With the 24th round of the Chinese Super League in the books, a two-week break will follow, with the quarterfinals of the AFC Cup and the International Game Week coming up. During this period, our National Football Team, Asian Games Team and National Olympic Team will be in a state of intense preparation for a series of warm-up matches. All three teams are tasked with major tournaments this year. The national soccer team will participate in the World Cup qualifiers, the Asian Games team will appear in the Hangzhou Asian Games, and the national Olympic team will have to deal with the challenges of the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers and Olympic qualifiers.
The national soccer team is virtually set to begin training in Chengdu and will take on international opponents such as Malaysia and Syria. The Asian Games are edging closer and are expected to start in mid-September. Before that, the national Olympic team needs to prepare for the Olympic qualifiers in advance. After two warm-up matches against Turkmenistan in Dalian, the National Olympic Team will meet their opponents for the upcoming U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers in Dalian: UAE, India and Maldives.
Turkmenistan had planned to play an underdog to boost their morale and confidence, but were not expected to suffer a heavy defeat in their first warm-up match against Turkmenistan. The Olympics played a closed instructional match against Turkmenistan at the Barracuda Bay outfield in Dalian. In the end, the Olympics were defeated by 0-2. Even though it was an internal teaching match and the coaching staff aimed to observe the lineup and players, the 0-2 loss at home against Turkmenistan, ranked 138th in the world, was still a shock. As we all know, in recent years, the performance of teams from lower national brands has not been good, with many age-group national teams not even able to enter Asian level competitions, and losing to teams like Turkmenistan is even more difficult to accept.
Yew Toh, currently a well-known coach on the Olympic coaching team, has come under some criticism for his achievements under his leadership. In three days, the Olympics will begin their second instructional match against Turkmenistan. It is a match that cannot be missed, otherwise the Olympics' morale and confidence may have hit rock bottom before the start of the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers. After the two matches in Turkmenistan, the National Olympic Team will take a temporary break and officially face UAE U23 on September 6 in Barracuda Bay, Dalian to start the U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers.
The Chinese national team has been hovering around 80th in the international rankings, which is among the third tier of Asian teams. Although we often hold disappointment and dissatisfaction with the national team, we have to admit that the current national team may be the most powerful team in the future for quite some time. This is because Chinese soccer has entered a stage where succession is not easy. While the national football team has been able to beat not-so-lowly ranked teams like Syria in international tournaments, our young national team has begun to fail to beat 138th ranked Turkmenistan in lower level matches.
