The U19 National Youth Football Team, which has been honed for three years, is a bit young for the world tournament stage. The team, under the guidance of Spanish coach Anthony and with the famous Shao Jiayi as its leader, is centered on players born in 2003, four of whom are of age and have already studied abroad. Guangzhou's forward, Efirdin, is undoubtedly the key figure on the team's offensive end.
However, the shadow of the epidemic looms over the team, which has been unable to participate in intercontinental tournaments for 40 months to gain experience. The last time the team participated in an official tournament was in April 2019 at the Huashan Cup four-nation invitational tournament. In preparation for the upcoming U20 Asian Cup, the team scheduled three training sessions this year, but head coach Anthony was unable to enter the country from Spain due to visa issues, leaving the burden of the team's training and matches on the shoulders of domestic coach Shao Jiayi and others.
In the face of the epidemic, China's Football Association did not sit idly by and actively create opportunities for a number of national teams to take the initiative to go out of the country for the world training, broaden the horizons of the players, enhance the strength of the team. U19 national youth team went to Serbia, Croatia and Bahrain, respectively, participated in a number of warm-up matches, the whole team believes that these warm-ups have accumulated valuable experience.
Although just over 50 days of world training can not completely make up for the gap of the past three years without tournaments, but more or less can help players find the rhythm of high-level competition. Under the epidemic, it is not easy for this U19 National Youth Football Team, which lacks of competition experience, to stand on the Asian field.
Myanmar team becomes an enigmatic opponent
The qualifying round of the 2023 U20 Asian Cup soccer tournament will be held from September 10 to 18, 2022.The U19 National Youth Football Team is currently in Dammam, Saudi Arabia for their final preparations, and in the early morning hours of September 11, Beijing time, they will welcome their first opponent in the group stage, Myanmar.
This year's U20 Asian Cup qualifiers are divided into 10 groups, with the top 10 groups and the five best-performing groups advancing to the main round. Together with the hosts, a total of 16 teams will participate in the final stage of the tournament to be held in February 2023 in Uzbekistan. In comparing the second-placed teams in each group, the second-placed teams in the four groups with five teams will not be counted in the competition against the fifth-placed team in the same group.
The U19 National Youth Football Team has been placed in Group 1 with hosts Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Maldives and Uzbekistan. As Uzbekistan is the host of the final stage of the 2023 U20 Asian Cup, the team's participation is not counted as a result, so our team's main competitor is still the hosts Saudi Arabia.
The U19 National Youth Football Team will play against Myanmar National Youth Football Team at 2:30 am on September 11th. Although the opponents have not played in the world tournament in the last two years, but their tacit cooperation in the second level of the domestic league in Myanmar can not be underestimated, U19 national youth team need to be vigilant. It is reported that the Chinese Football Association's requirement for the U19 National Youth Football Team is to try to get out of the tournament.
Prior to this, our national team lost to Vietnam in the World Preliminary 12, fell into a historical low; U21 national youth team is training in Croatia, the team's goal is to impact the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to qualify, but there is not much hope; U19 national youth team's initial team goal is to impact the qualification of the World Youth Championships, the Asian Cup first of all, we must enter the main round, in order to talk about the next step.
China's group schedule and kickoff time (Beijing time):
September 11 2:30 Myanmar vs. my country
September 15 2:30 China vs Maldives
September 16 23:15 China vs. Uzbekistan
September 19 2:00 Saudi Arabia vs. my country
