At dawn on February 3, China's men's football team set foot on the land of Shanghai, and later that afternoon transferred to Gusu Taihu Tai Mei Xianggu Li Hotel to settle. After a short break, the team will restart training on February 6, full preparation for the upcoming late March 12 final two rounds. It is reported that due to the constraints of external factors such as the epidemic, the home match between our country and Saudi Arabia in the 9th round of the 12-team tournament, which was originally scheduled to be held on March 24th, may be forced to be transferred to a neutral venue in Sharjah, UAE. Despite the fact that our team is out of the World Cup final round in Qatar, the team is still committed to playing well in the last two rounds of the 12-team tournament.
Our men's soccer team will be in Gusu for a period of "14+7" days in closed isolation for observation. This means that the team will not be released from quarantine until February 24th at the earliest. During the next 20 days or so, the team will train non-stop.
On the evening of February 3, some members of the team, including the staff of the Football Association, watched our team eliminate Japan in the semifinals of the Women's Asian Cup. The performance of the men's and women's national teams in their respective fields brought mixed emotions to the men's soccer players present.
According to the schedule, our home match against Saudi Arabia in the 9th round of the 12-team tournament and the away match against Oman in the 10th round are scheduled to be played on March 24th and 29th respectively. Due to factors such as the impact of the epidemic and the tight schedule, the FA may arrange for our team to travel to Sharjah, UAE for the home match against Saudi Arabia. If this arrangement comes true, the international players in the completion of the 12 strong match back home, still need to go through another 14 + 7 days of isolation, which also means that the new season of the Chinese Super League may be delayed to the start of the second half of April. If the main players of the Chinese Super League "BIG4" clubs are participating in the AFC Champions League, the start of the league will be further delayed.
After the team closes in Gusau later this month, the players will return home for a couple of days each to rest and then gather with their respective clubs. Normally, however, their time with their clubs may be shortened. The reason for this is that they are likely to return to the national team in mid-March to prepare for two matches that month. From this point of view, it is necessary for our team to organize training during the isolation period in Gusau, both from the point of view of cooperating with the clubs and preparing for the national team.
As the new season of the domestic professional league is unlikely to start immediately after the end of the 12, so the coaching staff of the national football team in the next two rounds of the selection of the scope will focus on the current training in the more than 50 people. Taking into account the team's loss in the World Cup, the head coach Li Xiaopeng may accelerate the pace of "metabolism" when selecting specific candidates.
