On August 31st, the Chinese men's football team unveiled the schedule for the upcoming international matches, detailing the opponents, dates and venues, and releasing the latest batch of assembly lists. This is undoubtedly a key warm-up platform for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers. For both players and manager Jankovic, this series of matches will be crucial.
Warm-up Schedule and Opponent Analysis
In terms of tournament planning, the national football team, like many national teams, has scheduled two warm-up matches. on September 9, they will face the Malaysian men's national team, and on September 12, they will challenge the Syrian men's national team again. All the matches have been chosen to be held in Chengdu, at the Phoenix Hill Stadium, which is also the home of Chengdu Rongcheng and is no stranger to Chinese Super League fans. The venue has hosted many top-class tournaments and has excellent hosting capabilities.
In terms of opponents, the Malaysian team is seen as a miniaturized version of the Thai team, and there are many similarities in the styles of the two teams. This provides an opportunity for the Chinese team to work on breaking through dense defenses, as well as finding the right tactical arrangements when facing a dominant team. The match against Syria, on the other hand, will be against an opponent with superior hardware, similar to the style of the South Korean team.
Lineup adjustments and personnel changes
In terms of personnel selection, Coach Jankovic picked a total of 23+1 people for the preparation list, some of which were unexpected. Compared with the coach's initial lineup, the number of places for Wei Shihao, Liu Yang, and Zhang Jiaqi has been reduced, while the number of places for Wu Xi, Barton, Li Ke and Li Shuai has been increased. From the age point of view, this list can be said to be a lot of "senior", after all, most of the selected players are in their 30s, experienced.
In the 23+1 man list, there are only 9 players under the age of 30, which reflects that the age structure of the national football players is not reasonable and the young players are weak. In terms of naturalized players, Ackerson will participate, Jiang Guangtai was selected, but Alan and Luo Guofu did not appear in the list, they may have said goodbye to the national team, no more opportunities.
The newcomers are not new.
The inclusion of Chen Pu and Sun Guowen as newly promoted international players means important milestones. Chen Pu, who played well for Shandong Taishan, will be added to the team's side attack. Sun Guowen, on the other hand, was selected amidst controversy, as he has not made many appearances in the Chinese Super League, and although he has occasionally shone, he has done so less frequently. How Jankovic will position him will be a difficult task.
