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| Arie Haan, the Dutch coach of the Chinese national soccer team during a
training session on November 15, 2004 in Guangzhou.
[Xinhua] |
Arie Haan, the Dutch coach of the Chinese national
soccer team remains confident that his team will advance to the finals of
the 2006 World Cup Asian Zone qualifying tournament.
"The Chinese are more powerful than the Hong Kong players. As long as
we can play our level, we will win the match," Haan said on Friday.
China play Hong Kong Wednesday night in Guangzhou in the deciding
match. Only a victory by a big margin would give the Chinese any chance of
qualifying for the final eight.
China must beat Hong Kong by at least two more goals than Kuwait, who
lead the group on goal difference and play Malaysia at the same time.
Reports say that Malaysian football officials had already decided to
line up a second-string team
against the Kuwaitis.
 Haan, whose team lost 0-1 to Kuwait on October 13, is upbeat
about the coming match. "I am really satisfied with the pre-training,"
said Haan, the former Stuttgart and FC Nuremberg coach.
"The purpose of the training is to give our players more confidence to
attack as only scoring goals can bring us happiness.
"We need to defeat our rivals psychologically at first, forcing them to
make mistakes on the pitch. It would be wonderful if we could score in the
beginning of the match.
"I will not take a three-forwards formation," said Haan, in response to
questions about the team's lacklustre forward
line.
"We will focus on the middle field and try our best to pressure our
rivals in that area, providing our forwards a great space to attack."
China qualified for their first World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan in 2002 under
Serbian Bora Milutinovic. They came down to earth in the group stage losing
all three matches without scoring any goal.
(China Daily) | 
Updated: 2004-11-16 09:07