With the cool autumn breeze, the highly anticipated Hangzhou Asian Games has finally entered the countdown. The one-year promise will finally be honored, and the horn of the soccer feast will be blown soon. In this Asian sports event, the men's soccer program is undoubtedly one of the highlights, especially the Chinese men's soccer team, shouldering the honor and responsibility of the host, they do not want to leave regrets in the local tournament. So the Chinese U23 men's soccer team, under the leadership of coach Jankovic, got up in the wee hours of the morning and started their intense preparation. Not long ago, they started a warm-up match with the Dubai Football Academy team from West Asia. Facing the adversity of losing the first goal, the Chinese U23 men's soccer team fought back tenaciously and finally scored four goals in a row, completing a thrilling reversal and taking the opening red of 2023!
Looking back at the previous Asian Games, the Chinese men's soccer team has had a bright performance in the group stage, but has never been able to enter the knockout stage threshold. However, this time the Asian Games is held in their own doorstep, the Chinese men's soccer team will not allow any failure. As early as the beginning of last year, Jankovic had already started to prepare for this event. Recently, he once again led the team to West Asia for a new round of overseas training.
In order to test the effectiveness of training, China U23 men's soccer team started a practical exercise with Dubai Football Academy team. As a semi-professional team in the fourth level of the United Arab Emirates, the opponent's strength is still different from that of China's U23. However, Dubai Football Academy broke the deadlock first, scoring a goal through a quick counterattack by the wingers. Trailing behind, the Chinese men's football team did not get discouraged, and Xu Yue and Zhang Wei quickly returned the favor, bringing the score to 2-1 at the end of the half.
In the second half, Jankovic made massive changes to the lineup, replacing all the starting 11. However, China's attacking firepower remained strong, with Liu Zhuyun and Sun Qinhan seizing the opportunity to score consecutive goals, eventually making the score 4-1. In this game, China successfully defeated their opponents, winning again and making a good start for the 2023 campaign.
The win certainly gave the players a boost. Despite the limited strength of the opponents, the victory in a foreign game after one year is still significant. It is worth mentioning that the team's mainstay, Dai Weijun, missed the game due to injury, and the U23 national soccer team was not the main lineup, which still deserves praise for their performance.
Looking ahead to the Asian Games, we expect China's U23 men's soccer team to build on its success, break through the bottleneck, and win honors and medals for our country's soccer!
