On a sunny afternoon in late May, the countdown to a warm-up match quietly started on the national soccer team's training ground. On June 16th and 20th, they will be challenged by Myanmar and Palestine. However, an in-depth report in China Youth Daily reveals the double challenge in front of Coach Jankovic: the injury crisis at the back and the reorganization of the forward lineup.
Henan stalwart Wang Shangyuan suffered an unfortunate injury in a showdown, and officials confirmed after the match that he suffered a serious right ankle injury and is expected to be out for three weeks. Wu Xi, another mainstay of the national team, suffered an unfortunate fracture in a match at the end of April and had an eight-week recovery period, which caused him to miss the national team training and warm-up matches in June.
Facing the second challenge, Coach Jankovic's options seem to be very limited. 32 year old Wu Leijin, 28 year old Barton and several other players have conspicuous goal scoring stats, but most of the players in the lineup are older, so how to put together an efficient forward line in the absence of Zhang Yuning has become a tough mind game.
The expansion of the 2026 US, Canada and Mexico World Cup to 48 teams has made the competition in the Asian qualifiers even more intense. The original 12-team tournament has been upgraded to an 18-team tournament, doubling the number of qualification spots to 8.5, which undoubtedly brings more opportunities for the Chinese national soccer team. But the reality is that both the middle generation and the new generation of players, are facing the dilemma of insufficient competitiveness, in order to stand out in the qualifying rounds, but also need to rely on the timing, location, and people and the addition of multiple favorable conditions.
