At 19:30 in Suzhou Olympic Sports Center, an intense match is about to take place on June 3rd. The Chinese men's national soccer team will compete with the Maldives for victory in Group A of the 2022 Qatar World Cup Asian Qualifying Round 40 here. The Maldives have suffered a setback in their preparations for the tournament due to the epidemic and have lost all five meetings against China, scoring just one goal and conceding a whopping 23, including a 0-5 defeat in the first leg of the World Qualifier. If they can beat the Maldives again in this match, the Chinese men's soccer team will win a 2 million dollar bonus.
Despite currently sitting in fourth place in Group A with just two wins and three losses, the Maldives are still trying to do well in order to qualify directly for the third round of the 2023 Asian Cup qualifiers in China, and it all depends on what happens next.
In the FIFA rankings, the Maldives are ranked 155th, with an average ranking of 154th and their highest ever ranking of 126th, but that was back in 2006. In the AFC list, they are only ranked 32nd, which shows that the Maldives are still a mid-to-low tier force in Asian football.
The two teams have met five times in the past, the Maldives team without a win, totaling 1 goal, conceding 23, of which in 2001, the national football team under the leadership of Milutinovic, with a 10-1 victory over the Maldives, creating history. The first round of this World Qualifier, the Chinese team won 5-0 away from home, Ickerson scored twice, Wu Xi, Wu Lei and Yang Xu also scored goals each, Ickerson is to complete the naturalized players in the Chinese team's historic breakthrough.
Maldives' head coach Schegelt left his post in December last year and is now being coached by Dutch veteran Martin Koopman. Koopman was an assistant coach at Shenyang Jinde from 2005 to 2007 and coached briefly when Holden left.
Faced with the challenge of an epidemic, the Maldives team encountered a lot of difficulties before the tournament. The epidemic in the country was so severe that the league was once called off and the team was even suspected of possibly pulling out of the tournament. But on May 13, the team regrouped, and despite not being able to train outdoors, the players are still working hard to prepare for the tournament.
The team's legendary striker Ashfaq, who was temporarily away when his wife contracted a new crown, has returned to the team after a negative PCR test.The 35-year-old Ashfaq is the national team's goal-scoring king and is currently ranked in the top 10 of active international players in international soccer in terms of goals scored for the national team with 53 goals.
The team's roster originally contained 33 players, but due to the departure of individual players, the final roster has yet to be finalized. The Maldives have a chance to prove themselves in the remaining three matches of the 40-team tournament.
The team arrived in Dubai on May 22 to start training and underwent a nucleic acid test before departure. They will stay in Dubai for a week before taking a flight from China to the Suzhou tournament on the 30th. (Source: JOYOYO)
Maldives 25-man squad
Goalkeepers: Hussein Shareef, Mohammad Faisal, Mohammad Shafi'u, Ali Naji
Defenders: Akram Abdul Ghani, Samu'ao Ali, Ahmed Nouman, Mohammed Saif, Hussein Sifaou Joseph, Hesham Hassan, Ali Shamis, Ali Shamal Abdullah
Forward: Imran Nahid, Mohammed Irufan, Hussein Nyhan, Mohammed Umair, Ibrahim Essam, Hamza Mohammed
