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China is building unnecessary pride.
The South Korean national football team won 2-0 in the second match of the 2025 East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) E-1 Championship (East Asian Cup) against Hong Kong at Mir Stadium in Yongin on the 11th. Hong Myung-bo is preparing for the Korea-Japan match by winning a clean victory over China and Hong Kong.
As Hong Kong blocked South Korea with two runs, some Chinese fans say Hong Kong played better against South Korea than China. Beyond this, public opinion is forming that China cannot guarantee that it will beat Hong Kong in the match between China and Hong Kong.
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| The E-1 Championship (East Asian Cup) match between South Korea and Hong Kong at Yongin Mir Stadium in Gyeonggi Province on the afternoon of the 11th. Lee Ho-jae is cheering after scoring an additional goal. Yongin = Reporter Jeong Jae-geun cjg@sportschosun.com /2025.7.11/ |
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In response to such public opinion, Chinese media Wang Yi began to refute China as a better team than Hong Kong. The media said 'The goals and tactics of the two teams in this East Asian Cup are different. After failing to advance to the 2026 World Cup in North Korea and the U.S., the Chinese national team aims to check the team, foster young players, and accumulate experience through this tournament, and there is no clear goal of performance. In the match against Korea, he also used a number of young players, and he hoped that the players would grow through the match against the strong team. In addition, he used aggressive tactics, claiming that China is conducting a lot of experiments in the tournament.
On the other hand, Hong Kong deployed all of its main players and used a defense-oriented 'bus-up' tactic. One team (China) actually played as Team B, and one team (Hong Kong) played as Team A. "China played offensive soccer and Hong Kong played defensive soccer, so the comparison itself is meaningless." He evaluated that Hong Kong did not suffer a disaster in the match against Korea by focusing only on defense.
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| The national soccer team played its first match against China at Yongin Mir Stadium on the 7th. Chinese national soccer team No.17 kwai jiwon. Yongin = Reporter Song Jeong-heon @sportschosun.com/2025.07.07/ |
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Wang did not seem to want to bend China's pride. The media reported that both teams played against South Korea, but the composition of South Korea was different. China faced a team that included a large number of South Korean national team main players, while Hong Kong played a team close to '3rd Army', mostly made up of non-mainstream players. In other words, the comparison is not worth the patience because the Korean national team's power against the two teams was different.
Compared to the match against China, it is true that South Korea has changed all the starting lists in the match against Hong Kong. A large number of players with no A-match experience or not much experience appeared. Even so, evaluating these players at the level of '3' seems to be only an evaluation to rationalize China's results. This is because they were selected as players showing excellent performance in the K League.
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| The national soccer team played its first match against China at Yongin Mir Stadium on the 7th. Coach Dejan Zhurjevic of the Chinese national team. Yongin = Reporter Song Jeong-heon @sportschosun.com/2025.07.07/ |
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Finally, considering many aspects such as comprehensive power, historical confrontation, and player composition, the Chinese national team's power is still above that of the Hong Kong national team. It is too fragmentary a judgment to conclude that 'China is worse than Hong Kong' only by looking at the difference in scores against Korea in this tournament.
In fact, it is true that China is far ahead of Hong Kong just by looking at its objective history and past matches. However, the way China tries to build up China's self-esteem while undervaluing Korea's power in the match against Hong Kong shows how much soccer pride China is in the current situation. I'm very curious about what China will look like against Hong Kong.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
