Asian Debate: China Just Not Good Enough?

China may have been unlucky at times, being drawn in the Group of Death was unfortunate, but the fact is that the team just hasn’t been good enough. That much is clear when you look at the statistics that matter. Five games, two goals, no wins and three points. Such a record can result in nothing else but elimination.

It is a familiar feeling for fans in the Middle kingdom. A lack of luck was evident in 2004 when the team again fell at the first group hurdle to Kuwait - by virtue of having scored one goal less. A final day 7-0 thrashing of Hong Kong should have been enough to send the team into the last stage but Kuwait, level 1-1 with Malaysia at half-time, ran out 6-1 winners.

This time, China started reasonably well with a 1-1 draw away at the Dubai ‘home’ of Iraq. There was a little luck involved in that game as the Asian Champions were well on top until Nashat Akram was sent off in the second half. China then picked up a draw at home to group favourites Australia. A late penalty miss from Shao Jiayi will certainly be the biggest ‘what if’ moment of the campaign for Chinese fans. Then a point in Qatar meant that the 2004 Asian Cup runners-up may not have had a victory to their name at the halfway stage but two successive games at home should have provided the platform to step up to the last round. They both ended in defeat.

A lack of discipline didn’t help. China went into the must-win game with Iraq once again missing Li Weifeng through suspension (the one-time, literally, Everton defender received his first yellow in the fourth minute of the first game) and Sun Jihai. The over-reliance on midfield star Zheng Zhi was perhaps understandable but the talented Charlton midfielder was too often tired or not fully fit.

The fact that the team had two coaches throughout the campaign didn’t help. Officially, Vladomir Petrovic was the man picking the team and devising the tactics but few had any doubt that head of China’s Olympic team Ratomir Dujkovic was the real power behind the throne. The Serbian had a decent pedigree when given the Olympic job as he had just led Ghana to the second round of the 2006 World Cup. It’s fair to say however that China just doesn’t have a Michael Essien or Sulley Muntari.

But Dujkovic chose to ignore some of the talent that the nation does have. Record Chinese Super League goalscorer Li Jinyu is not perhaps hitting the heights of that 2006 season when he scored for fun at Shandong but he has a healthy international goalscoring record and still knows where the goal is. He couldn’t have done any worse than the strikers who did play and didn’t score. Han Peng (pictured) was in and out of the team and Qu Bo isn’t the same player who interested Blackburn Rovers and Tottenham Hotspur after the 2002 World Cup. It is not surprising perhaps that both China’s goals came from midfield.

Fans in China, always a somewhat fatalistic bunch when it comes to their own domestic football scene, are rightly upset at another failure and the lack of leadership and vision that has come from the Chinese Football Association.

The Chinese Super League promised much in the late nineties and hinted that this nation of 1.3 billion was on the threshold of becoming an Asian heavyweight. Qualification for the 2002 World Cup reinforced that. Results were poor in Korea /Japan but first appearances on the global stage are tough. South Korea back in 1954 and Japan in 1998 had similarly chastening experiences, though Saudi Arabia proved to be the exception to that rule in 1994.

As an English manager might say, China then had to ‘kick on’ but never did so. Incompetence, corruption, a neglect of grass roots football and over-reliance on foreign talent have all played their parts. Standards across Asia are rising and China is falling behind.

There is the considerable crumb of comfort for fans in the Beijing Olympics but the fact just as that jamboree finishes, the final stage of qualification for the 2010 World Cup will be about to start. It’s going to be a long few years.    

John Duerden

Asia Editor

johnduerden@hotmail.com