Ma Dexing: Chinese women s football team participates in the Asian Cup with a second-tier team, and the goal is not just to get a World Cup ticket

July 20th According to reporter Ma Dexing, although the Chinese women's football team is the defending champion, they will participate in the Women's Football Asian Cup draw as a second-tier team. Ma Dexing said that there is no problem with the Chinese women's football team getting tickets for the 2027 World Cup, but the goal may be more than that. The group draw of the women's Asian Cup final stage will be held on the 29th of this month. Starting from the 21st Women's Football Asian Cup in 2026, the participating teams will be based on the latest FIFA World Women's Football National Team Ranking. In this way, the Chinese women's football team ranked 17th in the world and 4th in Asia in the latest women's football national team rankings, and lost the qualification to become the first-class seed team. The North Korean women's football team, the Japanese women's football team and the Australian women's football team will participate in the draw as a team.

According to the competition rules, the 12 teams participating in the final stage will be divided into three groups, each with 4 teams in each group, and a single round-robin competition will be held, and the group ranking will be arranged according to the points. The top two teams in each group, plus the two best-scoring third-place teams, will enter the knockout round. In addition to continuing to compete for the championship, the four winners in the quarter-finals will also receive tickets to the 2027 Brazil Women's World Cup; the four losers will have another cross-playoff to determine the two winning teams and will also receive tickets to the Brazil Women's World Cup, while the two losers will participate in the Women's World Cup cross-continental play-offs organized by FIFA to compete for the last two tickets to participate in the Women's World Cup. The specific classification status of the 12 participating teams is as follows (Note: the numbers in brackets represent the latest world ranking):

First level: Australia (15), Japan (7), North Korea (9);

Second level: China (17), South Korea (21), Vietnam (37);

Third level: Philippines (41), Taipei (42), Uzbekistan (51);

Fourth level: Iran (68), India (70), Bangladesh (128).

For the Chinese women's football team, no matter what the grouping is, there should be no suspense to enter the quarterfinals, but the opponents in the quarter-finals will depend on the actual game results. Even if you miss the semi-finals, there is no suspense to get the ticket to the 2027 Women's World Cup through the playoffs. However, as the defending champion, the goal of the Chinese women's football team is probably not just to get tickets to the Women's Football World Cup.