China s U17 women s football team looks forward to blooming in Morocco

A few days ago, after the warm-up match against the New Zealand team, Song Yu, the captain of the Chinese U17 women's national team, led the team to once again shout the slogan of "Cohesion, Challenge, Innovation, and Bloom." The 12-day pre-match training came to an end. The team set off for Rabat, the capital of Morocco, to make final preparations for the U17 Women's World Cup.

During the training camp, the Chinese team played three warm-up matches, defeating Cameroon 4-1, Morocco 5-1, and New Zealand 5-0. "We entered the main match with three wins and hope to go further and further." Head coach Wang Hongliang said.

The competition format of the 2025 U17 Women's World Cup will be changed from biennial to annual, and the participating teams will be expanded from 16 to 24. According to the rules of the competition, the 24 participating teams are divided into 6 groups. The top two in each group and the 4 best third-placed teams will advance to the knockout rounds. The Chinese team is in Group C with Norway, the United States and Ecuador. The Norwegian team has qualified for the U17 Women's World Cup for the first time, but its profound historical tradition and its excellent record as the runner-up in the U17 European Cup make it an important opponent that the Chinese team cannot ignore. The American team ranked third in the last competition, and its strength should not be underestimated. In the CONCACAF qualifying group stage, the United States team won all three games, scoring 17 goals and conceding no goals, showing a strong performance. The Ecuador team is third in the U17 Women's South American Championship and is gaining momentum recently. The Chinese team will play against them in turn.

Facing a strong opponent, Chinese team goalkeeper Niu Ziqi said: "The coaching staff has fully prepared us, and everyone has worked hard, so I am not afraid of any difficulties or opponents. I hope to use my own characteristics in the game and not lose the ball as much as possible." Forward Zhou Xinyi also expressed his belief in the strength of the team, "I hope we can reach the top four, and I hope I can score 7 goals." Wang Hongliang hopes that the players can resolve the battle within 90 minutes and work hard to break through the bottleneck. "We are aiming for the goal of qualifying first or second in the group, so that everyone can see the new spirit of the Chinese women's football team."

On October 18, the Chinese team will usher in the first game of this competition against the Norwegian team.