China will visit Thailand on Thursday night (16th) to start the first match of the World Cup qualifying tournament. According to the mainland media, the national football team will take the "civilian route" this time, with no chartered flights and no chef accompanying the team, which seems to be a deliberate attempt to keep a low profile and reduce the pressure on the players.
In the past, when Chen Xuyuan was in charge of the CFA, most of the time when the national football team had important away matches, they would charter a plane to fly to a foreign country with a professional chef accompanying the team to take care of the food and drink of the players in order to ensure the safety of the team. However, after Song Kai became the new president of CFA last month, he decided to cancel the chartered flight system, and there is no chef accompanying the team, so the team can only fly economy class to Thailand this time. In addition, no CFA officials went with the team to Thailand to watch the soccer match. It is believed that the team did not want the players to be under too much pressure.
