The national football team fights Palestine again The opponent is no longer a fishbelly

On June 19, Chinese player Wang Dalei was in training

At 7:35 p.m. on June 20, the Chinese men's soccer team will face Palestine, the second opponent in this month's international break cycle, at the Barracuda Bay Football Stadium in Dalian. As against Myanmar on the 16th, the minimum goal of the national football team in this match is still to win. However, as one of the teams participating in the 2023 Asian Cup, the Palestine team is much stronger than the Myanmar team, and the match is more relevant for the Chinese team, which is also preparing for the Asian Cup, so if the Chinese team wants to win the opponent, it must not only maintain strong attacking power, but also "tighten the fence" to achieve both attack and defense. Judging from the training situation in recent days, the Chinese team is likely to use the personnel combination of the previous game in this game.

Hand-to-hand records

The last time the national team won against an opponent was 14 years ago

Palestine, currently ranked 93rd in the world, only 12 places behind China, is a rapidly rising team in Asian football in recent years, and has entered the 2023 Asian Cup finals, and is the third tier of teams in the same group as Lebanon, which is a suitable "imaginary enemy" for China in the preparation for the Asian Cup.

The data shows that the two teams have met a total of five times since the first official match between the two sides in the 2006 Asian Cup qualifiers. China has the advantage with an unbeaten record of 3 wins and 2 draws. However, the last time the national team won against an opponent was 14 years ago in July 2009. At that time, with the goals of Qu Bo, Gao Lin and Yang Hao, the national football team once won 3-0 against the opponent.

The last meeting between the Chinese and Pakistani teams was on November 20, 2018. At that time in Haikou, the Chinese team led by Lippi drew 1-1 with Feng Xiaoting's goal. That match was actually the last official international warm-up match for the national football team before the 2019 Asian Cup. It is precisely because of the weak performance of the national football team in the game that the outside world is generally not optimistic about the prospects of the team competing for the Asian Cup.

Home team preparation

It is quite possible to continue the 442 formation

For the current national football team led by Jankovic, facing the opponent squarely is only one aspect of the work attitude, and the team must first prepare for the game if it wants to achieve the goal of winning. Judging from the two training camps in March and June, Jankovic has built his national football team into a disciplined team, but what is most needed to win is hard power. When the post-80s and post-85s players represented by Zheng Zhi, Hao Junmin, Feng Xiaoting, Gao Lin and Huang Bowen faded out of the national football team one after another, the biggest problem faced by the Chinese team was the insufficient supply of excellent players, which can be proved by the panic of the Chinese football defense line and the slow pace of the team's offensive and defensive conversion in the China-Myanmar game a few days ago.

In the match between China and Myanmar, Jankovic once introduced a flexible formation of 343 offensive and 442 defensive for the national football team. If Myanmar turn the one or two counter-attacking chances created into a goal, the situation of the game could change dramatically. In contrast, Palestine, already in the main Asian Cup, has more attacking firepower, so the Chinese team must be more cautious in defense.

In the outdoor training on the morning of the 18th, defenders Wang Shenchao and Wei Zhen, who missed the China-Myanmar game due to health reasons and practiced together a few days ago, appeared at the training site, but one of the two trained briefly with the team, and the other did not participate in the joint training at all, with their current physical condition, it was difficult for them to participate in the game on the evening of the 20th. The Chinese team's defensive personnel arrangement encountered difficulties.

Of course, according to the habit of leading troops, Yankovic will not easily adjust the tactics or personnel of the main promotion. Therefore, the Chinese team is likely to follow the 442 formation on the evening of the 20th, pursuing the balance of attack and defense, and the starting list will not change much from the game on the 16th, and even the possibility of not changing completely unchanged is not ruled out. It is worth noting that in the China-Myanmar competition, in addition to Wang Shenchao and Wei Zhen, only 4 people Li Lei, Tomorrow, Liu Dianzuo and Xie Pengfei failed to appear.

Opponent intelligence

The Palestine team currently has a number of naturalized players

The national football team chose the relatively weak Myanmar team and the Palestinian team as their opponents in this month's warm-up match, obviously aiming to regain confidence in the pursuit of a complete victory. However, against the rapid rise of the Palestinian team in recent years and the support of a number of naturalized players, it is not easy for the national football team to win.

The Palestinian Football Association officially became one of the FIFA member associations in 1998. At that time, due to various objective factors, the level of Palestinian football was generally low in Asian football, and it could only participate in low-level competitions such as the AFC Challenge Cup. However, in the past 10 years, the Palestinian Football Association has been determined to reform, not only importing naturalized players from Europe and the Americas, but also hiring foreign coaches to coach its national team to greatly improve the strength of the team. Take the Palestinian team that drew away from China in 2018 as an example, and the head coach of the team at that time was Nurdin Ali from Algeria. During the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup, Palestine remained unbeaten and defeated the Philippines in the final to win the Asian Cup final.

With the help of naturalized players, Palestine achieved a good record in the 2018 World Qualifiers, and even almost qualified for the round of 12 that year. Of course, they qualified for the 2019 Asian Cup finals. The figures show that Palestine had an impressive record of 12 consecutive unbeaten matches between 2016 and 2018, with the FIFA ranking reaching an all-time high in February 2018 (73rd in the world). From this point of view, it is no coincidence that this team has been able to reach the Asian Cup finals for three consecutive times.

Although the Chinese team is playing at home again this time, the strength of the opponent Palestine cannot be underestimated. In March, Palestine played against Bahrain. The team had 6 naturalized players at that time: goalkeeper Kadula, defender Termanini, striker Maauff, central defender Hamid, midfielder Candilana and striker Zihader. In addition, in recent years, naturalized players from European and American countries such as striker Islami, Zedan, midfielder Abdullah, central defender Salaam, midfielder Rashid, and right-back Ed have been selected for the Palestinian team.

What deserves the attention of the Chinese team is that the Palestinian team also has some players who play in the top leagues in Europe and the United States. For example, the 24-year-old striker Dabbah, who plays for Aluka in the Portuguese Premier League, is worth 1.5 million euros, making him the most expensive player in Palestine. Born in Sweden, Maalouf played for the Swedish Premier League side. In addition, Palestinian players have appeared in leagues in Sweden, Chile, Egypt, Thailand, Indonesia and even Israel.

In the last two years, the Palestinian team has been in good form. During last year's Asian Cup qualifiers, they beat Yemen 5-0 and the Philippines 4-0. In March, they also beat Bahrain 2-1 in a warm-up match, snapping their fourth straight international match. In the Arab Cup at the end of 2021, Palestine drew 1-1 with Saudi Arabia's U23 Olympic team. During the 2019 Qatar World Qualifier Top 40, Palestine also beat Uzbekistan 2-0 and drew 0-0 with Saudi Arabia. In this way, it is not easy for the Chinese team to win this opponent.

This group of texts/reporter Xiao Zhao

Co-ordinator/Wang Yong