According to the established plan, our men's soccer team, coached by Jankovic, was scheduled to assemble in Qingdao on July 13th and take a flight to Nagoya, Japan, at 8:30 a.m. on July 17th in order to prepare for the upcoming East Asian Cup Football Championships to be held in their home country. However, due to a number of constraints, the team only had three opportunities to practice together between the assembly and the trip. For a young team with only four players who have had experience in world-class A-level tournaments, this tournament is undoubtedly full of challenges and difficulties. Yankovic spoke about this reality and put his hopes on the spirit of the young players.
Late at night on July 8, the CFA announced the 24-player roster for the East Asian Cup. Of the five "overage internationals" originally planned to be called up, only Jiang Guangtai and Tan Long were selected, while Wu Xi, Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Yuning were unable to participate due to injuries in the league.
The list shows that of the 24 players, only Zhu Chenjie and Dai Weijun have experience of appearing in World A matches, apart from Tan Long and Jiang Guangtai. With an average age of just 22.5, the 22 U23-age players form the backbone of the squad.
In addition to the players' general lack of experience in international competitions, the national soccer selection team also faces the problem of tight time for pre-match bonding. The first 10 rounds of the season ended on July 12, and even though some of the club team's matches ended on the 10th or 11th, the coaching staff gave up the plan to train on the day of the assembly because the players had just gone through an intense league campaign and needed a proper rest and recuperation. In this way, from the assembly to travel to Japan, the national soccer selection team only three opportunities to practice together. Yankovic how to find the "best lineup" to deal with the East Asian Cup in such a short period of time, this question will test his tactical wisdom.
Like our women's soccer team, which is traveling to Japan together, our men's soccer selection team will also have to deal with the challenge of epidemic prevention during this trip. According to the plan, the two teams will depart from Qingdao to Nagoya, Japan on a chartered flight that will take off at 8:30 a.m. on July 17th. As the East Asian Cup men's and women's soccer tournaments are scheduled to be held at Toyota Stadium in Aichi Prefecture and Kashima Soccer Stadium in Ibaraki Prefecture, the two national teams will enter Japan in the afternoon of the 17th at the local time, and then take a bus to their respective resident hotels.
In order to ensure the health and safety of the team during the visit, the national soccer selection team will draw on the experience of epidemic prevention during the World Preliminary Cup, and do a good job of all epidemic prevention measures. However, during the period in Japan, due to the actual situation, the men's and women's soccer teams may not be able to be completely in the "bubble-type" epidemic prevention closed loop. In this case, the whole team will be united in the local action, food and accommodation are arranged in the resident, every day activities will be strictly controlled in the resident, training venues and competition venues between the track.
