On the blazing hot night of June 3, China's U17 men's football team stepped onto the soil of Bangkok, Thailand, and soon settled into a suburban hotel to build momentum for the upcoming U17 Asian Cup Finals, which kicks off on June 17th. The heat and humidity of Bangkok forced the coaching team to adjust their training program, and the biggest challenge for the team was to find a targeted international warm-up match on the eve of the tournament.
The tournament schedule has the U17 national soccer team's first group game, against Tajikistan, to be played on June 17th. The team chose to arrive in Thailand two weeks before the tournament precisely to quickly adapt to the playing conditions here, especially the local climate. Recently, daytime temperatures in Bangkok have risen to over 35 degrees and the humidity has been extremely high, making the U17s uncomfortable.
In the face of such an environment, Yang Chen as the leader of the coaching team had to make moderate adjustments to the team's training volume, from "two practices a day" to "one practice a day", the training intensity compared to the domestic has been significantly reduced.
Considering that most of the U17 national soccer team's matches in the group stage of the Asian Cup are scheduled to start at 5:00 p.m. local time, the team's daily outdoor field training starts earlier at 4:30 p.m. The team's training session starts at 4:30 p.m. local time. Fortunately, the team is only 15 minutes away from the training ground.
In addition to the weather, another key issue was the team's lack of quality warm-up opportunities prior to the tournament. In fact, the team returned to Yuxi on May 21 precisely because of the sudden cancellation of their plans to travel to Japan for training and warm-ups. This means that since arriving in Shanghai on May 15, the team has not participated in any official warm-up matches for almost a month. As for the team's ability to find a warm-up opponent in Bangkok, this is constrained by multiple factors such as the opponent's schedule and the declaration process.
However, no matter what the difficulties and challenges are, the U17 national soccer team is ready for anything. It is reported that to ensure the health of the players, the team has requested that they always wear masks when going out and have plenty of Panax and other medications.
On June 13, the U17 national football team will bid farewell to Bangkok and head to Chonburi, where the group stage is being played.
