China News Service, Beijing, January 24 (Reporter Bian Liqun) The national football team that was "dying" in the Asian Cup was finally "extubated".

　　On the evening of the 23rd, Beijing time, when the Syrian team broke through the Indian team in the 76th minute of the game, the national football team ended the journey of this cup.

　　With two draws and one loss, without a win or a goal, the national football team has set its worst record since participating in the Asian Cup.

　　The national football team, which has the second-highest average age among participating teams (29.2 years old), does not seem to play the same type of football as most Asian teams.

　　Compared with the dazzling results, what is more uncomfortable is that there is no hope for Chinese football.

  The national football team competes in the Asian Cup.

Not playing a kind of football

　　In the Asian Cup, the national football team has had painful losing experiences.

The most impressive thing is the 2004 Asian Cup final. As the host country, the national football team encountered controversial penalties during the game and ultimately lost to the Japanese team 1:3.

　　In the eyes of most fans at the time, although the result was somewhat regrettable, it could still be regarded as the beginning of the peak of Chinese football.

But now 20 years have passed, and the result has become increasingly clear - that was the end of the peak of Chinese football, and the next peak is still far away.

　　Including this cup, Chinese football has experienced a total of 5 Asian Cups since then.

In 2007, the national football team was eliminated dismally.

In 2011, although the national football team, which caused a youth storm, was eliminated from the group, it still had many wonderful performances in defeating Kuwait 2:0 and drawing 2:2 with Uzbekistan.

  Data map: National football team in the 2011 Asian Cup.

　　In 2015, the national football team, with an average age of only 24.4 years old, was quite impressive. They defeated Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and North Korea in the group stage. Unfortunately, they lost to the host Australia 0:2 in the quarter-finals and stopped in the quarterfinals.

　　In the 2019 Asian Cup, which was expanded to 24 teams, although the national football team with the oldest average age still ranked in the top eight, its gold content was significantly lower.

Against teams such as the Philippines and Thailand, the national football team struggled.

  Data map: National football team in the 2019 Asian Cup.

Image source: Osports All Sports Photo Agency

　　At this Asian Cup, the national football team with the second highest average age does not seem to be playing modern football anymore.

Compared with the Tajikistan team, which participated in the Asian Cup for the first time, and the second opponent, the Lebanese team, the national football team is more like a team ranked outside the 100th place in the world.

　　Now, this national football team has just set the worst record in the history of the Asian Cup.

But looking at the next cycle, when Wu Xi, Zhang Linpeng, and Wu Lei retire, their replacements are still hard to find.

  The national football team competes in this Asian Cup.

　　Of course, the coach must bear the responsibility for the team's dismal exit, but it is also an objective reality that no one is available.

　　Looking forward to 8 or 12 years later, if Chinese football still cannot produce players who are in line with the development trend of world football, then "the worst national football team in history" will become an endless cycle of repeated words, and the national football coach will still change again and again.

　　If the technical and tactical aspects of Chinese football are delayed and there are still very few outstanding local coaches, then it will be impossible for the national team to improve its performance.

　　If the cultivation of elite players in the youth training field is still difficult to improve, and the selection mechanism cannot select more football talents suitable for long-term training, then there is no way to talk about the future of Chinese football.

  National football team in this Asian Cup

Asian teams are improving

　　What is in sharp contrast to the national football team, which is worse than the previous one, is the rapid progress of Asian football.

　　In the past, the Asian Cup was mostly held before the World Cup qualifiers, so for many national teams, they may focus on cultivating reserve forces.

　　However, judging from the current Asian Cup in Qatar, the strong Asian teams represented by Japan and South Korea have shown a higher degree of attention than before, recalling a large number of players from Europe and playing with their full lineup.

　　The embarrassing thing is that the national football team also did not choose to train young players in this cup, and the grouping was relatively favorable, but in the end they still ended up with the worst record in history.

　　Wei Shihao sighed helplessly after the match against Qatar: "Every national team is making progress, but we are still standing still. There is nothing we can do about it."

  Wei Shihao in the game

　　As a player, Wei Shihao really tried his best on the court.

Against Qatar, he started the game just after returning from injury. Most of the chances of the national football team in the first half were created by him.

　　Facing the Qatar team that played in a rotating lineup, the national football team could still cope with it, but when the opponent replaced main players such as Afif, the game became one-sided.

　　After Jankovic took office, the national football team has never defeated a team ranked higher than itself in the past nearly a year, and the process has been extremely passive.

　　The problem is that the national football team is often passive when facing teams ranked lower than itself.

For example, in the warm-up match, the national football team had a difficult 1:1 draw with the Malaysian team.

However, when it came to the Asian Cup, the Malaysian team had lost two consecutive games and was eliminated early.

  Data map: The national football team drew 1:1 with Malaysia in the warm-up match.

Photo by Bian Liqun

　　In the warm-up match against Vietnam, the national football team succeeded in "revenge" with 2:0.

But not long after Troussier took office, he was undergoing a major upgrade of the Vietnamese team.

　　In this Asian Cup, this young Vietnamese team once led the Japanese team 2:1.

In the match against the Indonesian team, the two teams played very well, but in the end the Vietnamese team lost 0:1.

Although the result is not ideal, judging from the technical and tactical quality and the process of the game, the future Vietnamese team should not be underestimated.

　　West Asian teams performed even stronger in this tournament. The Iraqi team defeated the Japanese team 2:1, and the Jordanian team drew with the South Korean team 2:2 after a 4:0 victory over the Malaysian team.

The Bahrain team, ranked slightly lower than the national football team, defeated the Malaysian team 1:0.

　　If the national football team is placed in the same group as Vietnam or Malaysia, what kind of performance will it be like?

　　Japanese team star Ryu Dongan said frankly before the match against Indonesia: "We have underestimated our Asian opponents before. The level of Asian football is constantly improving. I personally feel the difficulty of the game."

What to do in the National Football World Cup Qualifiers

　　After the Asian Cup, the next big issue is the World Qualifiers.

Seeing that the national football team will face the Singapore team twice in March, if it wants to advance to the top 18, the team must score these 6 points.

　　The Thai team, which is in the same group as the national football team in the World Cup preliminaries, performed very strongly after changing coaches. They have already defeated Kyrgyzstan 2:0 and drew 0:0 with Oman in the Asian Cup. They have great hope of qualifying for the group.

When the national football team returns to their home court in June to play against the Thai team again, I'm afraid they really won't have much confidence that they can win against their opponents.

  The first round of the World Cup qualifying match between the national football team and Thailand

　　Although this Asian Cup has basically shattered the fantasy of Chinese football entering the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, subsequent teams still need to complete the minimum task of advancing to the top 18 of the World Preliminaries, otherwise they will lose the opportunity to play against strong Asian teams.

　　If the national football team advances to the top 18, the results of the game may bring a lot of pain, but this will inspire and help China's football technology innovation and catch up with the development trend of world football.

　　After the expansion of the World Cup, excluding the traditional strong teams Japan, South Korea, Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, there are still 2.5 places in Asia. The national football team will most likely compete directly with teams such as Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Thailand, and Syria.

　　If they can't keep up with their progress, Chinese football will have to linger in the trough for a long time, in an endless cycle.

(over)