The 18th Asian Cup will start on January 12, 2024 in the Gulf country of Qatar.
On the 18th of this month, the Chinese men's football team flew to Qatar's neighboring United Arab Emirates, and then the national football team will start a three-week training camp in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the country, to prepare for the Asian Cup. According to the original plan, the Chinese men's football team will usher in 4 warm-up matches during the training camp, but the national football players just got off the plane when the news came that they were released pigeons.
Originally, the national football team had made an appointment with the Indian team to play a warm-up match in Abu Dhabi on January 6, but now the Indian team has temporarily dropped us. According to Ma Dexing, a reporter for the national football team, the reason for the Indian team is that they will not be able to assemble until December 30 due to the impact of the league schedule, and they will fly directly to Qatar to compete, and there is no time to go to Abu Dhabi. It seems that the Indian Football Association is not only not very trustworthy, but they also do not care about the schedule of their home league.
According to Chen Yong, a reporter from the Football Daily, the first warm-up match opponent in the national football plan will be the Oman team, which is also training in Abu Dhabi, and after the Indian team releases the pigeons, the remaining three opponents are likely to be local club teams.
In fact, compared to the Indian team, the simulation value of the Oman team's warm-up match will be much higher. In this Asian Cup, the Chinese team is in Group A with Qatar, Lebanon and Tajikistan, the first two are similar to the Oman team, and they are also our main opponents in the fight for the first place in the group.
Needless to say, the defending champions of the Asian Cup, Qatar will assemble after the 12th round of the Qatar League on the 22nd of this month, after which they have arranged for Cambodia to be the warm-up opponent of the simulated Chinese team.
The Lebanese team has recruited as many as 12 naturalized players in one go, including 20-year-old striker Shaheen who has been selected for the Swedish U19 national youth team, and Saad has been selected for the United States national youth team, and Bitar has been selected for the Canadian national youth team, and the strength of its naturalized players cannot be underestimated.
The Tajikistan team has arrived in Abu Dhabi on the 15th of this month for training and preparation, and they have found the Hong Kong, China team to warm up in a very targeted manner.
Compared with the past, the specifications of the national football team to participate in the Asian Cup have changed quite a lot. The first is that the chairman of the Football Association no longer travels with the team, and the former chairman of the Football Association, Chen Xuyuan, has been exposed to the scandal of arranging personnel to play cards with him every night during the team's trip to the United Arab Emirates. In addition, the national football team did not have the pomp of the past hundreds of team charter flights, this time the team even players, coaches including only 50 people, and chose to take an ordinary civilian flight, it is said that because the ticket to Dubai is relatively cheap, the national football team still flew to Dubai first and then took a car to Abu Dhabi.
The national football team is no longer chartering a star-rated hotel, but the hotel selected by the Football Association this time is still very good, although it is far away from the city of Abu Dhabi, but this hotel has its own training base, players can train nearby, and there is no need to pay extra money to rent a training ground.
The third place in the group stage of the Asian Cup also has a chance to qualify, but if the Chinese team wants to fight for the semi-finals, they must win the first place in the group, otherwise they will meet a strong team like Japan in advance.
Speaking of winning the group, the good news is that both Qatar and Lebanon have made the decision to change their coaches this month. Because of the change of leadership of the Football Association, Qatar opened the Portuguese coach Queiroz who was hired by the former president of the Football Association and rehired the Spanish coach Marquez, who coached in the Qatari League;