On September 5th, in the Asian Qualifiers for the World Cup, the Chinese national team faced Japan away from home.
The media figure Miao Yuan commented on his personal social media: The first half wasn’t very exciting, the game was quite fragmented, China’s tactics were mainly defensive with little offense. Letting two players who are 1.78 meters tall score goals shows that aerial battles aren’t just about physical strength; mind, movement, rhythm, and tactics are all very important. The Chinese national team could hold their position in the air but couldn’t move, while Japanese players ran to areas where the defense was weaker and headed the ball easily, leaving us with no solutions at all. This is a huge gap. The Chinese national team players worked hard, but they were powerless, which is quite helpless.