National Olympic VS Japan Highlights: The first battle is a battle of life and death! 6 years without a win, 5 consecutive defeats, 7 years ago, a magical repetition?

At 21 o'clock on April 16, Beijing time, in the first round of the group stage of the 2024 U23 Asian Cup, the Chinese Olympic Games played against the Japanese Olympic Games.

Aspect 1: The first battle is a battle of life and death

The National Olympic Games are in the same group as Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates, which can be described as the group of death, only the top two in the group can qualify, and only the top three in the event can directly qualify for the Paris Olympics, so for the National Olympics, the first game is a battle of life and death, if you lose, I am afraid it will be difficult to escape.

Aspect 2: 6 years of winless + 5 consecutive defeats

This is the fifth time that the Olympic team has participated in the U23 Asian Cup, and the previous four have been out of the group, with 1 win and 11 losses in 12 games! The last win was 3-0 Oman in the first round in 2018, but since then it has suffered five consecutive defeats, scoring only one goal during this period.

Aspect 3: Who will score for the Olympic Games?

Like the national football team, the biggest problem facing the national Olympic team is the difficulty of scoring goals, this time Cheng Yaodong brought Eiffelding, Wang Yudong, Tao Qianglong, Xie Wenneng, Bai Helamu, Liu Junxian, Liu Zhurun, Du Yuezheng and many other offensive players, I don't know if they can score goals?

Aspect 4: The National Olympic Games have won against Japan

However, it is not that China has not defeated Japan in the Olympic Games. On July 23, 2017, in the third round of the group stage of the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers, the National Olympic Games defeated Japan 2-1 and won 3 consecutive victories to qualify.

Aspect 5: Japan has many returnees

There are five overseas players in this year's Japanese Olympic Games: mixed-race goalkeeper Reio Kokubo who plays in Benfica, right-back Takashi Uchino of Fortuna Dusseldorf in the German Second Division, Rihito Yamamoto and Renru Fujita, who play for St. Truiden in Belgium, and Megumi Sato of Bremen II.

Aspect 6: Female referees enforce the law

The match will be officiated by a team of female referees, officiated by Australian referee Cathy Reibelt, who officiated at the 2022 Men's World Cup. Australian referee Joanna Charaktis and Kyrgyzstan referee Ramina Zoui served as the first and second assistant referees respectively, and the VAR referee was Australian referee Katherine Yatsevich.