A few days ago, the AFC released a preview of the schedule, and the final stage of the 20th U17 Asian Cup was expected to kick off in March and April of the following year. However, the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) has withdrawn from hosting the tournament for some reason, and the only one that has expressed willingness to take over is the Oman Football Association (OFA). If the tournament were to be held in West Asia in March/April, it would be a huge challenge for the East Asian member associations, including the Chinese U17s. Given that the U17 Asian Cup is the Asian qualifier for the FIFA U17 World Cup, and the U17 World Cup schedule has been basically determined in the spring and summer of the following year, the possibility of adjusting the period of the U17 Asian Cup is minimal, leaving the U17 national football team with very little time to prepare for the tournament.
In fact, the U19 national football team is also facing the problem of tight preparation time. In the U20 Asian Cup qualifier in September this year, the U19 national football team managed to advance to the second place in the group by virtue of its excellent performance. Unlike the U17 national football players who are of the right age and cannot make their debut in professional leagues, many players of the U19 national football team have already been given the opportunity to play in the Chinese Super League and the Chinese First League. Given that the final stage of the U20 Asian Cup will be held in Uzbekistan from March 1 to 18 the following year, the U19 national football team's preparations are imminent. Currently, the coaching staff, after communicating with the CFA, initially plans to organize a short training session in mid-November, followed by a new long-term training session in December.
Observing the U20 Asian Cup and U17 Asian Cup qualifiers, the two national teams, although there is still a gap in technical ability with Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Australia and other strong teams, but through hard training and a large number of warm-up matches, the team in the overall technical and tactical use and individual ability have been improved, and the players' ability to read the game and the ability of the actual combat has also improved significantly.
It is reported that the CFA and the two national coaching staffs have already made a comprehensive plan for all preparations, including the final stage, when they started the preparations for the qualifiers. Before the start of the qualifiers, the CFA also contacted warm-up opponents in advance according to the team's outing, including overseas warm-ups, which had a direct boost to the team's preparation.
