At 18:00 Beijing time on January 27, the 7th round of Group B of the 2022 World Cup Asian Qualifiers, the national football team will play away to Japan. It is already impossible to qualify for the national football team, if you lose this game, then there is no theoretical hope of qualifying. Li Xiaopeng, the new coach of the national football team, said in an interview with the media before the game that all the tactics in this battle are formulated around maintaining this hope, can he and his players do it?
After the B round, Saudi Arabia won 5 wins, 1 draw and 16 points first, Japan 4 wins, 2 losses and 12 points second, Australia 3 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss and 11 points third, Oman 2 wins, 1 draw, 3 losses and 7 points fourth, the national football team 1 win, 2 draws, 3 losses and 5 points fifth, Vietnam 6 consecutive losses 0 points bottom. The qualification for the third play-off of the national football team is extremely difficult.
Because of the poor record, Li Tie, who had signed a contract with the Football Association until 2026, was dismissed, but if he changed someone to be a coach, would the situation be very different? Not necessarily! Li Tie left class, may be more of a football field reasons, send some small advertisements, do a few part-time jobs, as the head coach of the national team, the impact is too bad.
Li Tie's character was widely questioned for a time, and Li Xiaopeng was called an "honest man", but in fact, it was not necessarily. When Li Xiaopeng coached the women's national football team for more than ten years, a professional sports weekly newspaper in China broke his fierce material.
To take over Li Tie's position, Li Xiaopeng must defeat Japan if he wants to prove that he is suitable for this position, otherwise whoever goes to that position will be the same.
The first meeting between the two sides in this round of 12, the national football team lost 0:1, the national football team at that time, can be described as a strong horse, Japan's state is not good, the first round of home lost to the weak team Oman. Li Tie let Wu Lei and Axon start, and only had one shot on goal in the first half. In the second half, when there was half an hour left in the game, Li Tie replaced two naturalized forwards, Alain and Luo Guofu, and played several good attacks, and Japan did not press the attack, but in the end it failed to score.
After the game, many dry commentators and dry texts believed that Li Tie overestimated Japan, and if the naturalized strikers were piled up in the first half and mainly played offensive football at the beginning, the game would be won.
This is just a matter of assumption. How to win? Wu Lei stayed in the Ocean spaniard is unable to play the main force, And Xiao Zhang Yuning has not played in the official game of the Bundesliga for a minute. Axon, Alan, Luo Guofu, the level is no longer the level of just landing in the Chinese Super League, if it is not subject to the needs of naturalization, in the Chinese Super League can not play the ball. Expect these people to break through the gates of Japan and reluctantly make it difficult.
Now Li Xiaopeng's situation is more difficult than in Li Tie's time, and the number one striker Wu Lei, in Espanyol, has not played for 1 minute in 7 consecutive rounds of La Liga. Among the naturalized players, Axon could not come, and Alain and Luo Guofu were absent from the battle. Since 1998, the national football team has not defeated Japan for 24 years.
Some media people believe that the national football team has a chance to win when playing Japan, because the Japanese defense has great hidden dangers. Some media people suggested that the national football team can try the header tactics, because Japan and Vietnam are more afraid of the header. Where does the confidence come from? Where is the strength?
Japanese football star Keisuke Honda previously said: The national football team is a third-rate level in Asia, and there is a 20-year gap with Japan.
That is the reality.
Li Xiaopeng's goal is to retain the hope of qualifying (to put it: defeat Japan), but it is just a slogan for the pre-match routine.