Beijing Evening News |Reporter Zhao Xiaosong American editor Wu Wei.
For the Chinese women's football team, the upcoming 2023 has been a busy year - the World Cup, the Asian Games, the Olympic Preliminary Round, and two overseas training sessions at the beginning and end of the year, playing more than 20 games throughout the year. However, the busy Chinese women's football team did not meet expectations this year, especially missing the Paris Olympics ahead of schedule, leaving the team facing the dilemma of having no major tournament to play in the next two years. Head coach Shui Qingxia "stepped down" at the end of November, and the Chinese women's football team, which is waiting for the new "helmsman", also needs to think about the future direction.
Back in February this year, then-coach Shui Qingxia emphasized in an interview that the Chinese women's football team will make every effort to advance to the quarterfinals in the first hurdle of the "three major competitions" World Cup.
However, in the face of an exceptionally difficult grouping situation, the Chinese women's football team did not create a miracle. The goal conceded at the last moment of the first game was "killed" by the Nordic powerhouse Denmark, and the second game defeated the Haitian team 1-0 with less play and more difficulty, and lost 1-6 to the European champion England team in the final game, and finally went out of the group with 1 win and 2 losses. Even more difficult for fans to accept than the result is the huge gap between the team on the pitch and the world's top teams like England. Wang Shuang's choked sentence "We are not a particularly good role model, I hope that the future children will play wonderful football", which became a sad footnote to the defeat of the Chinese women's football team.
At the Hangzhou Asian Games held from the end of September to the beginning of October, the Chinese women's football team, which played with the main force, was eliminated by the young Japanese team in the semi-finals, and finally only won the bronze medal. Compared with the World Cup exit, this result made Shui Qingxia and the team suffer more criticism. A month later, in the second stage of the Asian qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics, the Chinese women's football team playing at home in Xiamen lost to the North Korean team, defeated the Thai team, and drew with the South Korean team, and finally bid farewell to the Paris Olympics ahead of schedule.
The results of the "three major competitions" all failed to meet expectations, and the Chinese Football Association also officially announced Shui Qingxia's resignation at the end of November.
Bidding farewell to Shui Qingxia, the Chinese women's football team was led by U20 women's football coach Wang Jun this month to go to the United States to play two warm-up matches with the United States women's football team, and finally won two consecutive games by the opponent.
If 2022, when the Asian championship was regained, was a year for the Chinese women's football team to regain confidence, then 2023, when the "three major competitions" were defeated, was a year for the team to see its shortcomings again. Throughout 2023, the Chinese women's football team has played 13 times against European and American teams in all competitions, winning only three games, one of which was a defeat to Haiti in the group stage of the World Cup, and the other two were closed warm-up matches against the Russian team during a training camp in Qingdao in early July. The 1-4 defeat to Sweden, 0-3 to Spain, 0-2 to the United States, and 1-6 to England in the World Cup all reflect the huge gap between the Chinese women's football team and the world's high-level teams.
The Chinese women's football team may not usher in the next concentration until May next year, and the team's next "big test" is the 2026 Women's Asian Cup (which is also a qualifier for the Women's World Cup). In such a situation, the Chinese women's football team, which sees the gap, needs to find a suitable new coach first, and then try their best to catch up and reproduce the "sonorous rose" style on the world stage as soon as possible.