AFC announced on October 17 that the 2023 Asian Cup will be held by Qatar . Chinese Football Association has been observing the trends. Now it is time to have new moves, prepare for the future and actively respond to new changes in Asian football.
As we all know, in May this year, the AFC announced that China would give up the 2023 18th Asian Cup was originally scheduled to be held in 10 cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Dalian, Qingdao , Xiamen and Suzhou .
Subsequently, the AFC opened the bid to member states again, and Qatar finally defeated South Korea to obtain the hosting rights. This is also the third time Qatar has won the right to host the Asian Cup since 1988 and 2011.
It seems that Qatar will be relocated to the 2023 Asian Cup, and it has nothing to do with Chinese football. Some people even believe that it is a good thing for the Chinese national football team to have one year of preparation time and coach selection. Is this really the case?
Key points and time nodes of the national football team, the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, and the 2023 Asian Cup:
, and the 2023 Asian Cup are held by Qatar, and the game time may change. Before
, most people were optimistic that South Korea would receive the right to host the host because the Asian Cup has been held in 1956 since it was held every four years, and it has been alternately held between East Asia and West Asia. The 2019 Asian Cup is hosted by the UAE. Even if China gives up, South Korea should take over. It will be from June to July next year.
However, Qatar's bid to win the 2023 Asian Cup has brought problems to the national football team's preparations. Qatar has a tropical desert climate, with summer from April to October, which is long and hot. The temperature can reach up to 45 degrees from July to September. Even though athletes compete in such high temperatures, the effect can be imagined. The winter in Qatar is cool and dry, with a minimum temperature of 7 degrees Celsius. Therefore, the Qatar World Cup broke the previous practice of the World Cup and was held from November to December, which is also the first World Cup held in the winter.
Obviously, the 2023 Asian Cup will be held in the winter of 2023, or the beginning of 2024. It is reported that the Qatar Football Association has been preparing for the bid as held in January 2024, which shows that this time has been recognized by the AFC.
It is worth noting that why is the 2023 Asian Cup held different time than the 2022 World Cup held?
According to the arrangements of the AFC, the 2026 World Cup Asian Qualifiers will start in October 2023, with a home and away system. The national football team will directly enter the second stage of the top 36. The first match will be held in November 2023. If Qatar sets the Asian Cup to be held from November to December next year, there will be conflicts in the game time.
In addition, the 2019 UAE Asian Cup will be held from January 6 to February 1, 2019. From this perspective, the holding time of West Asian countries should be very close.
. The 2026 World Cup qualifiers are only left for major international competitions in the 2023.
Various signs indicate that the 2026 US, Canada and Mexico World Cup Asian Qualifiers are only left for major international competitions in 2023.
According to the 2026 World Cup qualifiers announced by the AFC, the national football team will start the game from the second stage. The first stage is October 2023. The teams ranked 26-46 in Asia will play home and away knockout matches. The 11 winning teams will play the top 36 matches with the 1-25th Asian teams, divided into 9 groups, and 4 teams will play home and away system. The time is the FIFA designated national team match days in November 2023, March and June 2024.
. The national football team may be the second qualifiers for the Asian Qualifiers of the US, Canada and Mexico World Cup.
According to past practice, the basis for the draw of the AFC in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers is likely to be the national team world rankings regularly announced by FIFA. The national football team ranks 79th in the world and 11th in Asia. This means that when the AFC determines the team level, if the national football team ranking does not change before the start of the top 36 matches, it should be the second level. In other words, the national football team will join the group with one of the nine seed teams in the top 36 matches in Asia, including Iran, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Qatar, Saudi , Iraq , UAE, Oman, etc.
The top 6 teams in Asia participated in the 2022 World Cup all have technical points above 1400 points, which is at least nearly 100 points higher than the teams in Iraq after 1343 points. At the end of the World Cup, the rankings between the six teams may change, but it will not affect the continued ranking of the top 6 in Asia.
If the national football team wants to avoid these strong opponents, they need to play more international warm-up matches and improve their ranking technical points. Currently, the Chinese national football team is 15 points less than Oman, ranked 9th, and 4 points less than the 10th Uzbekistan . If you defeat some higher-ranked teams in the warm-up match, you will definitely increase your technical points and are expected to enter the first level and become a seed team in the top 36.
The Chinese national football team has 1305 points, 94 points higher than the 18th Lebanon 1211 points. It can be concluded that the Chinese national football team will not fall into the third level.
According to the principles of different groups of the same team, the 10th to 18th are all second-tier teams, including Uzbek, Jordan , Bahrain , Syria , Palestinian , Kyrgyzstan , Vietnam, Lebanon, etc. Football Association should arrange warm-up matches more targeted.
The national football team was originally expected to increase their ranking technical points through the 2023 Asian Cup, but if the 2023 Qatar Asian Cup is confirmed to be held in January 2024, the Football Association must prepare for the future.
. What should the Chinese Football Association do?
(1) Determine the national football coach as soon as possible . Although the Football Association has not officially announced the news that Li Xiaopeng’s will be dismissed, it is highly likely that he will not stay. It is reported that the new coach is a foreign coach who is familiar with Chinese football. Who will be there? Let's wait and see.
(2) Quickly form a new national team . It is only one year since the start of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers. Time is tight and the task is heavy. If the new head coach of the national football team cannot be in place for the time being, you might as well try to let Yankovic be responsible for daily training. After all, before East Asian Cup , Yankovic personally trained Tan Long , Jiang Guangtai , Zhang Linpeng , Zhu Chenjie , Wu Xi , Dai Weijun , Han Jiaqi, Zhang Yuning , etc. When the new coach is in place, Yang Shuai himself will be recognized during the transition period, or take over successfully, or let it go naturally and officially announce it. After all, time is no longer waiting.
(3) Resuming the " China Cup " International Football Invitational Tournament . The Football Association may consider starting to resume the "China Cup" competition in March next year, and use the national team game day to organize the fourth "China Cup" International Football Invitational Tournament. On the one hand, it is to prepare for the World Cup qualifiers and train the team to fight tough battles. On the other hand, it is to help improve the national team ranking technical points.
When inviting opponents, it is best to maintain 4 teams, as much as possible, there are both the top 35 European and American powers in the world, and one of the top 6 Asians who participated in the 2022 World Cup. Perhaps some people are worried that the Chinese team will lose a big score. After all, the Chinese national team lost 0-6 to Wales, which ranked 19 in the second tournament, and lost 1-4 to , Czech , which ranked 35 in the world. It is normal.
Asian champion Japan lost -4 Venezuela , 0-4 lost Chile , 0-3 lost to Tunisia ; Qatar participated in the European qualifiers, 0-4 lost Serbia , 1-3, 0-3 lost pp. 0-4 Ireland , etc., "We need to find a master to play chess."
(4) Can China host the 2031 Asian Cup and prepare in advance for the bid for the 2034 or 2038 World Cup? When the AFC announced that Qatar won the right to host the 2023 Asian Cup, it also announced that the 2027 Asian Cup will be competed by Saudi Arabia and India. The result was announced at the AFC Executive Committee in February 2023.
It is worth noting that on September 22, the top leader of the General Administration of Sports of China asked to unify his thinking, firmly establish the determination and confidence to make a comeback in football, and implement the " Overall Plan for the Reform and Development of China Football" (hereinafter referred to as the Plan) issued in 2015.
The "Plan" mentioned the bid for World Cup twice. The specific content is: in the "Long-term Goals", "actively apply for FIFA Men's Football World Cup", and in the "Promoting International Event Exchange", "Study and promote the bid for FIFA Men's Football World Cup related work".
From this perspective, China was most likely to prepare for the timely bid for the World Cup in in the future. There are 10 cities in China that want to build and renovate 10 stadiums: Xiamen Baigu Stadium, Qingdao Qingchundao Football Stadium, Chongqing Longxing Stadium, Xi'an International Football Center , Dalian Pike Bay Football Stadium, Chengdu Phoenix Mountain Stadium, SAIC Pudong Football Stadium, Suzhou Kunshan Football Stadium, Tianjin Binhai Football Stadium and New Beijing Workers' Sports.
Most of these stadiums have entered the final stage of the project. They have already spent money, but they cannot be wasted. It is a favorable condition for bidding when holding the Asian Cup and the World Cup.
At present, the 2030 World Cup bidding news is that the four countries of England, Scotland , Wales and Ireland formed the "British Isles" to jointly bid; Uruguay , Argentina , Chile, Uruguay South America jointly bid; Spain and Portugal "double teeth" jointly bid; Saudi Arabia, Greece , Egypt 3 countries will also jointly bid for 030 World Cup .
When will China bid for the World Cup?
