[Source: Hangzhou Daily]
On April 16, the 2024 U23 Asian Cup and the Asian Qualifiers for the Paris Olympics kicked off in Qatar. In the first round of the group, the Chinese Olympic team, which faced the strongest team in the same group, Japan, conceded a goal in the opening 8 minutes, and soon encountered a favorable situation in which the opponent was sent off. However, his own offensive ability was short and his response to the situation was insufficient, and he finally failed to grasp the opportunity and lost 0-1 to the opponent.
In the past less than a month, the national Olympic team has played 6 consecutive warm-up matches in preparation for the U23 Asian Cup, with 3 wins and 3 losses. Among them, the successive victories over Qatar, Malaysia and Jordan made the outside world once say: "Is this still the Chinese Olympic team we know?" But the whole team still remained calm about this, and head coach Cheng Yaodong emphasized at the pre-match press conference that the main purpose of this competition is to feel the atmosphere of the World Cup stadium and get exercise when playing against strong teams like Japan and South Korea.
In terms of strength, it is already a disadvantage, and the team's original lineup has also had an unexpected situation. Just a few hours before the start of this game, the national Olympic team officially announced that Mutalifu would not be able to participate due to injury, which also made the national Olympic team's offensive line missing an important chess piece.
After the start of the game, the Japanese Olympic team, which had the advantage in strength, quickly took the initiative. In the 8th minute, Kusheng Matsuki, who plays for Tokyo FC, received a cross from his teammates and scored a goal. Falling behind early made the Chinese Olympic team's shrinking defense and waiting for opportunities to counterattack tactics meaningless, and they could only seek to press the attack. In the 18th minute, there was an unexpected situation on the field, Japanese defender Takaya Nishio maliciously elbowed Jia Feifei without the ball, and the referee watched the video under the reminder of the video assistant referee, and showed a red card to Takaya Nishio, and one more person was played on the Chinese Olympic field.
However, the numerical advantage did not give people a glimmer of hope of equalizing, in the face of Japan's shrinking backline, the Chinese national Olympic team, which was too slow to switch between attack and defense, did not have many opportunities to threaten the opponent's goal, and could only seek to break through free kicks and corners in front, but the only few tackles of the Japanese team after the counterattack were quite threatening. Several substitutions of the Chinese Olympic team did not work, and in the end, they even replaced the two-meter-tall substitute goalkeeper Jin Yong as a cameo as a center forward, but the effect was better than nothing. A 0-1 defeat is acceptable.
For the Chinese Olympic Games, which was not favored in the first place, losing this game may be expected by most people, and the score of 0-1 is not an unacceptable result. However, in the case of 80 minutes of playing with one more person, the team did not adopt the most reasonable and effective offensive method, and the effect of substitution adjustment was hardly successful. In the end, it was lost what was probably the most likely opportunity to cause an upset in the group stage.
Next, the Chinese Olympic team will face the second opponent of the group, the South Korean team, on the evening of April 19.
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