In matches yesterday from flood threatened Wuhan: Russia 1:0 Japan China 3:0 South Korea China still has to play Russia. The winner will win the tournament.
Wish I could say I was surprised by the Russia-Japan result ... Japan just doesn't have the physicality to grind with teams like those yet. Is the tournament still round robin?
Sawa was more than likely playing for Japan. I really can't say as to the Chinese contingent, though, and I don't know of any South Koreans or Russians in WUSA.
Slight correction - apparently Sun Wen was a no show for the China-Korea match. Didn't need to be, though, as Korea's defenders did most of the scoring via OG.
Is there a Japan and China roster out there for this? Oh...and any truth to the rumor that possibly the Chinese federation will hold back all their Chinese players from the next WUSA season so that they can prep for the 2003 WWC? This rumor has popped up in several of the forums recently.
I don't know for sure. However, I have a couple of friends in China who MIGHT be in the know. Let me see if I can pump them for info.
This is correct. Sun Wen didn't play. She might be needed against the other Korea, but not South Korea.
According to this none of the Chinese WUSA'ers are at this tourney. http://www.womensoccer.com/refs/afc-refs/afc-china_27aug02.htm
The first round of matches: China defeated Japan 4-0 Russia defeated Korea but I don't know what the score was. I think the third round of matches are today.
China defeated Russia 2-1 to go 3-0 in the tournament. I am really impressed by Russia's results in this tournament. They beat two good teams in South Korea and Japan and apparantly gave Asian Power China a tough match. I will try to get details later.
Japan and Korea aren't all that good, I would expect Russia to beat them. L - If you get all six results and dates, please let us know, I still haven't found this anywhere online. Thanks.
I have posted all of the results I have found thus far. I will look further this evening. The only site I have seen scores on so far is the Chinese language cctv.com site from Mainland China.
Some match reports: China 3 South Korea 0 China 2 Russia 1 Full results: August 27 China 4 Japan 0 Korea 3 Russia 2 August 29 China 3 Korea 0 Russian 1 Japan 0 August 31 China 2 Russia 1 Korea 0 Japan 0
Some info about the Chinese team and the Wuhan tournament. None of the current Chinese players in WUSA participated because coach wanted to evaluate the up and coming players in an international competition setting, and timing might be an issue since WUSA championship was so close to the tournament. About the tournament, Japan didn’t come with their best players, the Japanese national team coach was in Canada for the U-19 Cup, 5 of the national team are from the U-19 team. And there is Sawa, Sun Wen said if Sawa were in Wuhan, China definitely could not beat Japan 4-0. During the tournament, the lack of speed of the Chinese defenders was apparent, there were many 1-on-1 scoring opportunities for other teams because other teams out ran the Chinese defenders. This is a serious problem since the North Korea team has good speed. Speaking of which, the N. Korea team just had a couple of friendly matches in Europe (Sweden/Denmark) to prepare for the Asia Olympics and won them all. Not sure what kind of quality those matches were. I am a bit surprised an isolated country like N. Korea sent the team to Europe, thinking the possibility of player defection every time the Cuban baseball team visits USA. As for Fear9’s question if China would withhold its players from playing in WUSA next year, my feeling is that it would not be an outright ban. It would more like a cause in the contract that those players can return to China when near WWC if chosen by the Chinese national team. When Zhang from SD told the coach that SD wants her to sign next year’s contract up to the WWC, the coach said don’t sign yet. I guess this will be worked out between China and WUSA. Besides, not all the Chinese players in WUSA will be called by the national team. The initial list for the Asia Olympics includes WUSA players Sun, Bai, Pu and Zhao only (accidentally, all from play off teamsJ). Now at the camp in Beijing, all except Wang and Gao are there and the coach said everyone gets a chance getting into the final 18. Wang is probably going to retire and Gao has to fulfill some immigration obligation in Canada (I heard). So next year Atlanta Beat has two foreign spots to fill, the option is quite open for Tom Stone.
Re: Some info about the Chinese team and the Wuhan tournament. According to damfotboll.com, N Korea lost 4-0 to Denmark and 1-0 to Sweden. Do you have goalscorers?
The four Danish scorers were: Merete Pedersen Lene Jensen Cathrine Paaske Sørensen Lene Jensen Hanna Ljungberg scored for Sweden