On the afternoon of February 24, Beijing time, the AFC officially announced that the 2023 Asian Cup qualifiers lottery group was officially released, and the 11 seats of the final Asian Cup will be produced in this qualifier. For the national football team, next year's Asian Cup group stage opponents will definitely have some of these 24 teams.
According to the rules of the qualifiers announced by the AFC, the 24 teams will be divided into 6 groups and 6 different divisions. The 5 teams in the group that finished first and finished second in the group will receive the last 11 tickets to the Asian Cup. In fact, the 24 teams participating in the Asian Cup qualifiers, that is, the teams that were eliminated in the previous round of 40, including Thailand and Myanmar.
Why is Thailand and Myanmar specifically mentioned? In fact, this requires a return to a sentence said by former international Fan Zhiyi.
At that time, the national football team was still coached by Camacho, and in a friendly match, he lost 1-5 at home to Thailand, or even the Thai second team at that time. After the game, when Fan Zhiyi criticized the performance of the national football team, he said: after losing to Thailand, he lost to Vietnam, and after losing Vietnam, he lost to Myanmar, and finally he could not find an opponent to lose.
A joke from that year has now become a reality. This past spring break holiday, the national football team once again added to the blockage of fans across the country, losing 1-2 to Vietnam on the first day of the New Year, creating a humiliating history of 62 years. Now, Thailand and Myanmar also have the opportunity to qualify for the Asian Cup, so they may also become potential opponents of the national football team.
Therefore, the current national football team is in a dilemma. If you prepare for the Asian Cup in advance, the next two round of 12 matches will be even more ugly, and the scolding will definitely be more. If you don't give up the round of 12 and exercise the Asian Cup squad in advance, after the end of the round of 12, there is no way to find a high-quality warm-up match, and the results cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, the time left for the national football team is really not much.