Original title: No. 81 in the world (quote)
The national football Asian Cup draw ranks second (theme)
Beijing Evening News reporter Li Li
Yesterday, FIFA announced the latest national team rankings. Due to only one draw and one loss in the two warm-up matches with the New Zealand team in March, the Chinese men’s football team dropped one place from the 80th in the previous world ranking to the 81st. It is worth mentioning that the last time the national football team fell out of the 80th place was in 2017. With the determination of the latest world ranking, the draw for the Qatar Asian Cup finals was also announced, and the Chinese team became the second team.
On April 5, the AFC officially announced the exact match time for the 2023 Qatar Asian Cup. A total of 24 teams participated in this year’s Asian Cup. The competition time is from January 12 to February 10, 2024. The draw ceremony will be held at the Katara Opera House in Doha on May 11.
Yesterday, FIFA announced the latest ranking of the men’s national team. The world ranking of the Chinese team fell to 81st, the lowest ranking since 2017. In 2017, the lowest ranking of the national football team reached 86th. Since then, the ranking of the national football team has been in the top 80.
Due to the decline in the ranking, the Chinese team entered the second pot in the Asian Cup finals in Qatar. The teams in the same class include the Iraqi team, the UAE team, Oman team, Uzbekistan team and Jordan team. The Qatar team, Japan team, Iran team, South Korea team, Australia team, and Saudi Arabia team that participated in the 2022 World Cup are listed as seeded teams (first tier); the third tier teams are Bahrain, Syria, and Palestine. , Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon; India, Tajikistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia entered the fourth pot.
There is an obvious gap in strength between the national football team and the first-tier teams. The most ideal situation is that the national football team’s FIFA points enter the top six in Asia and enter the first-tier teams, so that they can avoid the strongest opponents. However, due to long-term failure to participate in international A-level competitions and poor performance, the ranking of the national football team has dropped again and again.
In fact, there are also old rivals in Chinese football among the teams in the third and fourth tiers. The Syrian team and the Vietnamese team in the third tier have both defeated the Chinese team in recent important matches. Among them, the Vietnamese team not only defeated the Chinese team in the top 12 of the Qatar World Cup Asian qualifiers, but also performed well in the last Asian Cup and reached the top eight. And the Syrian team is in the same group as the Chinese team almost every time in important matches, and the national football team also wins less and loses more. The overall strength of the fourth-tier teams is relatively weak, but with the decline in the strength of the national football team and the improvement of the opponent’s level, the national football team is now no longer sure of winning in the face of the once defeated teams of Thailand and Tajikistan.