Winning almost equals advancing! Shui Qingxia: Hope to have a good start, Chinese women's football team meets Danish women's football team again after 16 years | World Cup | Winning
"We all know the importance of this game and the difficult situation that may arise. Of course, we are fully prepared for this. We hope that the players can let go and enjoy the first game of the World Cup when they go up tomorrow." At 8 pm on July 21, Beijing time, the Chinese women's football team will usher in the first match of the 2023 Australia and New Zealand Women's World Cup. The opponent is the Danish women's football team. At the pre-match press conference the day before, the head coach of the Chinese team, Shui Qingxia, set the tone for the game.
Like Chinese women's football, Danish women's football is also a veteran team of the Women's World Cup. In 1991, the first Women's World Cup was held in Guangdong, China, with only 12 teams participating globally. At that time, the fate of Danish women's football and Chinese women's football began to intersect. In the second round of the group stage, the first "Battle of China and Denmark" took place, and the final draw was 2-2. In the Swedish Women's World Cup four years later, the Chinese women's football team and the Danish women's football team met again in the group stage. This is the third round of the group stage, where the Chinese women's football team defeated the Danish women's football team 3-1, winning for the first time in the "Battle of China and Denmark".
After 1995, the Chinese and Danish teams faced each other again in the 2007 Chinese Women's Football World Cup. That match was also the opening match of the 5th Women's World Cup, in which the Chinese women's football team defeated Denmark 3-2 and won the World Cup with a good start. It is also the first battle is the decisive battle. At that time, the "Steel Rose" had a great mentality after defeating the Danish team in their first game. Even though they lost 0-4 to the booming Brazilian women's football team in the second round of the group stage, they easily advanced with a 2-0 victory over the New Zealand team in the third round, accumulating 6 points from two wins.
In the grouping of this year's ANZ Women's World Cup, the other two opponents in the same group, England and Haiti, have distinct strengths and weaknesses - England has reached the semi-finals in the previous two Women's World Cups and was the new champions of last year's Women's European Cup, while Haiti's women's football team has participated in the Women's World Cup for the first time in history. Therefore, if the Chinese women's football team can defeat their opponents in the first game, it is almost equivalent to advancing to the round of 16.
"I hope that tomorrow, like the group stage of the Women's World Cup 16 years ago, the Chinese women's football team will have a 'good start'," said Shui Qingxia.
