China's bid for the 2026 World Cup seems to be over

September 11th news: In the second round of the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup, the Chinese national football team was reversed 1-2 by Saudi Arabia with 10 players at home. 

After two rounds of games, they scored 1 goal and conceded 9 goals, ranking at the bottom of the C group standings.

Today, the Korean media Edaily wrote an article, saying that the challenge of the Chinese team to impact the 2026 World Cup seems to have ended ahead of schedule, and Chinese football is still falling. The media wrote:

No reversal has occurred. After losing 0-7 to Japan away, the Chinese team returned to their home court and was reversed by Saudi Arabia even when they had one more player for a long time. 

After the game, it seemed that some players shed tears on the scene, and shouts for Ivan to be fired were heard in the audience. Chinese football is still falling.

The first 20 minutes of the game were very smooth for the Chinese team. In the 14th minute of the game, they caused an own goal to take a 1-0 lead, and 5 minutes later,

 the opponent player Cano was sent off for malicious revenge. At this time, the Chinese team not only led by one goal, but also had one more player.

However, the direction of the next game looked like the Chinese team was one man short. They set up a defensive posture early, and Saudi Arabia, which was one man short, launched an offensive wave,

 which was very ironic. In the end, in the 39th minute of the first half, the Saudi team also launched an attack through a corner kick to equalize the score.

 In the second half, the Chinese team still failed to play the advantage of numbers. Although they almost changed the score in the second half, at the last moment of the game,

 the Chinese team lost the ball again because of the offensive launched by the opponent's corner kick, and finally suffered a 1-2 reversal. For 70 minutes of the whole game, 

the Chinese team played one more player, but Saudi Arabia still took the 3 points. In addition, in yesterday's game, the Chinese team had a full-time possession rate of 42.7%, 

while the Saudi team, which was one man short, had a possession rate of 57.3%.

After losing 0-7 to Japan in the first round, the Chinese team, which lost both games, was at the bottom of Group C early, becoming the only team in the group to lose all games. 

Although only two rounds of 18 have been played, the challenge of the Chinese team to impact the 2026 World Cup seems to have ended.