At 23:00 Beijing time on March 24, the national football team will face Saudi Arabia in the 9th round of Group B in the Asian region of the World Preliminary Tournament. The official website of the AFC looked forward to the game, believing that the national football team, which lacked a major general, would be difficult to prevent Saudi Arabia from advancing to the World Cup in the early round.
Saudi Arabia is currently ranked first in Group B with a one-point advantage, and the return of midfield core Salman will enhance Saudi Arabia's strength after he missed the game against Oman and Japan due to injury.
Once victorious over the national football team, Saudi Arabia will get the World Cup ticket in the early round, thus playing in the main tournament for two consecutive World Cups. At the same time, this will also be the sixth time that Saudi Arabia has won a World Cup ticket since 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2018.
The AFC described the lineup of the national football team this time with "great changes" and stressed that "the hope of the national football team to qualify for the World Cup has been dashed.". In the last two matches of Group B, Li Xiaopeng did not recruit the naturalized foursomes Axon, Luo Guofu, Fernando and Alain, and Wu Lei, who played for Espanyol, was not recruited into the big list. At the same time, Wei Shihao and Li Lei were absent due to injury.
National football captain Wu Xi was automatically suspended for receiving a yellow card against Vietnam, and Zhang Linpeng is expected to be the captain. In the front, Zhang Yuning will start, and Dai Weijun is expected to start after making his debut on the bench against Japan.
At the pre-match press conference, Li Xiaopeng said, "We have to use some tough players, and we must use players who fight to the end to play." At the very least, this team has a strong will, which is the minimum requirement. I think all the players have to fight for the face of Chinese football, which is the most emphasized by the players recently. ”