The Chinese Football Association (CFA) has recently announced the complete roster of the Chinese national football team that will compete in the third round of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers this September.

According to Xinhuanet, "seven of the 27 players come from Chinese Super League champions Guangzhou Evergrande, five from Jiangsu Suning and four from Shanghai SIPG".

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The squad will assemble in Yunnan Province capital Kunming on August 1, Monday, to train for a week. They will be supervised by head coach Gao Hongbo, who is currently on his second stint as China PR manager.

The 50-year-old Beijing native was head coach of the national team from 2009, replacing Serbian mentor Vladimir Petrovic, up to his firing in August 2011 after the team's Asian Cup exit that year.

He was recently re-instated as China manager to replace French boss Alain Perrin, who was sacked following the team's poor performance in the first two rounds of the World Cup qualifiers.

Team Dragon was almost eliminated in the second round of the qualifiers as regional rival Hong Kong managed to pull off two draws in both of their meetings in Group C.

Gao took over the reins of the squad in January and led them to two crucial wins in the qualifiers two months later, a 4-0 beatdown of Maldives and 2-0 victory over host nation Qatar, to barge into the third round of competitions.

The following is the final roster of China PR players headed to Kunming: Zhang Linpeng, Huang Bowen, Li Xuepeng, Feng Xiaoting, Zeng Cheng, Yu Hanchao, and Gao Lin from Guangzhou Evergrande; Wu Xi, Ren Hang, Li Ang, Zhang Xiaobin, and Gu Chao from Jiangsu Suning; Wu Lei, Yan Junling, Yu Hai, and Cai Huikang from Shanghai SIPG; Hao Junmin, Zhao Mingjian, and Liu Binbin from Shandong Luneng; Yang Zhi, Yu Dabao, and Zhang Xizhe from Beijing Guoan; Jiang Ning, Ding Haifeng, and Jin Yangyang from Hebei China Fortune; Jiang Zhipeng from Guangzhou R&F; and Sun Ke from Tianjin Quanjian.

Meanwhile, SIPG striker Wu is confident that the national squad will be able to qualify in the next round, as per FIFA's official website.

"I am now focusing on the 2018 third round qualifiers," Wu said. "Every third round qualifier is a tough assignment and we start our campaign against South Korea, who were the Asian Cup finalists. It would be important to qualify for Russia - we have not played a World Cup since 2002."

TagsChina Football, China football 2016, China Football News, China PR, Chinese Super League