Geographically speaking, Qatar is an Arab country in West Asia, and the Qatar team is naturally under the jurisdiction of the AFC. However, UEFA actually announced that Qatar would participate in the European World Cup qualifiers. This news was the first time I heard it, and it was very sudden, but it was confirmed by Qatar Football Association. Can it be said that Qatar has "left Asia and entered Europe"? What happened?
As we all know, there are also individual teams in Asia who participate in various official competitions organized by UEFA, such as Kazakhstan in Central Asia, but they all go through certain procedures. On June 20 12, Kazakhstan Football Association withdrew from AFC, and then applied to UEFA for membership on the grounds that Kazakhstan was a member of the former Soviet Union and was originally a part of UEFA.
UEFA sent a delegation to visit Kazakhstan in February 20 12, and the recommendation report of the UEFA Executive Committee was discussed and adopted by the Congress of the Federation of European Football Associations in April 20 13. So to some extent, Kazakhstan can be said to have returned to UEFA. But the actual reason is that the strength of Kazakhstan team is not good. I want to break through in Asia and reach the final stage of the World Cup.
On the one hand, there are too few places in Asia to participate in the World Cup finals. There are only five places in the 46 member associations of the AFC. On the other hand, UEFA, with 55 associations and 13 seats, is determined to be ranked fifth in the latest world in Kazakhstan, which is uncompetitive in Asian football (latest world ranking 122). To tell the truth, Kazakhstan can really find strong teams in the face of some UEFA fishing teams.
For example, against Andorra (15 1), Malta (176), Moldova (177), Liechtenstein (18 1), and Gibraltar (1). With Azerbaijan (109), Cyprus (100), Estonia (1 10), Lithuania (129), it is estimated that there will be winners or losers. Against the fourth European team such as Israel (87), Belarus (88), Georgia (89), Luxembourg (98) and Armenia (99), there is a chance to win by surprise.
There are teams in Asia that "leave Asia and enter Europe". In fact, some teams try their best to "enter Asia", such as Australia (the latest world ranking is 4 1, the fourth in Asia). Australia is located in the southern hemisphere, surrounded by the sea. It is the most economically developed country in the southern hemisphere and the only country in the world that covers the whole continent and belongs to Oceania.
Similarly, the number of participants in the World Cup is also "a disaster". Oceania Football Association has only 0.5 World Cup finals. Although Australia can advance to Oceania with 65,438+000% almost every time, it can only win a ticket by playing the play-offs. However, the opponents in the play-offs are the ones that make Australia a headache, often the strong teams from South America or North America. The Australian team was not sure of winning and was eliminated again and again.
Before joining the Asian football map, Australia only participated in the 1974 World Cup. On June 65438+1 October1day, 2006, the Australian Football Association broke away from the Oceania Football Association and applied to join the AFC, which was successful. Australia successfully qualified from the Asian region for four consecutive years, successfully advanced to the World Cup finals in 2006, 20 10, 20 14, 20 18, and won the first Asian Cup title in the history of the national team as the host in the 20 15 Asian Cup. All this is enough to show that the decision of the Australian Football Association to "go abroad and enter Asia" is correct.
So far, the China football team has only participated in the 2002 World Cup between Japan and South Korea. The hosts of that World Cup are South Korea and Japan. Without a host team, "magic coach" milutinovic led the national football team to successfully grab a ticket for the World Cup in Korea and Japan, realizing the dream of hundreds of millions of Korean fans. However, since then, 18 years have passed, and the China men's soccer team is still working towards the goal of "rushing out of Asia and going to the world".
Wang Jianlin, the boss of Wanda Group, has always been interested in China football. In order to solve the problem that China's national football team lacks international competition experience and has no chance to compete with world-class teams, after two years and hundreds of negotiations, it finally reached an agreement with China Football Association, AFC and FIFA, which led to the FIFA A-level competition named "China Cup", and the participating national teams could get official FIFA points.
China Cup has been held for three times. The first China Cup invited three European and American teams: Croatia (latest world ranking 1 1), Chile (17) and Iceland (46). Italian coach Marcello Lippi led China to a good result, with a penalty of 0-2 Iceland, 1- 1 Croatia.
The four teams participating in the 2nd China Cup include Uruguay (8), Wales (18) and Czech Republic (42) in addition to the national football team. As a result, China lost both wars, and it was a big defeat, 0-6 in Wales, 1-4 in Czech Republic. This result made Lippi's popularity plummet in the eyes of the Football Association, the media and fans, and there was a crisis of trust. Since then, the national football team has basically stopped playing warm-up matches with strong European and American teams.
The third China Cup continues to be held in Nanning, Guangxi. The national football coach is Evergrande coach Italian Cannavaro. As a result, China still lost in the two wars, and also lost to two Asian teams, Thailand and Uzbekistan, with a score of 0-/kloc-0-. This result is embarrassing. The champion of that year was Uruguay's 4-0 victory over Thailand.
Lippi coached China twice, and the second time he started the road of "naturalization". After Li Tie took over as the head coach of the national football team, the "naturalized players" who have been selected for the national football team are Jiang, Fernando and Luo of Guangzhou Evergrande and Li Ke of Guoan. In addition, Alan, who represented Guoan in the AFC Champions League, is also one of the players that Li Tie appreciates very much.
It is worth noting that although Evergrande, the 8-time champion, has many excellent local players, naturalized players and foreign aid, Cannavaro once again lost the Super League championship in such a special year and special competition system in 2020; As two-time AFC Champions, she was eliminated by Japan and South Korea in the same group, and the group failed to qualify. Domesticated players (formerly known as Elkson), Ronaldo and Jiangdu seem to be gradually "homogenized", but fortunately Fernando and Alan are still competitive.
Jiangsu Suning defeated defending champion Evergrande with a total score of 2- 1 in the two rounds of Super League championship finals, and foreign aid teixeira contributed a lot. According to Miao Yuan, a media person, teixeira's outstanding performance in this year's Super League, especially in the final between Suning and Evergrande, became the key factor for Suning to win the championship. Teixeira was highly recognized by the leaders in charge of the national football team, and his naturalization work was put on the important agenda. It is rumored that Shanghai is infinitely close to teixeira, but teixeira will not meet the naturalization requirements until the first quarter of next year. What will happen in the future is unknown.
Objectively speaking, if teixeira can enter the national football team, Fernando can play on behalf of the national football team, and Daniel F. Akerson becomes a frequent visitor on the bench, the embarrassing situation of "no goal, no goal" will definitely be solved, and Li Tie's national football team is expected to be promoted by 12. It is reported that teixeira himself does not exclude the issue of naturalization, but the key factor cannot be separated from the word "money". With the money in place, it is not a problem to naturalize the national football team. But the problem is that it is not easy to naturalize teixeira, and there are many obstacles: first, age, second, salary-limited age, and third, how the Football Association and clubs should make Chinese and foreign players "equal".
In addition, according to the foreign media "Top Sports in Africa" website, Zall's foreign aid Evras said in a program: "I was close to the opportunity to play for China, but I refused. I think this has something to do with what happened when the Ivorian national team recruited me recently. "
Patrice Evra was selected for the national team of C? te d 'Ivoire to participate in the 2022 Africa Cup qualifiers. According to the plan, he should report back to the national team before165438+1October 7, but Zall refused to let him go in order to avoid relegation. It is worth noting that if Evras represents the national team of C? te d 'Ivoire in the African Cup of Nations, as long as he makes his debut, he will not be qualified to represent China, which means that it is difficult for any club in the Super League to be naturalized.
With the current national football strength, there is little hope that outstanding foreign players who do not naturalize and play in the Super League will enter the 2022 World Cup. In fact, Qatar, the host of the 2022 World Cup, used naturalized players from Brazil, Africa and Europe in the 1997 Top Ten and the 20 10 South Africa World Cup qualifiers. However, Qatar Football Association stopped the naturalization policy in 20 16, and in 20 19, 1, Qatar won the Asian Cup, creating a new history of Asian football.
2019 65438+1On October 25th, Qatar and Japan participated in the Copa America as invited teams, which was the first time in history that an Asian team was invited to participate in the Copa America. Qatar is in a group with Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay, and the group scores are 2-2 Paraguay, 0- 1 Colombia and 0-2 Argentina.
In fact, Qatar (ranked 59th in the world) entered the 2022 World Cup finals directly as the host country, and participated in the World Cup for the first time. What it lacks most is to play against strong teams in Europe and America, and it is of little value to participate in Asian regional qualifiers. If it is the host team, it is ugly to be eliminated in the group stage, and it will also affect the mood and ratings of local fans. Therefore, playing more games with world-class teams is also an effective measure to improve Qatar's strength.
UEFA invited Qatar to participate in the first European group match in the second half of this year, which is a rare opportunity for Qataris. There are also five teams in this group: Portugal (ranked 5th in the world), Serbia (30th), Ireland (42nd), Luxembourg (98th) and Azerbaijan (109), which means Qatar can get at least 65438. However, in order to avoid affecting the fairness and justice of the game, Qatar's performance is not used as the basis for ranking other teams in the same group. At the same time, in order to reduce the travel of opponents in the same group, Qatar will choose a place as the home of Europe.
In addition, Qatar will also participate in the Copa America in June, 200212002, and the Gold Cup in Central and North America and the Caribbean in July, which means that Qatar will not only have the opportunity to take advantage of its host status to win the lottery for the 2022 World Cup, but also learn about the skills and tactics of different European and American teams through these different international events, so as to prepare for the future Doha World Cup.
In fact, as the host of the 2022 World Cup, Qatar has been taken care of in many ways. It is reported that Qatar has just finished a 2022 World Cup Asian Top 40 qualifier and a 2023 Asian Cup qualifier. As the defending champion of the Asian Cup, Qatar beat Bangladesh 5-0 and led Group E with unbeaten record. It is worth noting that except for the Battle of Carmon, the other group matches have not yet started. The World Cup preliminaries started against the background that the situation is still grim. The competition plan of Qatar Football Association has been approved by FIFA and AFC, which shows that as the representative of Asian football and the host of the 2022 World Cup, Qataris are "green lights all the way".
When China footballers are still worried about how to get a neutral name for the Super League and China A, and when Chinese people are still expecting strong support to compete in the top 40, Qatar has already started preparing for the 2022 World Cup and has entered the stage of "leaving Asia and entering Europe"; While we are still grappling with who teixeira's foreign aid will be naturalized and how to deal with some potential naturalized targets such as Ivo and Kardec, the strength gap between China and has further widened.