The Football Association held the Four Nations Tournament in September, and the national football team made multi-handed preparations

Reporter Chen Yong reports On June 5th and 10th, the national football team will play the last two games of the round of 18, away against Indonesia and at home against Bahrain. At the same time, the national football team has also started preparations for the next competition cycle, of course, whether the new competition cycle is the World Preliminary Play-offs or a new competition cycle, which needs to be determined according to the results of the last two matches of the round of 18.

Regarding the "after June" match cycle, the national football team has made many preparations.

On April 25, the Chinese Football Association issued the "Notice on Soliciting Host Cities for the FIFA 2026 World Cup Asian Play-offs", that is, the third and fourth places in each group of the top 18 will advance to the play-offs. It is worth noting that after the end of the round of 18, the AFC will determine the final host location among the member associations that have submitted their bids and qualified for the 2026 World Preliminary Tournament play-offs. In other words, the Chinese Football Association is a pre-bid, and only the national football team can qualify for the October play-offs. As mentioned before in this newspaper, this pre-bid is not only an established process, but also an incentive for the two "decisive battles" in June.

On May 13, the Chinese Football Association issued the "Notice on Soliciting the 2025 China Team China Men's Football International Invitational Tournament Host Tournament", which plans to hold the four-nation tournament from September 1 to 9, with teams including the Chinese national men's football team and three other foreign teams, a total of four games, that is, two pairs of pairs and then one or two and three or four finals, rather than the traditional four-nation single round-robin system, which is also in line with the practice of the national team playing two matches on a FIFA match day. The foreign team, the specific schedule and kick-off time are to be further confirmed. Obviously, the four-nation national football tournament held in September is not a simple warm-up event.

The current uncertainty is whether the national football team will qualify for the play-offs. If the national football team qualifies for the play-offs, the next competition cycle of the national football team will be the World Preliminary Play-offs, which is actually a natural continuation of this current competition cycle, and all work will naturally proceed step by step.

But if the national football team does not qualify for the play-offs in the end, it will naturally be impossible to bid for the play-offs in October, and the national football team will enter a new cycle. In this new cycle, the national football team may also involve the change of coach and other work, theoretically, in the two months from July to August, the Chinese Football Association is expected to complete the change of coach, so that the four countries in September will become the starting point of the next big competition cycle of the national football team.

It is worth noting that before the four-nation tournament in September, the national football team will also participate in the East Asian Cup held in South Korea from July 7 to 16, and the Japanese team has confirmed the qualification for the World Cup, and the South Korean team is 4 points ahead of the third place in the group, and there is a high probability that they will also qualify for the World Cup in June. As for the team mode of the national football team, it is necessary to look at the final results of the round of 18, if you advance to the play-offs, the East Asian Cup will be an important part of the national football team's preparation for the play-offs, if you cannot qualify for the play-offs, the East Asian Cup is likely to select outstanding young players to participate.

After Ivankovic coached the national football team, the rejuvenation process of the national football team has satisfied all walks of life, and the replacement of the old and the new has entered a relatively benign stage. At the same time, the performance of many young players has also been very good recently: in addition to Wang Yudong (18 years old), Hu Hetao (21 years old) and Bai Helamu (22 years old) and other national football main and rotation players, Liu Chengyu (18 years old), Kuai Jiwen (19 years old), Zhu Pengyu (20 years old), Mao Weijie (19 years old), Xiang Yuwang (21 years old) and other young attackers have excellent performances, recently scored goals or assists, in the midfield, Xu Bin (21 years old) and Liu Haofan (21 years old) and other players have also performed well, Including 25-year-old Liao Jintao, he has also won praise from all walks of life. Regardless of whether the national football team finally qualifies for the play-offs, from the current arrangement, in July and September, the national football team has enough quality games to play during the international break, and these young players have more or less the opportunity to get training in the national football team.

In addition, before the national football team plays in the round of 18, the U16 national football team (09 national junior team) will participate in the Hohhot Four Nations Tournament from May 28 to June 1, and the opponents are Saudi Arabia on May 28, Vietnam on the 30th, and Australia on June 1. The 09 major will participate in the U17 Asian Cup to be held next year, in Saudi Arabia, and its qualifiers will be played in the second half of this year.