Fed-up Chinese football fans and pundits expressed dismay Friday after the country’s World Cup dreams were torpedoed following a crushing qualifying defeat in Indonesia.
President Xi Jinping has said he wanted China to win the World Cup one day but the latest flop means they have only ever played there once, in 2002, when they failed to get a point or score a goal.
The 1-0 defeat in Jakarta on Thursday left them rooted to the foot of Asian qualifying Group C with seven losses in nine games. They have conceded 20 goals.
Football commentator Zhan Jun said Branko Ivankovic’s men lost “due to lack of experience, lack of ability and poor handling of details”.
The Croatian coach’s tactics were “not suitable for the team” and put too much pressure on defensive midfielder Wang Shangyuan, Zhan wrote on the Weibo social media site.
Veteran pundit Ji Yuyang complained that Ivankovic’s leadership had let the team down and that the coach was “not as good as several of his predecessors”.
“In their group the Chinese team lost the most games and conceded the most goals,” Ji noted on Weibo.
China’s long-suffering fans vented online.
One said that “these national players simply don’t realise that the point of football is to kick the ball into the opponents’ goal”.
“They only know how to stupidly chase the ball!”
The national team has long been the butt of jokes and a target of derision in China both for its poor record and corruption in the sport.
“The last time the national team made it to the World Cup, I was in year six of primary school,” wrote another online.
“We might be able to make it by the time my grandchildren are in sixth grade.”
Chinese people “have long been emotionally prepared to be eliminated (from the World Cup),” one supporter said on Weibo.
“No matter how crappy you are, we will not give up our World Cup dream!”
The national team play again on Tuesday in the southwestern city of Chongqing in what is now a dead rubber against similarly eliminated Bahrain.
