"I'll be sacked if China suffer exit" says Haan. In Asia, this is the final game that I think I'll be most excited to find out the results for... talk about pressure on the players! Quote from above article: "Certainly we need to score goals in this match. When playing a relatively weak team like Hong Kong, we have to bring everyone forward and play in front of their goal mouth," Haan said. so all-out-attack....in front of a home crowd....with the WC on the line....the coach's job on the line...and up to goal differential....with all eyes on whether play will be "fair"... do you think they can do it? does anyone know who the ref will be?
I heard the coach/team said something about how they would be able to make at least 5 goals... hmm... under this sort of pressure, I'm not sure if it was so wise to put a "number" on it.... to be quite honest, I'm not much of a Haan admirer, and would rather see him leave the team. There's something about him that does not breed much maturity in the team... I think the veteran players on the team will have to psychologically maintain the team in balance.
There were recent rumors that Dutch coaching staff (Haan and Theo de Jong) disagreed with their Chinese counterparts alot. For example, Haan refused to start Sun Jihai.
They can, but if they do it, everyone will cry cheat, regardless of what the actual reality will be. BTW, the HK keeper is from China. I will start someone else.... not because I do not trust him, but to avoid controversy.
Yep, I think it'll just be a "score, score, and score some more, if they score, we'll score again" thing. Though, China isn't a very creative team.
Good luck to China. I want China to win. I think China can join the Asian elite (Iran, Japan, Korea, KSA) and help Asian soccer in general.
I think China is crap, if we were damn good enough we wouldn't be in this damn position, just like beginning of the year where everyone would think China would kick Malaysia's ass but only got a tie i don't wanna wait another damn 4 years man, lets all just hope China kills Hong Kong and Kuwait sucks ass, so we can go through I seriously thing China have gotten better after WC2002 but im not quite sure lets all just hold our breathe and hope for the best for China shall we
is there a gap between the way the Chinese coaches want the team to be put together vs what Haan does? do the players support one way or the other? why did he refuse to start Sun Jihai? what was his reasoning?
lol, not 4, but 6, if it all ends now. whew, that's a f-ing long time!! image how old we'll all be by then... and I don't want to think of myself that old to begin with!
Here is how I see it: Chances of China advancing at this point 30-40% Chances of Kuwait advancing at this point 60-70%
Yeah, the two coaching staffs clashed on player selection. I presume the players' support would be leaning towards the Chinese coaching staff. Haan and Sun Jihai began their row during the Asian Cup. Sun was coming off of injury and wanted to play, especially considering that by participating in the tournament he was going to miss Man City's preseason. But Haan thought he was lacking fitness and put him on the bench. Later in the tournament, Haan played Sun, but, astonishingly, at the forward position because China had ran out of strikers. Then in the crucial World Cup qualifying match against Kuwait, Sun started on the bench again.
17/11/2004 16:00 Kuwait v Malaysia Kuwait Ciity, KUW 17/11/2004 21:00 China v Hong Kong Guangzhou, CHN * All match times are local to match venue Eastern Time would be 8:00AM (13 hour difference) for the Chinese game.
Last year, I've watched a few of Man City's matches and paid close attention to Sun's play. I was a bit disappointed because Sun wasn't very impressive. Perhaps, Haan isn't very impressed with Sun either?
there's a thread in the Korea forum about this same problem with player selection. Asian teams have a number of "famous" players that have gone on to play in europe in the last several years... but have been either not playing much at their euro club, have been injured this year, or have not been performing as well as they should due to problems re-integrating into the NT within a short period of time. the question was whether one should use players like these, who at their best are unquestionably peerless, but at the moment carry questions as to "readiness" or usability. While Bonfrere of Korea is using the overseas players regardless of less than stellar performances, Haan seems to have reservations about Sun. Japan coach Zico also chose not to invite Hidetoshi Nakata back to the team for their crucial qualifer against Oman, though Nakata had just finished playing a couple full games with his club back from 6 months of injury. Players coming off injury are particularly difficult, as you don't know exactly to what extent their full-form is restored. with a guy like Sun Jihai, if Haan wasn't going to play his starting, maybe he shouldn't have called him up to begin with...? And now Sun Jihai is out for a year from another injury?
Haan would have been slammed by the media for not even selecting him for the Asian Cup squad. But it probably would have been better for Sun, who ended up playing as a striker. He could've rested up and began the season fresh with Man City.
yeah, being the Host for the Asia Cup could have definitely put pressure on things. You're right though, I think that Sun could have rested up and spent time with his team preseason. Thinking of the player, and understanding what degree of "risk" you put on a player's career by putting him in a situation like that is an alpha factor that not all coaches seem to have. It takes courage, but maybe it could have made a stronger team for the other players to avoid all the squabbling, and succeed regardless of missing a star player. Do you like the squad list for the HK match? Any juicy tidbits of news/rumours regarding the team in training now? It'll be interesting to see how high the motivation is on the HK side as well. I think they are ticked off by China's declaration of squashing them with a huge goal difference...
I bet HK is licking their chops. Playing spoiler is always fun, especially considering that they don't even have to win the game to screw up China. I like the addition of Chen Tao. He participated in the Toulon Cup where the U19 team placed third. Having Yu Genwei also puts pressure on Li Yi and Li Jinyu, who are both abysmal.
HK is a defiant, being ticked off by the "at least 5-0" prediction by the Chinese coach Haan. In fact, Kwok, the manager who engineered the 1-0 upset twenty years ago against China, is predicting a game with goal differential no more than 2. "It's laughable to think HK will let China score simply because we're all Chinese. China being in this position is entirely its own fault," he said. And the way Haan is playing Yu Genwei, as a sub instead of starting him......... boy let's just get this over with and send this idiot Haan home. PS: I do hope Haan doesn't play Li Tie however. Li hasn't fully recovered and for the sake of his future in Europe, I hope Haan bench him. Li is not a goal scorer anyway.