China’s fans, media heap praise on national soccer coach
Lippi credited with rekindling World Cup hopes
Chinese fans and media heaped praise upon national soccer team coach Marcello Lippi on Friday after a stunning victory over South Korea on Thursday night, with many saying that the coach has rebuilt faith in the team and rekindled China’s World Cup qualification hopes.
China beat South Korea 1-0 at a World Cup qualifier held under heavy security in Changsha, Central China’s Hunan Province.
The victory moved China away from the bottom of the 6-team Group A which Iran stand atop with 14 points from six matches, ahead of South Korea on 10. Uzbekistan sit in third with nine and Syria are fourth with eight. Qatar sit at the bottom of the group after six matches.
Marcello Lippi said the national soccer team has made progress on the pitch, but there is still a long way to go.
China needs to win all of their coming qualifiers, and those at the top of the group will have to lose several, if they are to compete in next year’s World Cup in Russia, he said.
The stunning victory has thrilled the nation, with many media outlets especially thanking the Italian former professional soccer player.
State broadcaster China Central Television wrote “Thanks Lippi! You made the Chinese national team more confident and the soccer team players greater.”
The State-owned Xinhua News Agency said that “Lippi is the best choice for Chinese soccer” and wrote several pieces praising Lippi, who led the Italian national team to World Cup glory in 2006, for rekindling China’s World Cup hopes.
“China’s 1-0 victory over South Korea on Thursday night rekindled the country’s qualification hopes for the 2018 World Cup, and represents an early success in China’s national soccer reform push that began in 2015, and shows that the foundations are being laid for future success,” said one article.
The People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China, spoke highly of the national team, saying that the victory brought hope to soccer fans and the overall soccer situation seems more optimistic.
A commentary published on news portal sports.sohu.com stated that Lippi’s reputation as a top global manager encouraged his team and his tactics led to the victory.
A high school in Qingdao, East China’s Shandong Province hung a banner over its front gate to celebrate its alumina Yu Dabao, member of the national team and Beijing Guoan forward, who scored the wining goal.
The Changsha game was played amid geopolitical tensions between China and South Korea.
Local security staff were on high alert due to a diplomatic spat over the deployment of the US-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea.
On Sina Weibo, the hashtag “Opposing South Korea starts with soccer” received 640,000 clicks before the match began.
Despite the tense atmosphere in the stadium, there were no physical clashes between the two countries’ fans and no incidents occurred during the game.
It would have been a tough job finding anyone who expected China to bag a win over South Korea on Thursday, considering China’s poor record against their neighbors, but the national team proved they were up to the job.
Before Thursday’s 1-0 victory, which came from a header by Beijing Guoan forward Yu Dabao, China had only managed to beat South Korea once in the past three decades. The previous 3-0 win came in 2010 at the East Asian Cup, a low-profile tournament featuring only China, Japan and the two Koreas.
The Chinese side had been at the bottom of the six-team 2018 World Cup qualifying group and winless after five games, but have now earned themselves the right to dream of a miraculous revival after beating Uli Stielike’s Korean side.
“We have kept our World Cup qualifying hopes alive,” China’s head coach Marcello Lippi said. “Now we have reduced the gap with the secondranked team from seven points to five points, but we need to win more matches to be able to play in the World Cup.”
Emotional night
Defender Feng Xiaoting was so overcome with emotion that he burst into tears after the win, saying the team had been under a great deal of pressure before the match.
“This is my last chance for a World Cup,” said the 31-year-old Feng, who had vowed to avenge the team’s 3-2 away defeat to South Korea in Seoul six months ago.
On Thursday night, the Guangzhou Evergrande defender not only contributed his solid defending skills, but also tried to push forward and cause defensive problems for the visitors.
“It was overwhelming seeing the fans wearing red shirts supporting us when we walked into the stadium,” Feng said, referring to the “sea of red” formed by the Chinese partisans at the He Long Stadium.
Despite guiding China to a hardwon victory over South Korea, who are currently ranked No.40 in the world, Lippi said his squad were not at their best due to injuries as well as several players catching flu from consecutive days of rain in Changsha, Hunan Province before the game.
Among those who had to miss the game was Huang Bowen, the midfielder who has played a key part in Guangzhou Evergrande’s success in China as well as Asia. A leg injury meant he was unable to showcase his skills in his own hometown.
The box-to-box midfielder’s absence meant Lippi had to rely on captain Zheng Zhi, 36, as the anchorman while using playmakers Wang Yongpo, Zhang Xizhe and Hao Junmin to support sole striker Yu Dabao.
Counterattacks have become China’s main offensive strategy, thanks to fruitful close-down tackles that Chinese players made in the offensive side of the pitch. But even more thrilling for the fans was the fact that players tried to attack while keeping the ball on the ground.
And even when China went one goal up during the game, the team continued playing attacking soccer rather than utilizing traditionally defensive tactics.
In the dying minutes of the game, substitute Yin Hongbo of Hebei China Fortune threatened to extend the lead with a long-distance strike.
Next battle
Due to their lack of wins in the first five games of the qualifying round, China, who have only appeared at the World Cup on one occasion in 2002, still need to overcome a mounting deficit if they want to qualify for world soccer’s showpiece event in Russia next year.
The team flew to Tehran on Friday to prepare for Tuesday’s qualifier against group leaders Iran.
China held Iran to a scoreless draw in September at home in Shenyang, Liaoning Province when Gao Hongbo was at the helm.
At the time, Iran’s Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz was well aware of China’s potential, saying “any team that underestimates China will jeopar- dize their chances of stepping into the World Cup.”
Only the top two teams in each of Asia’s two qualifying groups gain automatic entry to Russia 2018, but the two sides that finish third will go into a playoff series before the winners to take on a CONCACAF team.
Set pieces have played a major role in China’s training sessions, their Italian coach revealed. The winning goal came in the 34th minute when Yu guided midfielder Wang’s corner kick into the bottom corner.
Lippi, who masterminded Italy’s victory at the 2006 World Cup, was hired on a reported 20 million euro ($21.6 million) deal in October.
The silver-haired Italian has said China need a “miracle” to qualify for the World Cup. A defeat in Tehran is likely to darken China’s glimmering hopes again.