In the eighth World Cup, the Chinese women's football team has no reason to be optimistic, lowering its stature to impact every opponent
The 2023 Women's World Cup kicks off on 20 July in New Zealand and Australia. As the winner of the Asian Cup, the Chinese women's football team embarked on the journey of the World Cup for the eighth time. Against the backdrop of the rapid development of global women's football and FIFA's unprecedented attention and support for women's football, the Women's World Cup has expanded to 32 teams since this edition. However, the increase in the World Cup has not weakened the competitiveness of the tournament itself, and the Chinese women's football team is in Group D with one of the favourites England, veteran Denmark and new Haiti, they have no reason to be optimistic, but to fight every opponent with all their strength. The first match of the group stage against Denmark is a life-and-death battle, and if it can finally break through from the group, it will be a mission for the Chinese women's football team, which has just returned to the right track.
Counting this cup, FIFA has held nine Women's World Cups, and the Chinese women's football team missed the 6th tournament in Germany in 2011. It has to be said that in the past 20 years, the world women's football has undergone earth-shaking changes. When the emerging European forces represented by England, Spain and the Netherlands rose, the European powers, the United States women's football team, which has long dominated women's football, and Brazil in South America formed the first square of competition in women's football in the world. Among them, the competition between European powers and the American team has always been the mainstream of the arena.
In contrast, progress in Asian women's football has been relatively slow. Prior to this, although the Japanese women's football team defeated the United States on penalties in the 2011 World Cup to become the first Asian team to win the World Cup, the overall competitiveness of Asia was not strong. In the competition with European powers, Brazilian teams and even African teams, most of them show a clear disadvantage. From this point of view, the Chinese women's football team returned to the top of the Asian Cup early last year, which objectively attracted more attention from competitors on other continents.
Objectively speaking, the grouping of the Chinese women's football team in this World Cup is not ideal. Of the three opponents in the same group, England are currently ranked 4th in the world and are recognized as favourites to win this tournament as the new champions of the European Cup. Although the Danish team returned to the World Cup finals after 16 years, the European women's football team, like the men's team, is the most difficult to compete, and the Danish team, which emphasizes physical confrontation and offensive and defensive balance, is at least not under the Asian brigade. Therefore, the Chinese women's football team's first encounter with this opponent is tantamount to experiencing a "life and death battle" in advance, after all, in front of the English team, which is strong on all three lines, the Chinese women's football team has a very small chance of winning.
From the perspective of expansion and format, only the top 2 teams in each group can enter the knockout round, England team can get one of the qualifying places without suspense, and the Chinese women's football team needs to compete with Denmark and Haiti for another knockout ticket. Although Haiti advanced to the finals through the play-offs, this team has talented players like "Demon Front" Melci. In the previous international warm-up matches, although the team lost 1-2 to South Korea, the individual ability of the players was demonstrated in the match. Relatively speaking, the Chinese women's football team has always had obvious shortcomings, and in the context of the absence of the original main central defender Wang Xiaoxue with serious injuries, it is indeed heart-wrenching whether the team's young defense can withstand the impact of the opponent.
Among the 23 players of the Chinese women's football team who participated in this World Cup, about 70% participated in the Asian Cup last year, and 9 players had World Cup experience. Among them, the two captains Zhang Rui and Wang Shanshan have played more than 150 games for the national team, while Wu Haiyan, Gu Yasha, Wang Shuang and Lou Jiahui have also played more than 100 games for the country. It can be said that this is a Chinese women's football team with the old and the new. However, from the perspective of this year's foreign wars, the Chinese women's football team is obviously inferior to European teams and Brazilian teams in terms of physical confrontation and offensive and defensive conversion rate control, because Wang Shanshan, Zhang Rui and other players are over 30 years old, so when dealing with fast and impactful teams, how to do a good job of overall cooperation and fight positional battles requires the coaching staff led by Shui Qingxia to carefully design and deploy.
It is worth noting that for the competition situation of this World Cup, both the Chinese Football Association and the Chinese women's football coaching staff have maintained a more rational understanding. Shui Qingxia has put forward the concept of "recognizing the situation" in public more than once, and the Chinese Football Association has not publicly put forward the team's competitive goals so far. As a representative of the old generation of "sonorous roses", Sun Wen, the current vice president of the Chinese Football Association and head of the Chinese women's football delegation, rushed to Australia to oversee the army, and she also hopes to use her experience and perception to help the new generation of women's football girls play well in this competition.
At present, the biggest advantage of the Chinese women's football team is that the 23 players are relatively healthy, full of mental state, and can actively participate in the upcoming World Cup match. According to the plan, the Chinese women's football team will face the Danish team in Perth at 8 pm Beijing time on July 22, and Chinese fans are looking forward to the Chinese women's football team playing a good start and striving to go further.
China Women's World Cup Schedule (both Beijing time):
22 July 20:00 Denmark vs China
July 28, 19:00 China vs Haiti
1 Aug 19:00 China vs England
Text/Beiqing Sports Xiao Zhao