Game Over
Monday, 16th June 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Sun Xiang (l) and Nashat Ali battle for the ball.
The team's 2-1 loss to Iraq Saturday put the last nail in the coffin. Even a win over division leader Australia June 22 can't help now.
China began this round of qualifying games in March against Australia in Kunming. While the Aussies arrived just a few days before the game and the Chinese team trained for more than a month at Kunming's 1,900-meter altitude, the game ended with China missing a penalty kick and settling for a a 0-0 tie.
The next game, against Qatar, was played in Tianjin, just one hour from Beijing. China suffered a 1-0 loss on a penalty kick. With the team's backs against the wall on Saturday, fans' enthusiasm was pretty low, according to this Reuters report that says only 30,000 showed up to watch at the 60,000-seat Tianjin Olympic Stadium. China's Zhou Haibin scored first in the match, but then the team proceeded to give up two goals and and its World Cup hopes, also waving goodbye to an eight million yuan bonus that the China Football Association had pledged to the team if it qualified for South Africa 2010.
Not surprisingly, head coach Vladimir Petrovic is taking some heat from the media (the Olympic team is led by Ratomir Dujkovic). But history isn't exactly on his side: China missed the 2006 World Cup and was held scoreless in 2002, the first time it qualified for a World Cup.
Image: FIFA.com
Tags: football, soccer, Tianjin Olympic Stadium, Vladimir Petrovic, World Cup, Zhou Haibin