese Super League for a long time and are in Brazil.
In November, the national soccer team will have two key world qualifying matches. They will challenge Thailand on the road and return home to face South Korea five days later. These two matches are crucial to our team's success in the tournament. The consequences of a poor performance are unimaginable...
