Chinese Olympic football coach Yin Tiesheng on Friday reiterates the team's goal is to enter the semifinals, a mission seemingly remote and difficult for the troubled squad.
"Our expectation has never changed, which is to enter the semifinals," said Yin, who recently took over as the executive coach while the Serbian coach Ratomir Dujkovic remains head coach but is kept in back seat to lend his expertise.
"Our bottom-line is to progress into the knockout stage. We have chances in the group, because football is a team sport and we are not afraid of any single player on our rival team, however excellent he is," he told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
China will face New Zealand and Belgium on August 7 and August 10 respectively and fight star-dubbed Brazil on August 13.
"Considering our strength and the condition of our opponents, we know it would be an arduous task to reach the semifinals. But we have to make a harsh objective for ourselves and never give up trying," the 51-year-old former coach of Chinese Super League team Qingdao Zhongneng said.
The Olympic Games have so far left China's football with nothing but poignant memories. They have managed to qualify only once in Seoul in 1988, where they left for home after three goalless group stage losses.
The team has recently wrapped up four tune-up matches with three wins and one draw, but the lack of killing touch has never got any signs of betterment.
"Our weakness has been fully exposed in the friendlies and we are struggling to sharpen our offensiveness in the middle," Yin said.
But he said the established tactics of attacking from two wings have never been changed and he was just making improvements and supplement on Dujkovic's strategies, which were criticized of being monotonous and ineffective especially after the senior side failed to qualify for 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Zheng Zhi, China's midfield mainstay, had not played a complete match in any of the previous warm-ups. Yin said that was to help save Zheng's stamina.
"Zheng's lower back injury is 90 to 95 percent all right now. We had given him heavier training load and he can play 90 minutes on the pitch," Yin said. "But we didn't want to push him to the limit in the warm-ups because he needs to consolidate his physical condition and gear up for the Olympics."
According to FIFA's website, Zheng, long-time captain and playmaker of the team, has been given the No. 8 jersey and the No. 10 outfit has been assigned to over-age forward Han Peng, a sign which could probably show that Zheng was not in his best shape to lead the youthful team to realize their Olympic dream.
(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2008)