The Chinese women's youth football team has marched on to the
quarter-finals at the FIFA U-20 World Championship in Russia.
Ma Xiaoxu again proved China's match-winner as Shang Ruihua's
side marched on to the quarter-finals at the expense of Canada,
edging out the 2002 finalists 1-0 in a gritty and often-grim Group
B clash.
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The Steel Rosebuds will now to face the hosts Russia on Saturday
and, despite having progressed with three wins from three outings
and with just one goal conceded, the Chinese coach believes that
his side must improve considerably if they are to disappoint the
Russian fans.
"We were lucky to get this result," he said frankly. "The
Canadians played very active football and my players didn't react
to that kind of pressure well in the first half. They improved a
little in the second half, but we are still not playing to 100 per
cent of our capacity. There are some technical and tactical flaws
we will need to repair before our next game because the Russian
team is very strong."
Despite his pre-match criticism of China's midfield - guilty, he
claimed, of "not showing enough skill on the ball" - Shang Ruihua
opted to make just one change to the team that had started the 3-0
win over Nigeria, recalling Rao Hui Fang at the expense of Zhuang
Ran.
Bridge, by contrast, dropped three of the players who had helped
Canada to a 2-0 victory over Finland and beefed-up 4-5-1 formation
that held its own against the physically imposing Chinese.
It didn't, however, prevent the group leaders from carving out
the first, and best, chance of the first half in just seven
minutes, Lou Xiaoxu racing clean through and only being denied an
early goal by a superb save by the impressive Stephanie Labbe low
to her right.
Yet Canada proved be the toughest nut China had yet attempted to
crack, and as the half wore on, the North Americans attempted
numerous long-range efforts, the best of which came from their goal
heroine against the Finns, Jodi-Ann Robinson forcing a fine save
from Zhang Yanru.
Nevertheless, there remained a distinct lack of spark to
Canada's forward forays and, with news of Nigeria's 4-0 half-time
lead over the Finns filtering through, Ian Bridge opted at
half-time to replace Collison with the more creative Aysha Jamani,
switching Robinson back to the centre-forward role in which she
seems most effective.
An early goal duly arrived, but not at the end Bridge was
hoping, with Ma Xiaoxu profiting from an identical situation to
that wasted by her namesake in the first half, racing through on to
a lofted Yuan Fan pass and slotting the ball low past the advancing
Labbe for her fourth goal at Russia 2006.
Yuan, whose assist later helped her win the Player of the Match
award, was modest about the achievement and critical of her team's
performance. "Generally speaking, we did not play well," she said.
"It was only when the coach told us to push up at half-time that we
produced a slightly better performance, and fortunately it was
enough to gain victory."
Though the goal was a little hard on a Canada team who had not
looked likely to concede, nor had they offered much to suggest that
they were capable of scoring themselves, and falling behind did
little to change this.
Robinson did at least bring some pace and dynamism to their
attacking play, but save for a powerful 20-yard effort from the
17-year-old that flashed wide of Zhang's left-hand post, there was
little to suggest that the Chinese goal was in danger of being
breached.
Substitute Paige Adams tested Zhang from distance, but it was a
measure of how comfortable the Asian champions were in their
advantage that Shang even felt able to withdraw Ma, his captain and
standard-bearer, with 10 minutes remaining.
Bridge, though, was nothing if not gracious in defeat. "My
congratulations go to China for a tremendous achievement," he said
afterwards. "I would say, though, that I am very proud of my
players, who followed our game plan perfectly and defended superbly
against a strong and very technically skilful team who we knew
could play through us. We're sad to be leaving as we had
aspirations to go further, but we've been beaten by a very strong
team."
(FIFA.com August 24, 2006)