In the third round of the second group stage of the Asian qualifiers for the Women's Olympic Games, the Chinese women's football team drew 1:1 with the South Korean women's football team, ranking third in the group, missing the third stage of the competition, and even missing the 2024 Paris Olympics one step earlier than the men's football team, which is also the second time in the history of the Chinese women's football team that it missed the main match of the Olympic Games, and the last time the Chinese women's football team missed the Olympic Games was in 2012. Coupled with the fiasco of the World Cup group stage at the beginning of the year and the failure to win the Asian Games, it basically means the end of the women's football "Shui Qingxia era", and the return to Shui Qingxia's record in coaching the women's football team for two years can be described in four words, that is, "open high and go low"!
In 2021, Jia Xiuquan led the Chinese women's football team to lose to the Brazilian women's football team and the Dutch women's football team with a score of 0:5 and 2:8 respectively in the Olympic Games, only ending with the Zambian women's football team 4:4. On November 18, 2021, the Chinese Football Association invited Shui Qingxia, then coach of the Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank Women's Football Club, to become the new head coach of the Chinese women's football team, hoping to lead the Chinese women's football team out of the shadow of the Olympic fiasco.
No one expected that Shui Qingxia would lead the Chinese women's football team out of the trough so quickly. In 2022, the Chinese women's football team defeated the Chinese Taipei women's football team, Iran women's football team, Vietnam women's football team, and Japan women's football team in the Women's Asian Cup, entered the final of the Women's Asian Cup, and defeated the South Korean women's football team 3:2 in the final, regaining the Women's Asian Cup championship after 16 years. Especially in the semifinals, the Chinese women's football team stubbornly equalized after falling behind the Japanese women's football team twice, and eliminated the Japanese women's football team, the strongest team in Asian women's football through a penalty shootout, which greatly boosted the team's morale. Suddenly, the Chinese women's football team has the momentum of returning to the era of "sonorous roses", and Shui Qingxia is also considered to be the number one contributor to the "revival" of the women's football team. It's just that no one thought that the Chinese women's football team did not get out of the trough, but just stood on a big rock in the trough, and then fell into the trough step by step.
After the Women's Asian Cup, the first event in which the Chinese women's football team participated was the East Asian Women's Cup, and the first game easily defeated the Chinese Taipei women's football team 2:0. The second game was a 1:1 draw with the South Korean women's football team, whether it was from the score, from the scene and various technical indicators, the two sides were evenly divided, and the draw was a very reasonable result. In the third game, the Japanese women's football team met the Japanese women's football team, although the two sides drew 0:0, but from the perspective of the game scene and technical indicators, it was a one-sided game, the Japanese women's football team had 68% possession and 32% ahead of the Chinese women's football team, and the ratio of shots on goal was an amazing 9:1. Objectively speaking, the strength of the Chinese women's football team is indeed inferior to the Japanese women's football team, and it is reasonable that it did not win the championship, and the Chinese women's football team has ended its 2022 year, and the overall results are still satisfactory and even surprising.
In 2023, the Chinese women's football team will prepare for the Women's World Cup by participating in a series of friendly matches, but the record of the friendly matches is hardly optimistic about the prospects of the World Cup. In 10 friendly matches, the Chinese women's football team has a record of 4 wins, 3 draws and 3 losses, with specific records of 1:0 Russian women's football team (ranked 25th in the world), 2:1 Russian women's football team, 2:1 Real Betis women's football team (Spanish Women's Super League middle and lower level team), 4:0 Huelva Sports Women's Football Team (Spanish Women's Super League middle and lower level team); 0:0 Ireland (24th in the world), 2:2 Colombia (22nd in the world), 0:0 Switzerland (21st in the world); 0:3 Brazil (9th in the world), 0:3 Spain (2nd in the world), 1:4 Sweden (1st in the world). Objectively speaking, the results of the friendly match are very objective! The strength of the Chinese women's football team is more consistent with its own world ranking (15th), and it can play with the teams ranked 15-25 in the world, and it has almost no chance of winning when it meets the top 10 teams in the world.
After the Women's World Cup, the Chinese women's football team ushered in the first major defeat in 2023! In the first round of the group stage, the Danish women's football team, ranked 12th in the world, lost 0:1, basically determining the fate of the Chinese women's football team's group exit; In the second round, they defeated the Haitian women's football team (ranked 52nd in the world) 1:0; In the final game, when they had to win to qualify, they fought against the world's No. 4 England women's football team, and finally lost to the opponent 1:6 and were eliminated with the third place in the group, and the Chinese women's football team was eliminated in the group stage of the Women's World Cup for the first time.
In the Asian Games women's football competition, the Chinese women's football team easily defeated the Mongolian women's football team and the Uzbekistan women's football team with a score of 16:0 and 6:0 in the group stage, defeated the Thai women's football team 4:0 in the 1/4 finals, lost to the Japanese women's football team 3:4 in the semifinals and missed the final, and defeated the Uzbekistan women's football team again 7:0 in the final three or four finals and won the third place in the Asian Games. Objectively speaking, the third place in the Asian Games instead of the Asian Cup champion is the true strength of the Chinese women's football team in Asian women's football.
The Chinese women's football team, which has lost two major competitions in the World Cup and the Asian Cup in a row, ushered in the third major competition of 2023 at the end of October, the Asian qualifiers for the Women's Olympic Games. The Chinese women's football team is in the same group as the North Korean women's football team, the South Korean women's football team and the Thai women's football team, according to the rules, only the first team in the group and the second team with the best results in the three groups can advance to the third stage of the competition, so the Chinese women's football team, the North Korean women's football team, and the South Korean women's football team must have one or two teams out, which also makes this group a group of death.
The Chinese women's football team lost 1:2 to the North Korean women's football team in the first game, casting a shadow on the group qualification; Although the second game defeated the Thai women's football team 3-0, this also made the third match against the South Korean women's football team a life-and-death battle to qualify. In this game, which is a win for both sides, the two teams drew 0:0 in the first half, and the two teams also used a free kick opportunity to score a header in the second half, and finally drew 1:1, both out, allowing the Uzbekistan women's football team in the other group to take advantage of the fisherman's fortune and enter the third stage of the competition with the Japanese women's football team, the Australian women's football team and the North Korean women's football team.
After this game, the 2023 matches of the Chinese women's football team have all ended. The Chinese women's football team was eliminated from the group after a heavy defeat in the Women's World Cup, the Asian Games did not enter the finals, and the Olympic qualifiers did not qualify, this is the report card of the Chinese women's football team in 2023, which is in stark contrast to the 2022 Women's Asian Cup champion. But objectively speaking, the results in 2023 are the true embodiment of the strength of the Chinese women's football team, and the positioning of the second-rate Asian and the world's third-rate is also more consistent with the world ranking of the Chinese women's football team ranked 15th (Japanese women's football team is ranked 8th in the world, and Australian women's football team is ranked 11th in the world).
For today's Chinese women's football team, and even Chinese football, it is not terrible to lose in various competitions, anyway, I am used to losing, and the terrible thing is that even the opportunity to lose is getting less and less. The next Women's Asian Cup and Asian Games will be held in 2026, the next Women's World Cup will be held in 2027, the next Olympic Games will be held in 2028, and for two full years in 2024 and 2025, the Chinese women's football team will face the dilemma of having no official matches to play except for friendly matches, which is even more terrible than losing in the big competition.
The road is long, Chinese women's football, where is the way out for Chinese football?
Note: The picture comes from the Internet.