At the dawn of June 8, China's youthful U17 men's soccer team began an intense preparatory match in Bangkok, Thailand, facing Qatar U17s, who turned the tables with a thrilling 3-2 win in the 8th match.
This warm-up match was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the U17's coaching team, so they skillfully arranged their tactics, starting two sets of lineups for the first and second halves, with goalkeeper Xie Gongbo being the only player to hold his position throughout the match. The starting lineup featured 11 players who were starters in last year's U17 Asian Cup qualifiers, such as striker killers Wang Yudong and Raccoon Jipeng. Just two minutes into the game, Wang Yudong opened the scoring with a penetration through the center of the field. Unfortunately, however, the U17 national football team let their opponents equalize in just one minute due to negligence in defense. Then, in the 20th minute, the opponents again took advantage of the holes in the U17s' defense to achieve a rebound, and continued to apply pressure for the next five minutes.
At the change of sides, head coach Yang Chen made drastic changes to the lineup, leaving only the goalkeeper in the lineup. In the 55th minute of the second half, Liu Chengyu made a breakthrough on the side road and hit a wonderful world wave to seal the victory for the U17 national football team. In the end, the U17 national football team won the warm-up match with a score of 3-2.
Looking ahead, on June 17, the China U17 Men's Football Team will move to Chonburi, Thailand, to meet the challenge of Tajikistan U17, their first opponent in the group stage of the U17 Asian Cup.
