At 5:30 p.m. on March 17, Beijing time, after a three-hour delay, the chartered flight of the Chinese men’s football team officially departed from Haikou Meilan Airport and flew to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The two national teams form the largest visiting team in the history of the national football team. The total number of the two teams is exactly 108. With the addition of Li Lei and Jiang Guangtai who joined the national team in Dubai, the Chinese delegation on this westward expedition will With 110 people, such a large team, epidemic prevention will become the number one problem. Because the Chinese Super League is about to start, once someone in the team is infected with the virus, the Chinese Super League will also be affected and forced to postpone.
Overseas “lay flat” policy makes it more difficult for the national football team to fight the epidemic
In 2021, the national football team has also traveled to West Asia twice to play games, and finally achieved the predetermined goal of “zero infection”, and can be called “epidemic prevention pacesetter” in various sports centers of the General Administration. However, compared with 2021, this trip has two differences. First, the team has a larger scale, reaching more than 100 people. The more the number of people, the greater the risk of contracting the new crown virus, and the second is the epidemic prevention policy in West Asia. Fundamental changes have taken place in 2021. Due to the decrease in the toxicity of the Omicron virus, many countries in West Asia have relaxed their epidemic prevention policies, and some countries have even completely “lyed down”, which has greatly increased the difficulty of national football epidemic prevention.
Taking the United Arab Emirates as an example, starting from late February 2022, wearing masks outdoors is no longer a mandatory requirement, and the isolation requirement for close contacts has also been cancelled, only requiring close contacts working in government departments to be within five days every day. Perform a nucleic acid test. Overseas tourists to the UAE no longer need to undergo nucleic acid testing, and only need to present a vaccination certificate to enter the country. Oman’s epidemic prevention policy has also been significantly relaxed.
The loose epidemic prevention policy overseas means that the difficulty and pressure of epidemic prevention for the national football team has greatly increased. Previously, the Chinese women’s basketball team went to Belgrade to participate in the women’s basketball world preliminaries, but they stayed for a short time because of a large number of new crown positives in the team. People familiar with the matter told Sohu Sports that even in 2021, when the epidemic prevention is foolproof, the Chinese team has been “in distress” on several trips. “When I went to Sharjah for the first time, the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel where I stayed was tested positive for two. This year I went to Japan to play a game at the beginning of the year, and the floor security also tested positive, thanks to our careful work, we found the problem in advance, and insisted on the hotel to rectify it to avoid making a big mistake.”
The Olympic team has become the top priority of epidemic prevention
The two national teams will go to Dubai together this time, and the Chinese Olympic team will participate in the relevant events of the “Dubai Cup”. According to the arrangement of the Chinese Football Association, the two teams will stay together at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Sharjah, which is also the hotel where the national football team stayed for the first western expedition last year. However, the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel also receives other guests, so it is impossible to charter it for the Chinese team alone. It can only provide a separate floor and access channel for the Chinese team.
Among the two national teams, the national Olympic team is far more difficult to prevent the epidemic than the national team. The top 12 group matches that the national team participates in are hosted by the AFC. According to the relevant regulations of the AFC, as soon as they enter the competition area, the national team will be It is equivalent to entering the “epidemic prevention bubble”. Daily training and travel can be protected by the “epidemic prevention bubble”, forming a “epidemic prevention closed loop”. The national football team also clearly proposed that the home game with the Saudi team will be played in an empty field. This reduces the risk of infection to some extent.
In contrast, the “Dubai Cup” is an invitational tournament, which is used to warm up the U23-aged teams of various national teams and adapt their skills and tactics. The organization of the entire event and epidemic prevention and control are relatively loose. Dubai does not provide “anti-epidemic bubble” protection, nor does it have closed-loop management. After all the efforts of the Chinese Football Association, the organizers agreed to conduct a nucleic acid test on the opponents of the Chinese Olympic team before the game. Compared with the “big brother” of the national football team, the national Olympic team is more difficult to fight the epidemic.
National football team upgrades internal epidemic prevention level
Before the trip, the national team had seriously conveyed the complicated situation of epidemic prevention and control in the westward expedition to all the national football soldiers, and put forward clear requirements for epidemic prevention, and the requirements for prevention and control within the team were suddenly escalated. Not only that, after the two national-brand teams stay in the hotel, they will also adopt stricter sealing and control measures to separate them. Daily visits between the National Football Team and the National Olympic Games are strictly prohibited, and a certain distance will be maintained between restaurants and daily activity areas.
This means that although the National Olympics and the national football team live in the same hotel, the training and competition remain completely independent, and there is basically no contact with the national team. It is understood that the “Dubai Cup” competitions are all scheduled to be held in Dubai. The National Olympic Games will take the bus from Sharjah to Dubai for the competition, and then return to the hotel after the competition. Fortunately, Sharjah is not far from Dubai, only halfway About an hour’s drive.
In addition to the upgrade of internal prevention and control, the Chinese Football Association has also prepared a response plan for the outbreak according to the relevant documents of the General Administration of Sports of the People’s Republic of China. The soldiers were brought back to China as soon as possible, which did not affect the start of the league on April 23. (Sohu Sports Pei Li)Return to Sohu, see more
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