Men's Football National No. 2023: Stop Slipping!

With the assembly of the men's national football team in Shanghai on the evening of December 17, it marks that the national teams of the Chinese men's football team at all levels will fully transfer to the preparation of various continental competitions in 2024. Of course, before the men's national football team began to concentrate, the 2001 U22 national Olympic team has taken the lead in training in Shanghai, and will play two warm-up matches with the visiting Malaysian Olympic team on the 23rd and 26th, which is also the preparation of the national Olympic team for the final stage of the Olympic preliminary round in April next year. At the same time, the new Chinese 2008 age group U16 national youth team is also being formally established in Shanghai to carry out a comprehensive selection, at present only the 2005 age group U19 national youth team has not been officially launched, but the relevant head coach matters have a clear candidate, the probability of entering the New Year.

When Chinese football fully turns to 2024, looking back at the performance of men's national football teams at all levels in the continental competitions in the upcoming 2023, unlike the Chinese women's national football team's "three empty", that is, the World Cup group did not qualify, the Asian Games missed the finals, and the Paris Olympic preliminaries missed the final stage of the semifinals, although it is not glamorous, it at least shows an obvious sign - stop slipping, that is, although the men's national football teams at all levels are not able to achieve the desired results and results as the outside world hopes, they are not defeat after defeat, breaking the bottom line", and even far exceeded expectations in some aspects.

U20国青：时隔9年重进八强

Affected by the epidemic, in the middle of 2023, the various competitions hosted by the AFC, especially the youth events that were canceled due to the epidemic, have fully resumed, such as the U17 Asian Cup, the U20 Asian Cup and the U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers, etc., plus the Hangzhou Asian Games hosted by the Olympic Council of Asia has been postponed for one year in September and October this year. Overall, all Chinese teams of all ages, which are no longer competitive in Asia, are eligible to participate, and although they did not reach the expected semi-finals, that is, the threshold for entering the World Series, one thing is very clear, that is, the teams did not fall off the chain and suffer the expected heavy defeat. This is actually a victory in a way.

Taking the U20 Asian Cup that ended in Uzbekistan at the beginning of the year as an example, the 2003 U20 national youth team represented by Hu Hetao, Liu Haofan, Mutalifu, Baihelam, etc., defeated the defending champion Saudi Arabia 2-0 in the case of general disapproval, and the first game against the Japanese team was only a one-goal lead because of an offside goal and a misjudgment and lost 1-2, and the last battle got 1 point from the Kyrgyzstan team and successfully reached the quarterfinals! You must know that this is the Chinese national youth team after the 2014 Asian Youth Championships in Myanmar, the second time in 9 years to reach the quarterfinals, and it was only achieved after eliminating the defending champion.

Not only advanced to the group, but in the 1/4 finals, the Chinese national youth team also took the lead in breaking the goal of the South Korean team without being favored, but it lacked some luck, and after a 90-minute draw, it was reversed by the South Korean team 3-1 in overtime to win, thus missing the World Youth Championship. But the performance of the young players is enough to make them proud. The final ranking of 6th is already the best ranking of the Chinese national youth in 19 years since the 85-year-old team won the runner-up in the 2004 Asian Youth Championships!

U24 Asian Games: Reached the quarterfinals for the first time in 17 years

Although the Chinese U24 Asian Games team led by Djurdjevic failed to complete the task of winning medals as promised when Jankovic took over the team at the Hangzhou Asian Games, due to the objective situation, the team changed coaches halfway, and Djurdjevic led the team to successfully qualify for the group in less than 7 months. Then won the Qatar team 1-0, although it lost 0-2 to the South Korean team that eventually won the championship and stopped in the quarterfinals, but, no matter from which point of view, the Asian Games team finally finished seventh, which is the best result of the Chinese men's football Asian Games team since the 2006 Doha Asian Games won the fifth place after 17 years.

Among them, of course, there are host factors, as well as the actual situation of a small number of participating teams and the absence of many strong Asian teams, but in any case, the men's football team entered the top eight ranks of the Asian Games, surpassing the embarrassment of not even entering the top eight in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. It can be said that the Chinese men's football team at least did not reproduce the scene of Waterloo at home. In the case that the overall situation of the Chinese men's football team is not very prosperous, the Asian Games team has basically completed the task, which can be said to be reasonable.

U22 National Olympic Games: Achieving Extreme Breakthroughs by Itself

In the first group stage of the 6th U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games Men's Asian Qualifiers held in Dalian in September, the Chinese 2001 U22 National Olympic Team defeated the Indian team 2-1 with Nabijiang's last-minute stunner, and finally qualified for the final stage of the competition as one of the four group runners-up with the best results. Although the outside world has never stopped criticizing and accusing since the team formed a team, until the team started training in Shanghai, all parties who do not know the truth are still mainly based on total denial, and even the voice of changing the coach has never stopped, but when the General Administration of Sports of China held a meeting on the preparation for the Olympic winter training last month, in the case of the women's football out, the leader and coach of the Chinese men's national Olympic team can still participate in the meeting normally, and Chinese football has at least avoided some "embarrassment" - Chinese football is still related to the Olympics.

When we are still talking about the "poor level" and "poor strength" of China's 2001 national Olympic team, we seem to have completely forgotten one point, that is, the 2001 U19 national youth team failed to qualify for the final stage in the U20 Asian Cup qualifiers more than three years ago, that is, it was not even the top 16 in Asia, and the 2002 U16 national youth team also failed to pass the qualifying round in the U17 Asian Cup qualifiers more than six years ago, that is, not even the top 16 in Asia. Needless to say, the National Olympic team, which is mainly composed of players born in 2001 and 2002, is very competitive in Asia. In this case, the national Olympic team was able to make it out of the group stage of the first stage of qualifiers this time, enter the round of 16, and qualify for the final stage competition in April next year, which is actually a small step forward.

As for the future finals, China will compete with South Korea, Japan and the United Arab Emirates for the Olympic ticket, and the Chinese Olympic Games will still face great challenges. After all, in the current situation, on the basis of the existing staffing, even if a world-class coach is coaching, the Chinese Olympic team may not be able to enter the Olympic stage. What's more, over the years, the Chinese Olympic team has not only suffered six consecutive defeats since the AFC combined the Olympic preliminaries and the U23 Asian Cup, but also never even a draw! Moreover, even in the last U23 Asian Cup in 2022, the Chinese team has never even been qualified to participate because of abstention.

Now, China's 2001 U22 national Olympic team still has the opportunity to start training in Shanghai to prepare for the final stage of the Olympic preliminary round in April next year. In the longer term, if there is no such opportunity and qualification, who will the Chinese men's national football team rely on to complete the task of the competition in the future?

U17 national youth: re-appearance after nine years

Among the four age groups, the only regret may be the 2006 U17 national junior team led by Yang Chen, which failed to qualify from the group in the U17 Asian Cup in Thailand in June this year, and finally ranked 13th with 1 draw and 2 losses.

However, from another point of view, the Chinese U17 national junior team has not made its official debut in the Asian competition for a long time. Zhu Chenjie, who has become the main force in the national team, failed to qualify for the finals when he represented the 2000 age group of the national junior team, that is, he was not even the top 16 in Asia; after that, the 2002 age group also failed to advance from the qualifiers; although the 2004 age group team qualified from the qualifiers, it was affected by the epidemic and did not have the opportunity to appear in the Asian main competition. It was not until this time, after a lapse of 9 years, that the Chinese 2006 young players had the opportunity to make the Chinese team reappear in the U17 Asian Cup for the first time. This is already a small breakthrough in a way.

Stopping the slippage in time is the beginning of hope

When many people have been constantly "self-deprecating" Chinese football, in fact, take a look at the Asian football we are in, in the various youth competitions in 2023, there are only 7 teams that can qualify to participate in all four major competitions, especially the three age groups hosted by the AFC, namely China, Japan and South Korea in East Asia, Vietnam in Southeast Asia, Uzbekistan in Central Asia, and Qatar and Saudi Arabia in West Asia. Considering that the Asian Games is a special event, such as Australia is not eligible to participate, if only the AFC is counted, Australia and Tajikistan are added to the above 7 teams.

Among these tournaments, Iran missed out on the finals of the Olympic Games, Iraq missed out on the Under-17 Asian Cup finals, and the United Arab Emirates missed out on the Under-17 and Under-20 tournaments in the round of 16.

Putting the achievements of China's youth teams at all levels against such a background, I am afraid that it cannot be said that China's youth teams are not good. Moreover, in the past 2023, the entire Chinese football has almost been in a vacuum stage in terms of management due to in-depth anti-corruption, and the leadership has almost no time to take care of it. In this case, the performance of the Chinese youth team in the continental competition is better than that of the youth team in the "Golden Yuan Era" in previous years, which is probably more worth pondering. Without the blind command and intervention of lay leaders, China's youth football team may be able to grow better, which is probably an indisputable fact.

If combined with the Chinese men's national football team, which is the "leader", although it is now full of holes and constantly denied by all walks of life, at least it won the key game against the Thai team away in the world preliminaries and grasped the initiative. Therefore, the Chinese men's football team at all levels will at least not have the "big landslide" imagined by the outside world in the upcoming 2023, and even show an obvious momentum of stopping the slide. And when Chinese football is about to fully return to normal after entering 2024, what kind of momentum will the national teams at all levels of men's football show a steady rise, or will it continue to decline again?

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