The East Asian Cup has come to an end, and our men's soccer team came in third among the top four with one win, one draw and one loss. At first glance, the results may be considered good, but do not forget that the stage of the East Asian Cup only four soccer teams competing in the same field. Our men's soccer team beat Hong Kong, China, but lost to South Korea and drew with Japan. In three matches, they scored one goal, but also conceded three.
However, the scorecard was somewhat of an eye-opener with a draw against hosts Japan on their home turf.
If you look at the results of the East Asian Cup alone, the performance of the national football team is not satisfactory, only one goal in three games, and this is still dependent on the opponent's mistakes, counterattacks. In this way, the offensive ability of the national football team seems to be slightly weak.
However, in essence, this East Asia Cup, our country sent all U23 players, the only two overage players in the list are Tan Long and Jiang Guangtai, the rest of the players are from the U23 or U21 list. In other words, this East Asia Cup, the goal of the national football team is not to fight for the ranking, but to practice.
In the first game, the national football team lost to South Korea by 3 goals, which was indeed a bit embarrassing, but immediately after the second game, the young players quickly adjusted their state and drew with Japan, and in the third game, they even ushered in the dawn of victory!
Admittedly, the strength of this national football youth army is not as good as the first team, but if the first team plays with full strength, will it be able to beat Japan or South Korea? In the ranking, I'm afraid there will not be much change, but will miss the opportunity to train young people. After all, this World Cup, the national football team has no chance to participate in the early start of the preparation for the 2026 World Cup.
Imagine, this group of young people four years later just twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, is in the golden period of career. If the national soccer team can successfully advance to the World Cup at that time, perhaps there will be a different performance.
