Chinese men's football 2024 Asian Cup preview: Harvest "signing", still need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past

The 2024 Asian Cup is about to start, and Jankovic announced that the Chinese men's football team has entered the Asian Cup time. In this Asian Cup, the Chinese men's football team continued to draw the "upper sign" in the Asian Cup, and the teams in the same group included Tajikistan, Lebanon, and the Qatar team that had caused great traumatic memories to the Chinese men's football team. In 2024, it is worth looking forward to whether the Chinese team led by Yang Shuai can continue the tradition of being led by foreign coaches and will definitely enter the knockout round of the Asian Cup.

Jankovic led the team, and the Chinese men's football team returned to the era of foreign coaches

In past competitions, local coaches are significantly inferior to foreign coaches in leading teams, which is an iron law at the men's football level. The Chinese men's football team was led by a local coach twice in 2007 and 2011, but both failed in the group stage. If the foreign coach leads the team, the national football team can at least reach the top 8 position. Now that Jankovic is leading the team, at least in terms of mobilizing the enthusiasm of the players and the rigor of training, the foreign coach is obviously more adept. Therefore, the national football team should still aim to "protect eight and fight for four" in this Asian Cup.

Harvest "on the sign", but beware of repeating the mistakes of the past

The Chinese team has been lucky in the Asian Cup, and in this Asian Cup, the national football team is in the same group as Tajikistan, Lebanon and Qatar. However, the Chinese team must be careful of having four points in this group and can only finish third in the group. Especially against Qatar, as the host team, Qatar may profit from the referee in the game, similar to the situation in 2011 where the opponent will be judged to have committed a foul whenever there is physical contact, which must be considered by the coaching staff and players. Therefore, against Lebanon and Tajikistan, the Chinese team must take all three points and have more goal difference. Only in this way can the national football team strive to enter the quarterfinals in the follow-up games.

I hope that in the end, the Chinese team can achieve the goal of "protecting eight and fighting for four". Good luck to the national football team.