The group stage of this Asian Cup is over, the top 16 teams are all decided, and the situation of the quarterfinals is also determined.

The top two teams from six groups, as well as four with relatively good results, qualified for the round of 16 – the four lucky group finishers who advanced to the round of 16 were Bahrain, Iraq, North Korea and, the luckiest of all, Palestine.

Palestine's group stage record is the same as Oman's third place in Group F, with two draws and one loss, and the same goal conceded is also three, but Palestine scored one more goal than Oman and finally advanced to the round of 16 with a goal difference.

In the eighth-final bracket chart announced by the AFC in advance, the first knockout opponent in Group C is the third in Group A, Group B or Group F.

Since the third Oman team in Group F did not make the cut, the opponent of the Dragon Country team is the third team in Group A, Bahrain, and the third team in Group B, Palestine.

In the end, the one-eighth final opponent assigned to the Dragons was Bahrain, the third team in Group A.

The Dragons were also placed in the bottom half of the knockout stage due to their first place in Group C.

Also in the bottom half of the knockout round are the top hosts of Group A, the United Arab Emirates, the top team in Group E, South Korea, the second team in Group B, Syria, the second team in Group D, the second Vietnam, the second team in Group F, Uzbekistan, the third team in Group E, North Korea, and the third team in Group A, Bahrain.

The four quarter-finals in the lower half of the knockout round will be played against the Dragons and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and North Korea, South Korea and Vietnam, and Syria and Uzbekistan.

The eight quarterfinals were scheduled to be held on three days, on January 20, 21 and 22 local time in the United Arab Emirates, but due to the time difference, the last quarter-finals started at 0:00 a.m. on January 23, Dragon Kingdom Beijing time.

The eight-quarter-final between the Dragons and Bahrain is scheduled to be played in the seventh of the eight quarter-finals, so if the Dragons can successfully defeat Bahrain and advance to the quarterfinals, the next quarter-final opponent will be the eighth of the eight quarter-finals, that is, the winner of the match between South Korea and Vietnam.

Although the dragon team was able to avoid strong teams such as Iran and Japan before the finals due to the knockout division, it is very likely that they will meet South Korea in the quarterfinals in advance.

Although the Vietnamese team performed well in the group stage of this Asian Cup, they still failed to successfully snipe the strong South Korean team in the quarter-finals.

Although the South Korean team has won the Asian Cup twice in history, it has been back in the fifties and sixties of the last century.

After winning the first two Asian Cups, South Korea has been recognized as a strong team in Asia, not only a regular in the World Cup, but also often able to reach the semi-finals of the Asian Cup, but they have never won the Asian Cup.

In last year's Asian Games, the South Korean team beat all opponents and won the final championship, which made them full of intentions for this Asian Cup, with only one goal - to win the championship!

The early meeting between the Dragon Country team and the South Korean team in the quarterfinals will be one of the biggest highlights of this Asian Cup!

However, before that, the Dragon Country team and the South Korean team still have to successfully pass the one-eighth final pass.

Their opponents in the quarterfinals, Bahrain and Vietnam, although the overall strength is far inferior to them, but football matches are never a simple comparison of strength on paper.

South Korea defeated Germany 2-0 in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil in last year's World Cup, which directly led to the defending champion Germany being eliminated early in the group stage of that World Cup and going home early.

Therefore, although they are full of confidence in defeating their opponents in the next quarterfinals and successfully qualifying, the Dragon Country team and the South Korean team do not dare to take this seemingly superficial eighth-finals lightly.

In this one-eighth final, the Dragon Country team once again played with the strongest lineup, Shen Feng, Wu Lei, Zhang Xizhe, these main players who played a key role in the previous group stage, all played; Zheng Zhi, Feng Xiaoting, Hao Junmin and other veterans, after the final round of the group stage, adjusted their physical fitness and competitive condition to the best, and started again in this game.

The most recent meeting between the Dragons and Bahrain was in the warm-up match for the international break in September 2018, when the Dragons flew to West Asia in preparation for the Asian Cup and played two warm-up matches against Qatar and Bahrain.

However, because the two cores of the Dragon Country team, Shen Feng and Zheng Zhi, were exempted from fighting in those two warm-up games, and players such as Wu Lei and Zhang Xizhe who had just landed in Europe also had ups and downs because they were adapting to the new environment; Other players who played in the Dragon Super League, because of that time, the Dragon Super League had a dense schedule and excessive physical consumption, and after a long journey to West Asia in a hot environment, their competitive state was not as good as before.

In the end, the Dragons team's warm-up trip to West Asia had a less than satisfactory record, losing 0:1 to Qatar and drawing 1:1 with Bahrain, which was very different from the Dragon team that shined in the previous World Cup, which was disappointing.

The future is not far off.

Most of the players in the current starting lineup of the Dragons have played in the warm-up game against Bahrain, and it has always been a knot for everyone to be stuck in fitness and competitive condition in that game, and not being able to show their best level.

Now that you have the opportunity to prove yourself, of course you won't let it go!

Therefore, after the start of this quarter-final with the Bahrain team, the Dragons launched a fierce attack on the Bahrain team's defense without any temptation.

The Dragon Nation team, which is full of firepower, is not something that the Bahrain team can compete with at all.

Although the Bahrain team clearly understood the difference in strength between itself and the Dragon Country team by analyzing the performance of the Dragon Country team in the three group games, they pragmatically adopted the conservative tactics of shrinking the defense in this game, compressing the defense line in their own defensive third zone, and setting up a bus formation in front of the goal to try to resist the attack of the Dragon Country team.

However, the Dragon Country team, which is more than one grade higher than them and has a rich variety of offensive means, still let the Bahrain team see the sharpness of their attack!