On March 15, the newly reshuffled Chinese women's soccer team
outscored England in a penalty shootout at the Algarve Cup
tournament in Portugal. Earlier in the tournament, they suffered
straight loses to Norway 1-0, Sweden 2-0, and Germany 2-0. The last
and only win against England hauled China to seventh place, its
worst ever performance.
Despite the humiliating results, some of the players were not
discouraged. They said, "We have fallen behind and we know who we
are now." The former "dream team" of women's soccer had previously
won the title twice, and advanced to the top three in the
tournament since 1996.
This year, Han Duan was the only goal scorer. She said, "The
failure is no surprise at all. It reflects the current state of
women's soccer in China."
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However, Wang Haiming, head coach of the team, was less
philosophical about the matter. For him, the frustration is
unbearable and "extremely cruel".
The gradual deterioration of women's soccer in China has been
attributed to the retirement of several of the national team's star
players. This coupled with a shortage of young talent.
Before the FIFA World Cup held in Los Angeles in 2003, the
Chinese national team was practically unmatched. The starting
line-up that included Sun Wen, Liu Ailing and Sun Qingmei was the
winning formula that lulled management into a certain complacency.
They neither thought of making improvements to the line-up nor of
training new players.
Cracks began to show after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but these
were ignored and overshadowed by the euphoria of China's silver
medal win at the Games. The situation worsened in 2001 when Sun
Wen, winner of the Golden Ball and Golden Boot awards at the 1999
Women's World Cup, and several of her teammates retired.
According to Tony Di Cicco, former head coach of the United
States national team, the shortage of new talent is not the only
reason why Chinese women's soccer has failed to impress in recent
years. The main problem is that little attention has been paid to
developing player strength and competitiveness. Di Cicco was
expected to have taken charge of training the Chinese team in
2004.
Han said, "If we are to catch up with stronger teams like the
US, Germany and Canada, we can't shut ourselves off from reality.
The team should play more intensified and strength-focused
games."
Wang also admitted, "We seldom focused on physical
competitiveness training and that was what left us in the dust when
faced with the fierce performance of the European teams."
Despite China's disappointing turn at the Algarve Cup, the China
Football Association was not disheartened. Newly elected CFA
president, Xie Yalong, sent a message of encouragement to the team
saying, "Be patient and let's start from scratch". Further, the CFA
has no intention of replacing Wang as head coach. They said, "We
cannot put the blame on Wang because the problem lies with the
overall incompetence of the players."
The question now is, can China regain its glory days of 1999?
Xue Li, vice president of the CFA, said that there is no concrete
game plan at the moment. She added, "We are still feeling our way
across."
The only thing that is clear for now is that Wang Haiming is
focused on training young players for the 2008
Beijing Olympic Games.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, March 25, 2005)