Draw with Saudi Arabia
It's hard to hide the gap
The Chinese men's football team drew 1-1 with Saudi Arabia in the penultimate round of the Round of 12 of the World Preliminary Round of 12 at the Sharjah Stadium in the early hours of this morning Beijing time. Although the score is acceptable and preserves the face of this Chinese team and even Chinese football, it cannot cover the technical and tactical barrenness of Chinese football. In the whole game, the all-round gap shown by the Chinese players in terms of technical and tactical aspects is probably far more than the 0-1 score, because in the whole game, Zhu Chenjie's penalty was actually the first shot of the Chinese team in this game, and there were only 2 shots in the whole game. This is the first time that the Chinese team has appeared in an intercontinental match like the Round of 12 that "there is a shot after 82 minutes"! What is the hope of the Chinese team and Chinese football? Of course, to masturbate, the Chinese team did not collapse!
1
Early qualification to secretly help the Chinese team
Before the Battle of China and Saudi Arabia, the most worrying situation for the outside world was that, regardless of other game factors, the Saudi team had to win at least one victory in the last two rounds of matches to ensure that it got the World Cup ticket. In comparison, it is the most desirable game to win the Chinese team with all its strength, so the Saudi team will definitely go all out to defeat the Chinese team. This will undoubtedly put the Chinese team in a rather unfavorable situation, after all, the overall strength of the Saudi team is far above the Chinese team. Otherwise, head coach Li Xiaopeng would not have said before the game that this game would be a "stranglehold".
However, it has to be said that due to the impact of the time difference, before the start of the Battle of China and Saudi Arabia, the Japanese team killed the home team Australia in the last minute, and it was a 2-0 victory. This result completely changed the situation of the group. Because of the loss of the Australian team, the Japanese team locked the World Cup ticket in advance, and the Saudi team, which has accumulated 19 points, also indirectly locked another qualifying place. In accordance with the requirements of FIFA and AFC, both the Chinese team and the Saudi team have arrived at the stadium in advance. Therefore, when the match between the Japanese team and the Australian team ended, the locker room of the Saudi team was boiling, and all the players, coaches, and related staff of the Saudi Football Association had begun to celebrate, and the scene was very lively.
In this way, whatever the outcome of the Sino-Saudi war that has not yet begun, it is no longer possible to affect the whole situation. This made the Saudi team suddenly have no pressure, in fact, in the subsequent Sino-Saudi war, you can clearly see the relaxed state of the Saudi players on the field. Similarly, this also makes the pressure on the Chinese team in this game suddenly become a lot less, at least, the opponent will certainly not be as desperate as trying to qualify, and will give the Chinese team a huge defensive pressure.
As a result, when the whistle sounded at the beginning of the Sino-Saudi war, the Saudi team no longer gave the opponent the necessary pressure like the previous round of 12 matches, nor did it implement a high-level pressing, and the Saudi players passed and received the ball and other extremely relaxed, as if they were "playing". Therefore, the kind of "strangulation" predicted before the game will not exist at all. After all, the players who played in the Saudi team are basically the original main players, and most of them are still veteran players, and these "old fritters" know very well how to play a game like this. In fact, when chatting with people around before the game, the worry is that the Saudi team will send substitute players to play, because the substitute players are still young, and many times they will be more desperate, after all, there are rare opportunities to play, and they want to seize the opportunity to perform. And such a situation did not appear, after all, as soon as the list of appearances on both sides arrived, they already knew exactly what kind of scene it would be.
2
The national football team continued the Haikou lineup
When I got the list of appearances for both sides of the Sino-Saudi war, there were slight surprises, but more than that, it was expected. First of all, the surprise is that Jiang Guangtai did not enter the starting lineup. Because after the four Brazilian naturalized players were completely abandoned, as an important move to enhance the impact of the national football team during the Qatar World Cup , Jiang Guangtai became the only player who remained in the team. Moreover, Jiang Guangtai also arrived in the UAE in advance according to the agreement and trained alone. Therefore, I believe that many people think that Jiang Guangtai will enter the starting lineup without accident, after all, the Chinese team's defense line is still unassuring.
However, just like this training camp from Haikou, due to the addition of naturalized players, there were unnecessary problems within the national football team, so the coaching staff had to "treat them equally", so they put forward the request for four Brazilian players to rush to the UAE in advance to undergo physical fitness tests, but the naturalized players did not appear in the UAE according to the agreed time, but Jiang Guangtai arrived in the UAE normally as required. Therefore, Jiang Guangtai has the opportunity to enter the roster. However, during the preparation period in the UAE, Jiang Guangtai's condition was not very ideal, especially the physical condition was far from optimal. The coaching team still adheres to the principle of "who is in a good state and who plays", and abandons Jiang Guangtai.
Another slightly surprising thing was the appearance of Arthur Joon Min in the starting lineup. As the oldest player in the team at present, the match day of the Battle of China and Sands happens to be the birthday of Arthur Junmin, perhaps from this point of view, Arthur Junmin started the game, and in the current situation, after the end of this round of 12, Arthur Junmin is expected to fade out of the national team. With one last appearance for the national team as a starter on his birthday and no loss in the end, I'm afraid there's no better birthday present. As a result, Arthur Junmin also entered the starting lineup. With the current physical condition of Arthur Junmin, he also played about half-time. Therefore, as soon as the first half of the game ended, Dai Weijun was desperately preparing for the second half of the substitute appearance. Sure enough, before the second half began, Dai Weijun replaced Arthur Junmin. This can be said to have been planned before the game.
In addition, the starting lineup of the national football team should be said to have been repeatedly rehearsed in Haikou for a period of time, and finally the coaching team chose "how to practice how to play", rather than the strategy that was fully prepared before the game like the previous two rounds, and temporarily changed before the actual battle. Of course, this is not unrelated to the relevant instructions that naturalized players must play. During the Haikou period, in the second warm-up match against Changchun Yatai and the warm-up match against the U23 national football team, the starting lineup in the first half was basically the starting lineup of the Battle of China and Saudi Arabia.
Under the basic formation of "343", Zheng Zheng, Zhu Chenjie and Zhang Linpeng played three central backs, Liu Yang and Gao Zhunyi were on both sides of the town defense, attacking and defending; Xu Xin partnered with Liao Lisheng in the middle of the midfield, of which Liao Lisheng made his debut for the national team in this game as the captain Wu Xi's absent substitute. The center is still Zhang Yuning, flanked by Liu Binbin and Arthur Junmin, of which Arthur Junmin replaced Dai Weijun. Compared with the previous two rounds of matches, without the relevant interference, "business" has become the primary consideration of the national team coaching staff, rather than having to obey the relevant instructions as before. If so, why can the Chinese team get this 1 point? I'm afraid that in addition to the "luck" as head coach Li Xiaopeng said after the game, what is more important is that there is no interference from relevant instructions, how to practice how to play. During the UAE period, the closer the training of the national football team to the game, the calmer it became, and even "could not find the news", which was still very important to the final result.
3
Saving face cannot cover the gap
In the end, the 1-1 result can be said to be "everyone is happy", because the Saudis have entered the Qatar World Cup, and the Chinese team has terminated the momentum of the previous two consecutive defeats because of this point, at least people do not have to worry about the Chinese team after the change of coach will suffer "four consecutive defeats", and end the journey of the round of 12 with such a sad result. In other words, the Chinese team has temporarily saved its "face", and Chinese football has also temporarily retained its "face". Moreover, due to the draw of this game, the Chinese team accumulated 6 points in this year's top 12 matches, which basically locked the fifth position in the group and avoided the embarrassment of possibly bottoming out, after all, in the last round of the game, the Probability of the Chinese team losing to Oman and the Vietnam team defeating the Japanese team away was very small. But I have to say that such a result can not hide the real gap between the Chinese team, Chinese football and the first-class teams in Asia, this gap is not narrowed, but through this 12-strong match, the gap is further widened!
Watching the Saudi players walk idly on the field, watching the Chinese team line up as "343", actually being compressed into "541" by the opponent, occasionally can only advance to the opponent's penalty area, but always unable to form a shot, you can know how passive the Chinese team is on the scene. Throughout the first half, according to the technical statistics provided by the AFC official, the Chinese team shot 0, the corner was 0, and the possession rate was only 26%, it is not difficult to imagine where this is a level football game? The result of 1-0 in the first half is probably normal.
Just like the previous day's U23 national football match with the United Arab Emirates, young Chinese players are brave enough on the field, whether it is the spiritual level or the quality of will, I am afraid that there is nothing wrong with it. However, because our personal ability, personal technology, and personal tactical accomplishment are far behind those of our opponents, we cannot have an advantage in technology and tactics. At the national team level, in fact, it is the same problem, the international footballers can not say not to fight in this game, and it is true that many troubles such as salary arrears, future way out problems, etc. are temporarily put behind the mind, but even if we try our best, because of the poverty in terms of personal ability, personal skills, and overall tactical quality, we have defeated the opponent on the scene.
Moreover, it must be mentioned that since Saudi Arabia is currently in the league, the Saudi national team only concentrated on Abu Dhabi on the 19th to prepare, and there were only four training sessions before and after, and such a football was played, whether it was physical or competitive, it was in the best period. In contrast, Chinese players have not participated in official matches for nearly three months, so although they are fighting hard, they are obviously heavy, so they often see such a shot in the game: obviously Chinese players are still physically ahead of their opponents, but after running a few steps, Saudi players quickly ran in front of The Chinese players and grabbed the ball first! That's the difference between the middle of the season and the beginning of the season. Perhaps, in the future, with the restructuring of the AFC Champions League and the change to a cross-annual format, the Chinese Super League clubs will want to make another difference in the AFC Champions League, and the difficulty will be further increased. Of course, this is an afterthought.
Therefore, in the whole game, the Chinese team only completed the first real shot of the Chinese team when Zhu Chenjie took the penalty, and the final score of 1-1 was like Li Xiaopeng's "luck" after the game. The Saudi team has 18 shots on goal, but if you are slightly luckier, I am afraid that you will not score only one goal. In what is considered to be the most basic pass on the football field, but also considered to be the "language" on the football field, the Chinese team has 249 passes in the whole game, the Saudi team has 703 passes, and the Chinese team can't even say "words" now, and it is thinking of entering the World Cup. In addition to relying on "bragging", what else can you rely on? Without hard power as the most basic thing, everything is in vain. But the last thing football needs is to "play with mouths" and "play with mouth cannons"!
For Chinese football, this round of 12 is just another proof, that is, we must forget the World Cup, start from the most basic things, and first learn how to "speak"!