Looking forward to returning home and looking forward to the fans! Challenging Saudi Arabia's "devil's home" former national football team has returned to its heart

Nandu News Reporter Tao Xinlei can hear from Li Tie's words before and after the game many times that the Chinese men's football team, which has been closed to training and playing for more than a month in West Asia, has returned to its heart like an arrow. But before returning to China, they must first go through the last test of the West Asian trip - at 1 a.m. Beijing time on October 13, the national football team will play the fourth round of the World Preliminary Round of Asian Quarter-finals against Saudi Arabia.

Chinese player Wu Lei (third from right) celebrates a goal with his teammates during a match on October 7. Xinhua News Agency

In the early morning of October 8, Beijing time, the national football team narrowly defeated Vietnam 3-2, winning the first victory in the round of 12. After taking a breath, the national team will start tough mode again.

Li Tie first introduced the team's situation in the past few days at the pre-match press conference: "The game is relatively close, two or three days to give the players a full rest, and also trained for Saudi Arabia. Except for Arthur Junmin and Li Lei, other players are ready to play. Saudi Arabia is a very strong team, it is a good opportunity for us to prove ourselves, we will play very hard and believe that the players are ready. ”

The game will be 100% open to the stands, and 50,000 tickets have been sold out. Li Tie also mentioned the new challenge of facing Saudi Arabia's "devil's home", "Saudi Arabia has played 2 home stadiums in the past three games, there is a huge home field advantage and fan support, our Chinese team has not played its own home stadium, this is a huge difference, whether there are fans of their own is a huge difference, we have not played in front of home fans for a long time, knowing that this stadium atmosphere is very good, I believe our players will be very excited." ”

As long as the game allows fans to enter, there will be no shortage of Chinese fans, Wu Xi specifically mentioned: "For the players, we have not had many home fans fighting in the past two years, but tomorrow there will be many Chinese fans coming to the scene, which will give us more motivation, hoping to be able to dedicate a wonderful game to the fans." ”

This round is likely to be a watershed for the group qualification. At present, the three-game winning team of Australia and Saudi Arabia have 9 points, japan, Oman and China have 3 points with one win and two losses, and Vietnam is at the bottom of the group with 0 points. If the Chinese team and the Japanese team cannot drag their respective opponents in this round, the saudi and Australian teams that are driving side by side will further widen the point difference and gain the absolute initiative to qualify. In this case, trying to win points is the more practical goal of the Chinese team.

Before playing against the Vietnamese team, Li Tie repeatedly said that he had been closed for more than a month in West Asia, and the team was not easy. After the match against Vietnam, Li Tie expressed his desire to return to China and play at home. Before the Sino-Saudi confrontation, Li Tie reiterated this desire again: "Before the game, I want to talk more about the game itself, but as a player for such a long time, every day we are abroad, we face great risks, we immediately return to China, are the State General Administration of Sport and relevant departments after great efforts to complete, for the players can finally return to the country, a good rest for a few days." More importantly, we hope that the next game will be really played in China. ”

After completing the match with Saudi Arabia, the Chinese team will end more than a month of journey to West Asia and return to Shanghai for training. In November, China will have two consecutive home games, against Oman and Australia. The Chinese Football Association is working hard to arrange the two matches to be held domestically. At that time, the Chinese team will usher in a real home field.