November 20, China Time – In the Asian Qualifiers for the World Cup, Australia drew 2-2 with Bahrain in an away match. At the start of the game, Yan Ji of the Australian team quickly broke the deadlock, giving his team the lead. However, Bahrain’s Mahdi Jabbar performed brilliantly, scoring two consecutive goals to help Bahrain take the lead. Near the end of the match, Yan Ji stepped up again, equalizing for Australia.
In this qualifying campaign, Yan Ji has already scored six goals and hit the post, missing a great scoring opportunity. Popovich praised Yan Ji’s performance highly: “He played very well. As a forward, his job is to score goals, and he did it twice today… However, I do wish that when we were leading 1-0, he could have capitalized on that back pass, which would have secured the win for us earlier.”
For the first 74 minutes, Australia put on a nearly perfect away performance: scoring early, controlling possession, and dictating the pace of the game. Starting goalkeeper Matt Ryan did not make a single save throughout the match.
However, Cameron Burgess’s ball control mistake changed the course of the game, leading to a long-range goal for the opposition. Shortly after, Hayden Matthews, making his national team debut, made a misjudgment, allowing the ball to fly over his head, hit the far post, and land at the feet of Abduljabbar, who easily completed his second goal.
Popovich expressed understanding and support for Matthews: “He is a young player, and the match environment here was indeed challenging for him, but I think he did a great job. The second goal was unfortunate for him, but I believe he has a bright future ahead.”
The task facing Popovich is daunting, as he needs to improve the team’s performance in the qualifiers in a short period. With no time to build the team through friendlies, he had to play four crucial qualifiers in five weeks. Now, he has time to prepare for the next key match against Indonesia. To achieve the goal of qualifying, Popovich needs the team to show greater resilience, Yan Ji to continue contributing, and to minimize defensive errors as much as possible.
