China's women's football team competes in the World Cup and the goal is not only victory and defeat

Chinese women's football coach Shui Qingxia (right) watches the training of the team on July 9. On the same day, the Chinese women's football team trained in Adelaide, Australia, to prepare for the 2023 Women's World Cup. Xie Sida/Photo (Xinhua News Agency)

With less than two weeks to go before facing Denmark, the first opponent of the Women's World Cup group stage on July 22, the Chinese Football Association has bothered to arrange two warm-up matches to help the women's football girls find their match status: on July 13 and July 17, the Chinese women's football team will "cross" with the Brazilian women's football team and the Colombian women's football team on the Gold Coast and Sydney respectively, although the Chinese women's World Cup base camp is located in Adelaide (2 matches after the group stage), but these two warm-up matches have an improved effect on the actual combat state. Or let the coaching staff be happy to accept such an arrangement.

The nearly 50-member World Cup team of the Chinese women's football team arrived in Adelaide, Australia on the 8th local time, and on the day of arrival, coach Shui Qingxia arranged recovery training mainly to adjust the state, and the tense atmosphere near the tournament is also a natural pressure that the coaching staff and players must face.

"There is always pressure and as the game approaches, there will be a change in mentality, what we have to do is adjust, adjust our mentality and play at the level we have. This is my first time leading a team to a World Cup, and I have a little bit of anticipation, although I don't know what will happen yet, but I always have to go through it to know if the effort is in line with the World Cup standards. Before the women's football team, Shui Qingxia said in an interview, "When we were training in Qingdao, we simulated the rhythm of the World Cup group stage and played three warm-up games to let the players adapt to the rhythm. We've had too few opportunities to play in the past while, so we played as many warm-up games as we could. The real World Cup rhythm is more intense because we have to go back and forth between Perth, Adelaide and Sydney, and the players will be physically drained. ”

This year's World Cup Chinese women's football team hopes to surpass the previous results to enter the round of 8 - the 2019 World Cup in France, the Chinese women's football team in the same group as the German women's football team and the Spanish women's football team, with a goal difference of 4 points in the group stage, less than the Spanish team qualified as the third in the group, and lost to Italy in the 1/8 final to stop at the round of 16. Objective analysis, four years ago, the Chinese women's football group qualified thanks to a relatively relaxed format (24 teams of the French Women's World Cup participated, and the top 4 teams in the third place of the 6 groups could also qualify), and this year's Women's World Cup was expanded to become the first cup with 32 teams, which made the third place team in the group no longer have the opportunity to advance to the knockout round. If the Chinese women's football team wants to achieve the goal of the top eight, it needs to first qualify from the group, and secondly, it needs to win the 1/8 final, and the difficulty is obvious.

"I also went to the scene to watch the French Women's World Cup 4 years ago, at that time I felt that although our Chinese women's football team has a gap with strong teams, but it can still play, but 2023 is completely different from 2019, I and the players feel that women's football has changed more than we thought, European teams' pressing and offensive and defensive conversion, technical use, have changed a lot, European players 1 game high-intensity running distance to reach 1000 meters, we often two or three hundred meters, this gap is a challenge we must face, We have to improve the intensity of training and the intensity of the game. Shui Qingxia said, "The first game of the group stage against Denmark is the top priority, everyone wants to win, we will make some targeted preparations in terms of technical and tactical play, attack, defense, offensive and defensive balance, we have all considered, and the atmosphere in the World Cup will also affect the performance of the players, I want them to relax and play at the level they deserve." ”

Denmark lost 0:2 to Spain in the warm-up match the week before, Spain women's football is a European powerhouse, in April this year Chinese women's football overseas training against Spain team 0:3 defeat, although long-term training has always been the preparation criterion of Chinese football national team, Chinese women's football combat ability has been significantly improved compared with training, but fans are still not difficult to conclude that "China and Denmark women's football are equal", so "full preparation, relax the mind", will become the decisive factor in this almost group qualification match.

Last week, the official website of the AFC published an article to introduce the current situation of Chinese women's football, in this article the author believes that the Chinese women's football team has 6 players who participated in the World Cup for the third time, and the rich experience of the old players helps the team avoid interference and enter the game state as soon as possible - in the past six months of training, Shui Qingxia has been experimenting with how to match new and old players, of course, no matter how the lineup is deployed, the spiritual core of "never give up" is the real magic weapon of Chinese women's football.

"We won the Asian title, but in terms of strength, Australia and Japan are still stronger than us in Asia, so we have to have a correct positioning." Shui Qingxia said, "We must not suffer from gains and losses, we must let everyone see the fighting spirit of the Chinese women's football team to never give up and never give up on the World Cup stage, which is what everyone should see, and it is also the spiritual strength of the Chinese women's football team to stand up and lead the whole team to rush forward in the face of difficulties countless times." ”

The World Cup stage is big and all-encompassing. Last year's "China Women's Football Reform and Development Plan (2022-2035)" clearly stated that "actively bid for the 2031 Women's World Cup", and "bidding for the World Cup" has undoubtedly played a role in promoting the development of China's women's football, which at the same time urges the Chinese women's football team to "faster, more powerful, more refined technology, and tougher confrontation" to transform and upgrade. According to the revised World Cup bidding procedure, the venue of the 2027 Women's World Cup will be confirmed by public vote at the FIFA Congress in May 2024, and four units in Brazil, South Africa, the US-Mexico Commonwealth and the German-Dutch Commonwealth have submitted their intention to bid. In recent years, represented by the European women's football movement, the world women's football has entered a stage of rapid development, if the Chinese women's football team wants to "actively bid for the 2031 Women's World Cup", in addition to the national team to strive for convincing results, but also to let the women's football into the educational life of girls: the goal of entering the top three in the 2031 Women's World Cup is indeed somewhat ahead, but to make more girls fall in love with football and fall in love with the "soft indicators" of playing football, it is more necessary for the relevant departments of education and sports to give specific plans that can be implemented—— At least do our best to change the "grievance" status quo of girls who are willing to play football in junior and senior high schools who "have no time to play football".

"This Women's World Cup we also have a more important goal, that is, to let people see the health and beauty of women's football players, sports can make girls physically and mentally healthy, make girls more cheerful, easier to be happy, they are full of confidence, will produce inner beauty." Shui Qingxia said, "Sports make people beautiful, not only external beauty, but also inner beauty, the World Cup is a big stage for us to show ourselves to the fullest, even if the players have a confident smile, it is possible to make more spectators fall in love with football." ”

Source: China Youth Daily