In a tight schedule, China's men's football preparation schedule, August 17th assembly day as promised, pointing to the Qatar World Qualification Asian Zone 12 tournament on September 2nd. According to the Beijing Youth Daily reporter, the coaching team deliberately lengthened the preparation cycle, aimed at the 12 strong match before the unveiling of the team to experience a number of high-standard world-class warm-up matches, to ensure the effectiveness of the preparation.
It is reported that, given the intensity of the competition in the Top 12, our team's warm-up strategy will mainly target non-conference opponents. Due to the impact of the epidemic and the constraints of international and domestic anti-epidemic policies, it is likely that the national football team will continue to train and live in relatively closed environments from the mid-August buildup to the completion of the first six rounds of the Top 12 on November 16th. This means that the 12-team tournament will be an unprecedented physical and psychological test for the team and the CFA workforce.
Despite the national team's impressive run of four consecutive victories going into the Round of 12, the only matchup that truly tested its strength in the second half of the Round of 40 was the final-round clash with Syria. In the nearly two years since the first round of the Top 40 ended in November 2019, that was the only match at Asia's top level in which the national soccer team was involved.
At present, the AFC may follow the wishes of the WFC and sponsors to keep the home and away match system of the 12-team tournament unchanged. In the global and domestic epidemic prevention situation is still serious, countries (regions) epidemic prevention policy and international travel conditions strict background, the national football team in the next six months, I'm afraid that it is difficult to invite other countries (regions) teams to enter the warm-up. In other words, if the national football team wants to have a high-quality warm-up, I am afraid that it can only choose to go abroad.
It is worth mentioning that once the CFA successfully contacted the warm-up opponents for the national football team, the national football team does not rule out the domestic training in the early stage, after the visit in late August, to participate in the warm-up matches and the first round of the September 2, the first round of the 12-team tournament away from home. Such a training mode is likely to run through the whole process of the 12-team tournament. Lengthen the pre-tournament training time, in fact, is also for the team early visit to warm up to create conditions.
In accordance with the usual practice, the national football team to determine the warm-up opponents is unlikely to be the same group of opponents in the 12 strong, so the main target will focus on the other group of six teams. If affected by the epidemic, these teams can not warm up with the national football team, then the CFA will turn the target to the same group of opponents with the national football team with similar technical and tactical style of the Asian teams.
The schedule shows that the national football team will participate in the first six rounds of the 12-team tournament in September, October and November this year. During this period, the national players can not return to their clubs to participate in the AFC Cup, and may even continue to live and train collectively throughout the nearly four-month cycle of preparation and competition for the 12-team tournament, unable to reunite with their families. The CFA will also be based on the results of the 12 strong grouping, as far as possible for the national football team to fight for some favorable competition conditions, such as exchanges with other member associations, part of the national football team home and away games, in order to facilitate the national football team to travel and prepare for the game.
