In the final round of the U23 Asian Cup group stage, there was a big upset, the Chinese men's football team defeated the United Arab Emirates team 2:0, and in the end we were third in the group, unfortunately and missed the qualification. Japan and South Korea will join forces to qualify from this group and will continue to compete in the knockout rounds. The top four finishers at the U23 Asian Cup qualify for the finals of the Paris Olympics, with the top three qualifying for the Paris Olympics and the fourth-place finishers competing with Guinea from the African zone for the last place in the Games.
Speaking of this game with the UAE team, the performance of the Chinese team is still relatively good, and it seems to be more positive, especially Xie Wenneng, who wasted a lot of opportunities in the first few games, and finally scored his first goal in this game, and at the same time, the UAE team played with fire in the backfield and created opportunities for the Chinese team, and in the end we defeated the UAE team 2:0. In fact, before the game, when we did the preview of the event, we said that it is possible for the Chinese U23 men's football team to get points from the UAE team in this competition, because the Chinese men's football team has performed well in a series of warm-up matches in West Asia, and the Qatari team that has defeated it is above the UAE team. Why?
First of all, the fourth pot team of the U23 Asian Cup is the team in this gear where our Chinese team is located, and only one team in Indonesia has won, but the Indonesian team relies on a lot of naturalized players, and it does not belong to the fourth pot with his strength. This was illustrated in the latter two games, as they won over Australia and Jordan respectively to qualify from the group alongside Qatar. The Chinese team, which does not have any naturalized players, and the other two fourth-tier teams, as of the time of the Chinese team's victory over the UAE team, have not even achieved a draw, which is a total defeat, and the Chinese team defeated the United Arab Emirates as a fourth-pot team, so this is definitely an upset.
We also played against the UAE in qualifying, but we couldn't win that opponent on the pitch and after a few months, we were able to get revenge on the opponent. This point, it is estimated that after watching the first two games, many fans may not have thought of it, thinking that we may not even be able to beat the UAE. Therefore, both the process and the result of this game are very different from everyone's expectations before the game, so this game is a shameful battle for the Chinese men's football team. Although there is still no way to appear, this achievement is still worthy of recognition.
After Cheng Yaodong's U23 Olympic team defeated the United Arab Emirates team, it also set a number of records, and even created some of the best in the history of the Chinese men's football team to participate in the U23 Asian Cup. Cheng Yaodong was the first person to lead the Chinese team to victory in the U23 Asian Cup, a non-local competition. We have played in four Under-23 Asian Cups before and have never won even a draw in a non-home location. Even in the Asian Cup held on home soil, there was only one win and two losses. Therefore, the glory of the first person to make a breakthrough in the overseas U23 Asian Cup was given to the controversial head coach Cheng Yaodong.
In addition, the Chinese team only conceded 4 goals in this competition, and it is said that conceding more than one goal per game is not a dazzling achievement. However, this is already very good compared with the defensive line of the Chinese men's football team in the past, creating a record of the fewest goals conceded by the Chinese men's football team since participating in this competition.