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Chinese soccer striving to survive
The next time China's football team can play in a major international tournament is four years away at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Everyone can take a deep breath because China do not have to fight with Asian rivals like they did before. The world's most populous country failed to qualify for this year's Athens Games and last month lost out in the race to qualify for the 2006 World Cup to unfancied Kuwait.
Its World Cup debut was tarnished by the loss of all three games in the group stage and failure to score a single goal. Fans are afraid that they will have to wait for China to host the event before they make another World Cup appearance. Humiliating knock-out China's 7-0 thrashing of Hong Kong last month was not enough to send them through to the next round of Asian World Cup qualifiers. Kuwait won the group and advanced by routing Malaysia 6-1, giving Kuwait a one goal better goal difference than China. China's head coach Arie Haan was immediately released from his contract with the China Football Association (CFA) and returned home, marking another failure in the CFA's policy of choosing foreign coaches. Only Bora Milutinovic achieved brief success for China by leading the team to the 2002 World Cup finals. A longer wait is simply unbearable for fans who have lost interest, and are running out of tolerance with domestic football. Even Haan, a midfielder in the Dutch team of the 1970s that reached two World Cup finals, said the recent turmoil in China's top professional league played a role in the national team's slump. In October, seven of the 12 clubs in China's Super League, including Dalian, Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao, Sichuan, Shenzhen and Liaoning, commonly known as G-7, united to challenge the CFA, urging the association to reform the league. The G-7, headed by seven-time league champions Dalian Shide, criticized the CFA for lack of transparency and acute corruption. "Of course it had an influence on the national team, the players," said Haan. "A lot of players are not being paid, a lot of players don't want to play because they're not satisfied with the circumstances, the referees." The 10-year-old professional league, replaced by the Super League this year, was hampered by lackluster performances and poor commercial success, despite heavy investment from club runners and the government. Both Beijing and Dalian threatened to boycott league matches in October while Liaoning and Shenzhen struggled to pay their players on time. With the recent drug scandal involving Liaoning's goalkeeper Liu Jiansheng, who is believed to be connected to social drug use and match fixing, China's football is on the edge of collapse. Asian Cup emotion But Haan insisted he had something to feel proud of. "This year, we only lost two matches. In the final of the Asia Cup we lost to Japan, and afterwards we lost to Kuwait," he was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news agency. "That should not be considered a bad result." His remarks should be considered partly right. Compared to a whole year's chaos and disappointment, 2004 Asian Cup left fans with some fond memories, though not the final against Japan. China was unbeaten in the group matches and then gave fans a surprise semi-final victory by beating favourite's Iran in a penalty shootout. But title hopes were dashed by arch-rivals Japan who rallied to beat China 3-1 in the final. Some fans refused to leave the stadium after the match, protesting the result by shouting and throwing bottles and garbage. More than 6,000 security staff were deployed in and around the stadium, with riot police, soldiers and SWAT teams in position to prevent crowd trouble. The tough measures proved insufficient and some fans vented their wrath by attacking a vehicle and rioting. But runner-up is still an excellent result for China as the team advanced to the final for only the second time. It lost 2-0 to Saudi Arabia in the 1984 final. Looking to the West With hopes of reaching the 2006 World Cup vanished, CFA officials are vowing to take action - and hope hosts Germany can offer some help. A specially-assembled group, called the 2008-Star Team consisting of 27 young and promising Chinese football players, will undergo a two-year-long training session at Bad Kissingen. The talented 27, selected from the nation's best youth players aged between 15-19, are expected to form the core of the 2008 Olympic team. Eckhard Krautzun, a former German Olympic team member with a 35-year-long coaching career, has been appointed head coach. This is not the first time China has sent it's footballers overseas for training. Besides, many top players are beginning to see Europe as a way to turn round their careers. China's Footballer of the Year Zheng Zhi,the national team's playmaker, has just completed trials at Bundesliga club Hertha Berlin. Teenaged defender Du Wei from Shanghai Shenhua has been in contact with a number of German clubs while another international midfielder, Zhao Junzhe from Liaoning, has received an invitation from Scottish Premier League giants Glasgow Celtic. Young goalkeeper Song Junmin from Tianjin and national team captain Li Weifeng are also planning to move abroad. Women's hope China's women footballers have also struggled to find form. The Athens Games began in a disastrous 8-0 rout to Germany but the year ended offering a glimmer of hope as the U-19 youth team were runners-up in the World Women's Championship. It is hope for the future of the women's national team, who won silver at the Atlanta Olympics and finished runners-up to the US at the 1999 World Cup, after losing their shine due to the retirement of veterans. They were knocked out in the quarter-finals of the 2003 Women's World Cup, and then at this year's Athens Olympics the team suffered their biggest setback after being eliminated from the group phase. Its 8-0 loss to Germany is the worst in the team's history. Head coach Zhang Haitao resigned immediately after the Games and the women's team is still looking for a new manager. With the youth side achieving an unexpected second-placed result, head coach Wang Haiming become one of the favourites to take over the job from Zhang. Whoever will take the helm, it is believed some emerging stars from the U-19 team will be added to the national team, carrying hopes of helping China return to the world's elite. |
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