After entering 2023, the Chinese men's national team has not organized any training so far, and has been stagnant for a year, while the new manager has been delayed, which will affect the 2026 World Cup qualifiers that will start at the end of this year. According to the official news of the AFC, the Asian zone of this World Preliminary Round ushered in a new format, and the previous round of 12 will become the round of 18, competing for 8.5 qualifying places, which increases the hope of the national football team to enter the World Cup.
This year's Asian World Qualifiers will feature the first and second phases, with the first phase featuring teams ranked 26th-47th in Asia, with the winning 11 teams advancing to the second stage, which is the round of 36, which was previously the round of 40.
The AFC rules that the round of 36 will be divided into nine groups for a home-and-away round-robin match, with the top two advancing to the round of 18, the final stage of qualifying for the World Cup.
According to the "Sports Weekly", the AFC will most likely conduct the first and second phase of the group draw in July this year, or according to the latest world ranking, because the gap in technical points is too large, the national football team basically participates in the draw as the second gear.
At present, the national football team ranks 80th in the world and 11th in Asia, only the top 9 teams in Asia can get the status of seeded team in the round of 36, and the national football team fills the technical point gap of 4.66 points in the four international A-level matches in March and June, which is basically impossible, while ranking in the top 18 in Asia, so it can also lock in the second gear team in advance.
In addition to the national football team, Jordan, Bahrain, Syria, Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam, which are currently ranked 12th to 16th in Asia, are basically locked in the second tier of identity.
For the national football team, in recent years, the record of the Syrian men's football team has gradually been in the downside, and at the same time has not been able to play the Vietnamese men's team, if the same group in the round of 36 will increase the difficulty of qualifying, now the AFC still continues to be divided according to the world ranking, the national football team can avoid the above two major opponents in advance, which is also good news, at least to ensure the promotion to the third stage of the round of 18.
In addition, if the national football team is in the same group as one of the teams currently ranked 7th to 9th in Asia, the Iraqi men's team, the United Arab Emirates men's football team and the Oman men's football team, it is also a good signing, and I hope that the national football team will have good luck in the group draw at that time.