BIG DREAMS: The Chinese national football team takes on Indonesia at the Beijing Xiannongtan Stadium, for a place in the Sweden World Cup in 1958
“I have many dreams, but I would never dare to dream of the Chinese football team winning the World Cup trophy!” This is the open admission of a member of China’s national football team, which despite thrashing Hong Kong 7:0 back in the World Cup preliminary in November 2004, still failed to make the trip to Germany, as the Kuwaiti team had a higher goal count although they shared the same scores and goal difference. It shattered the team and the nation.
Eight times the Chinese team has sought to make it to the World Cup finals, making the only success in 2002. Frustrations and setbacks one after the other have depleted the team of confidence, while other Asian teams have leapt ahead in improved skills and performance. The continual failure has not only been a bitter blow to the national team, but has left hungry fans clutching their hair in desperation. Despite the setbacks, the will to succeed from both players and fans remains undiminished. All eyes are turning to South Africa in 2010 with hope.
1958, the first try
The Chinese football team has actually appeared repeatedly in group preliminaries of the World Cup. In China’s first attempt at the World Cup finals, most players had been based in Hungary for two years.
Initially the Chinese team did well. It had won the knockout competition, and needed to win its away game to get through. However, the team at that time was composed of players lacking experience at the international level. On a hot summer afternoon (40 degrees Centigrade), China’s young players fought hard against the Indonesian team, one of Asia’s strongest teams at the time, but were beaten 0:2.
In the home game, the Chinese team had no choice but to keep attacking and as a result it won the match 4:3. For the first time, Chinese fans began to cheer their team on and the World Cup fever became part of Chinese life. In accordance with rules, a playoff was arranged in Rangoon, Burma, but the result was a goalless draw. The Chinese team was sent packing owing to insufficient goals.
For more than two decades after the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, Chinese football would be absent from the world football arena.
1982, a narrow miss
After a long break of 24 years, the Chinese team resumed its World Cup dream. This time, its improved techniques made it possible to beat the Saudi team 4:2 after trailing by two goals. This victory was so impressive that it even erased the misery of the team’s failure to qualify for the finals in Spain. Actually, this team is remembered as the best in the past two decades.
In the early 1980s, Chinese football was divided into two genres--north, emphasizing on the use of physique, and south, good at mastering the ball. Then head coach of the national team Su Yongshun preferred players from Guangdong, a competitive province in football in south China. Although players from Guangdong were flexible with good ball skills, they were soon knocked out by the strongly-built New Zealanders.
There are some explanations for this failure. Before the playoff against New Zealand, the Chinese team had actually dispersed, taking it for granted that it would go to Spain as second in the group. Unexpectedly, the Saudi team lost 0:5 to New Zealand, and thus the latter had the same score and goal difference as the Chinese. In line with the rules, an extra knockout competition between the two was necessary. The Chinese players, who were rounded up in a hurry, lost this game to New Zealand 2:1, dropping to third place in the group and missing out on the 1982 World Cup.
1986, unexpected loss
The Chinese team would qualify for the next round as long as it could manage to hold Hong Kong to a goalless tie in the home game in Beijing. Unexpectedly it lost the game 1:2, and its hope of going on to Mexico was left in tatters.
1990, 3-minute nightmare
This time, it was only in the last three minutes that the Chinese team lost the chance to pack for Italy. In the last round of the Asian preliminary, the Chinese team was leading the match until the last three minutes, when Qatar fired home two goals. China lost 1:2. The game with the United Arab Emirates team several days before had produced a similar result. China had conceded two goals in the last five minutes, losing 1:2.
Apart from the “black three minutes,” another well-known term surfaced in Chinese football--Gong Han Jeung (winless against South Korea). In the qualifying match of the 1990 World Cup, the Chinese team lost it when the most famous Asian football star in the South Korean team headed home the winner. From that moment, the Chinese began to suffer from “Gong Han Jeung” syndrome and to date each meeting between the two has resulted in a South Korean victory. However, the South Korean team is only one of the obstacles that prevent China from approaching the World Cup, as it has been defeated by so many other teams in qualifying rounds over the years.
1994, foreign coach for the first time
Realizing that the Chinese team is short of capacity, the China Football Association decided to hire a foreign coach, a program that is regarded as a “breakthrough” in the reform of China’s football. High hopes were placed on German coach Klaus Schlappner, who was expected to save the Chinese team from its regular preliminary round exit plight.
Unlike any of the former coaches, Schlappner focused on building up fighting spirit more than technique. He often told the players, “If you do not know where the ball should go, then kick it toward the goal!” However, either his style was not suited to Chinese football or the players could not adapt to his methods. Despite having 70 players on his squad, the starting lineup never took shape. As a result, the team again suffered an early exit.
1998, so difficult to push the door open
Since 1998, the original 24 World Cup finalist teams have expanded to 32 and now four Asian teams are allowed to take part in the finals rather than two that was the rule in the past. In the preliminary round, the Chinese team fought hard for a place in the last 10 with a record of five wins and one draw, but in the playoffs, it was eliminated, scoring 11 and ranking third in the group qualifiers, with a record of three wins, two draws and three losses. Thus, the team missed out again on the World Cup, only one score behind the second in the group.
What deserves mentioning here is that, with the progressive professionalism, some of China’s top football players became millionaires overnight.
2002, the dream finally comes
AT LAST: The World Cup dream finally comes true. Chinese football fans celebrated on Tiananmen Square on October 7, 2001
At 9:21 p.m., October 7, 2001, the final whistle marked a historic moment in China’s football history. The door of the World Cup was finally pushed open. The Chinese team had won their first ticket to the 2002 World Cup finals in the Asian zone with two rounds still to play, carding a record of five wins and one draw, for a combined score of 16.
Luck was on China’s side. It was able to avoid playing South Korea and Japan--the two host countries of the 2002 World Cup--in the preliminary round, and the draw also helped the team to avoid its strong rivals from West Asia: Saudi Arabia and Iran.
However, apart from luck, the team had matured and had a feel for seizing opportunities. Its success should also be attributed to new coach Bora Milutinovic from Yugoslavia.
HOT COACH: Bora Milutinovic, who led the Chinese national team to the 2002 World Cup, attracts much attention from the country’s media
Due to last minute failures and being beaten previously by “weaker sides,” the team had huge psychological problems, which severely impacted on its technique and tactics.
Milutinovic proved to be a good “psychologist” who always highlighted the importance of a positive attitude, telling the players to relax and enjoy the game. A change in the obsession to win was replaced with the joy of playing. Milutinovic proved inspirational in training methods and the selection of players, highlighting the team’s previous weak points of conceptualizing and tactics. Jin Zhiyang, assistant coach of the Chinese team, admitted that a wide gap existed between the Chinese and Milutinovic when it came to the concept of football. The professional approach was, however, good for Chinese football.
2006, failure once more
Having benefited from a foreign coach and eager to win more matches, the Chinese team, invited a second foreign coach, Arie Haan from the Netherlands, in the hope that he would lead the team to the Germany World Cup. However, Haan was not as inspirational as Milutinovic, and the team was eliminated as early as in the group preliminary match. Whether this loss should be blamed on him or on the Chinese Football Association is a question that remains to be answered.