The Chinese men's national soccer team embarks on its journey to the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying tournament as November's International Match Day draws nearer. According to the established schedule, the first group match will be played away against Thailand men's football team on November 16 at 8:30 pm. It will be broadcast live on CCTV channel Sports 5. However, according to the media, the new chairman of the Football Association, Song Kai, will be absent to supervise the away match, while the national team's eyes will be focused on the home match against South Korea.
Looking back at the last World Cup qualifiers, the national team failed to break the spell of the 12-team tournament despite having a number of naturalized players. Unfortunately, they have not reached the World Cup finals for 20 consecutive years.
Now that FIFA has reformed the World Cup, with the tournament expanding to 48 teams in 2026 and Asia getting 8.5 spots, it certainly adds a glimmer of hope for national teams to advance.
According to the rules, the Asian preliminaries are divided into four phases, and the group stage in which the national team will participate belongs to the second phase. 36 teams are divided into 9 groups, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the top 18. Our national team is in the group, the opponents include strong South Korea, Thailand and relatively weak Singapore. Given the strength of South Korea and the relative weakness of Singapore, Thailand became the main competitor for the national team to advance. The first match will be crucial for both teams to advance, and in the event of an away loss, the national team could bid an early farewell to the World Cup qualifiers.
According to Oriental Sports Daily, beating Thailand on the road to earn three points will certainly be a tough task if the national team wants to reach its goal of finishing in the top 36, but it won't be easy for the current national team given that its opponents are not the fish out of water in Asia of yesteryear.
In the latest world rankings, the national soccer team is ranked 79th and Thailand is ranked 115th. From the ranking alone, the national soccer team seems to have an advantage, but in reality, the strength of the two teams is not much different. In recent years, the two teams have played each other frequently and have won and lost.
According to statistics, the two teams have met 28 times before, and the national football team has a record of 19 wins, 3 draws and 6 losses. The last loss occurred in the China Cup in March 2019, when the national football team lost 0-1 to Thailand.
In terms of fan opinion, the national team's prospects on the road are not promising. On the one hand, the new roster is full of veterans, and on the other hand, the national team has a poor record on the road in official matches.
However, head coach Jankovic is optimistic, emphasizing that his team is ready to advance to the Round of 36 and will go all out to take three points away from home.
In any case, the national team should not be afraid of any opponent for the sake of the World Cup dream. Of course, the cheap defensive mistakes made in the previous friendlies must not be repeated in the World Qualifiers, so coach Jankovic will need to be careful with Shanghai Port's defenders and goalkeepers.
