At 18:00 GMT on January 27, the seventh round of Group B of the Asian qualifying round for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar took place in an eye-catching showdown. At Saitama 2002 Stadium, our soccer team challenged Japan away from home. This match was the first official match for our soccer team in 2022, and also the first match for Li Xiaopeng after he became the head coach of the men's national team. However, the gap in strength allowed our team to lose 0-2, Li Xiaopeng's debut suffered "opening black".
Review of the first round of the 12-team tournament, the then head coach of our team Li Tie in front of the Japanese team to take the "iron bucket formation", in the defensive end of the heavy deployment, but ultimately lost 0-1. In this game, Li Xiaopeng seems to have learned the lessons of Li Tie, will be adjusted to the formation of 4 defenders + double striker, the starting lineup, the veteran Artemisia Artemisia replaces Zhang Xizhe to become the commander of the attack, which shows that Li Xiaopeng does not intend to stick to the dead guard. The partnership of Xu Xin and Wu Xi is also regarded as the strongest midfield combination of our current team.
However, strength was still the key to deciding the game. Despite the quick technical and tactical adjustments made by our team, the scene was still ugly. Throughout the first half, our team had no chance to attack. After the first 10 minutes of warm-up, the Japanese team quickly discovered our team's weakness in the combination of side and center, and continuously attacked Artemisia Junmin and Zheng Zheng's side. In the end, Stanley Wong's careless handball while returning to defense led to Japan's first record with a penalty kick by Isao Osako, and after the goal, the Japanese team was more comfortable controlling the game. In the first half, Japan's possession rate was even more than 70%, while our team had nothing to show for it, with zero shots on goal and zero corner kicks.
Into the second half, Li Xiaopeng first substitution adjustment, Alan and Wei Shihao on the field, replacing Artemisia Junmin and Zhang Yuning. But soon after, the Japanese team took advantage of our team's defender's mistakes, the middle of the Ito Junya direct header, extending the score to 2-0. Then, Li Xiaopeng used Dai Weijun to replace the veteran Zheng Zheng, but on the whole, Li Xiaopeng's substitutions did not achieve a significant effect. Throughout the game, the Japanese team's shot count was as high as 17 times, while our team's shot count was only two times, the gap is obvious. This shows that both offense and defense, our team and the Japanese team have a huge gap.
Last September, in the first round of the 12-team tournament, our team's possession rate was only 30%, with 3 shots and 0 shots on goal, and only 1 corner kick. In the end, not only lost the game, and the scene is quite passive. In contrast, under the leadership of Li Xiaopeng, our team did not have much improvement, the strength gap between the two teams is obviously not a few months of practice can make up for.
In fact, Li Xiaopeng was appointed to take over our team without much preparation time. December 3 last year, that is, half a month after playing the sixth round of the 12 strong match with Australia, the CFA agreed to Li Tie's resignation request, and immediately announced that Li Xiaopeng took over. At the time, the People's Daily commented, "With a record of one win, two draws and three losses in six rounds, Li Tie left his successor with a record basically comparable to the level of the national soccer team's positioning."
Li Xiaopeng took office after the first phase of training will set out a long 52 people list, the coaching staff is also quite luxurious. After nearly ten days of training in Shanghai, the team finalized a 27-player travel list, compared with the last list, seven new international players, they are Zheng Zheng, Deng Hanwen, Liu Yang, Dai Weijun, Tan Long, Fernando, Ji Xiang. Among them, Dai Weijun is the first time to be selected as an international footballer. However, Fernando has arrived in Holland and then returned to Brazil due to a family matter, and will be confirmed to miss the two rounds of the 12-team tournament. From this game, Li Xiaopeng has not much novelty either in terms of personnel or tactics, but in the face of the powerful Japanese team, Li Xiaopeng in the face of danger is obviously unable to do anything. The next match against Vietnam is the biggest test for him.
