Time flies, the pain of the national football team losing to Vietnam has not been completely eliminated, and the World Preliminary Round is about to resume. In the penultimate round of the Asian Zone Round of 12, the fate of the six teams in Group B will all emerge. At that time, the top spot in the group, Saudi Arabia, will challenge the national football team, and if it wins, it can advance to the first round, while Japan and Australia, which rank second and third, will stage the battle of Tianwangshan, if Japan wins, it can work with Saudi Arabia to advance, if Australia wins and Saudi Arabia loses, then the qualifying situation of these three teams will be more complicated, and the suspense will remain in the last round.
As the second-ranked team in Asia, Japan began a win-all ride from round 4 after losing 1-0 to Oman in the first round and losing 1-0 away to Saudi Arabia. The 2-1 defeat of Australia, the 2-0 defeat of the national football team and the 2-0 revenge of Saudi Arabia are all representative works of the Japanese team, and Mori Hoichi also retained his position as a coach, and did not suffer the tragic fate of Li Tieshi.) Today, the Japanese team has won five consecutive victories, and the points have risen from the original 3 points to 18 points, and now ranks second in the group.
On the other hand, at the beginning of the tournament, the Australian team, which has always been at the top of the list, after a wave of three consecutive wins, first lost to Japan, and then was forced to draw by Saudi Arabia and the national football team, and the last round of challenges to Oman suffered a 2-2 draw, and the current points are only 15 points, falling to the third place. The Saudi side is the team with the fewest losses in this group, maintaining an unbeaten record of 6 wins and 1 draw in the first seven rounds, until the last round was a 0-2 defeat to Japan, their points are 19 points, and now they are still in the first place, and the promotion situation is the best.
Therefore, judging from the ranking of the standings and the matchups in this round, Japan and Australia, which are 3 points apart, are the most noteworthy matches in this round. If Japan wins again, their points will rise to 21 points, thus throwing off the Kangaroo Army by 6 points, and ironclad will lock in the top two of the group and advance to the World Cup. In the last three meetings, Australia has beaten Japan 4-2, but then Japan won two consecutive games 2-0 and 2-1, which can be said to have a very big advantage.
On the Saudi side, the promotion situation is also extremely favorable. Since the opponent in this round is the national football team, Saudi Arabia has great hope of winning, as long as it wins the national football team, it can also be ironclad to advance. Even if it is lost to the Chinese team, as long as the Japanese team defeats the Australian team, then according to the 4-point gap between the two sides, Saudi Arabia can also qualify for the World Cup, so in fact, their pressure is not large, they will enter the World Cup for the sixth time, and the national football team is very envious.
For the national football team, the 9th round of playing Saudi Arabia is basically a battle of honor, and the team has given up resistance in advance and will not have any impact on the situation of qualifying for the World Cup. On the contrary, Li Xiaopeng sent all the young players to play a role in training, which is what the fans want to see. To know that before the full main force can also lose to the Vietnamese team, which shows that the strength of the national football team is quite limited, and cultivating new talents is the only way out.