Messi will lead the Argentine team to China.
On the evening of the 18th, the national football team officially announced the information of two opponents on the June FIFA match day - against Myanmar on June 16 and Palestine on June 20.
Almost at the same time, the Argentine media also confirmed that the new World Cup winner will come to China for a warm-up match this FIFA matchday, against Australia.
The perfect miss between the national football team and Messi is a pity for the fans, but from the different starting points of the two sides, it is a very reasonable result.
Messi and Wu Lei did not have a chance to reunite in China.
A purely commercial race
From the relevant letter circulating on social media, "Beijing Football Sports Association on agreeing to the Argentine national team and the Australian national team to hold a football invitational match in Beijing", it can be seen that the unit hosting the Argentine team's competition in China is China Hongqiao International Investment Co., Ltd., and the first match time is currently set at 20 o'clock on June 15, and the venue is Beijing Workers Stadium.
Argentina won the World Cup in December last year, and in March they played two warm-up matches against Panama and Curacao during the international window - a warm-up match that had been scheduled before the World Cup.
With Argentina's World Cup victory, the commercial value of the team has increased significantly – with a window of no major matches in June, the Argentine Football Association naturally wants to maximize the commercial value of national team matches.
In fact, as early as mid-March, the news that the World Cup champion was coming to China to play had already come out, @阿根廷国家足球队微博账号还特地发布消息:
Recently, a large number of content and ticket sales information about the "Argentina National Team China Tour" have appeared on social networks, and all the itineraries of the Argentine national football team will be announced on the official account of the Argentine Football Federation and official media channels. Please pay attention to identifying false information to avoid losses.
Relevant people familiar with the matter told the surging news reporter that the organizer had communicated with the Argentine Football Association many times before, and finally obtained the approval of the Argentine Football Association with a very sincere offer, and obtained the authorization to operate the Argentine national team to play in China in June.
But from the perspective of game operation, only the match between the Argentine national team and the national football team can maximize commercial interests.
The Chinese team needs more quality warm-up matches.
The national football team now needs to restore confidence
After the Chinese team played two matches with New Zealand at the end of March, the Chinese Football Association began to select opponents for the two international matches in June, and by mid-to-late April, the Chinese Football Association had basically finalized the two teams of Myanmar and Palestine and the national football team to warm up.
During this period, in fact, the organizer basically obtained the right to operate the Argentine competition in China, but the organizer never had much substantive communication with the Chinese Football Association.
In early May, the organizer also released the news that Argentina would come to China through the media, but at this time the Chinese team had already determined the opponent of the warm-up match, and finally wanted to achieve the goal of the national football team and Argentina warm-up match through public opinion, and the organizer found Australia to "save the game"...
An industry insider with rich experience in organizing events told The Paper that from the perspective of the Chinese Football Association, if the Chinese team and Argentina play a match, this is a pure commercial match.
Then from a business perspective, the business model and profit direction are factors that need to be weighed in, and the actual effect of the competition will be unknown.
For the current national team, the more important factor is the competitive factor - with Jankovic taking office at the end of February, the most important task of the newly formed national football team is to prepare for the Asian Cup and the World Qualifiers.
In this process, the first thing for the Chinese team to do is to restore confidence - the last time the national football team won was a 3-2 victory over Vietnam in the round of 12 in October 2021, so the Chinese Football Association's strategy for picking warm-up matches is from easy to difficult, which is why the national team selected Myanmar and Palestine in June.
In September and October, the Chinese Football Association considered inviting stronger teams to China for warm-up matches with the national football team.
For the warm-up match opponents, the Chinese Football Association also very clearly hopes to select Asian teams, after all, whether it is the World Preliminary Round of 36 in November or the Asian Cup in January next year, the opponents of the national football team will be teams in Asia.
Whether it is due to the perspective of preparing for the World Cup and the Asian Cup and the strength gap between the two sides, the national football team against Argentina has no practical significance except for a gimmick.
In fact, such a commercial match is not without the Chinese team, after the 2002 World Cup Five Star Brazil came to Guangzhou to face the national football team, when the two sides exchanged white rolls 0-0.