At 2:00 a.m. Beijing time on September 3, at the Caliph Stadium in Doha, Qatar, the Chinese men's national football team welcomed the first opponent of the round of 12, Australia.
20 years ago, it was on this pitch that with Li Weifeng scoring a goal in the 89th minute, the Chinese team forced Qatar to draw and scored a key away point. That time we came to the end.
But this time, Australia once again let us recognize the reality, 3:0 crushing defeat to the Chinese team, the national football team failed to form an effective shot in the whole game.
Screenshot of Sports Express
After the game, "the probability of the national football team qualifying is less than one percent" on the hot search, and the foreign media used the data model to calculate the probability of each team qualifying, and the probability of the national football team directly qualifying was only 0.88%, which was lower than that of Vietnam in the same group.
Hot search screenshots
Since 1957, when New Chinese football began to chase its dreams, including this time, we have participated in a total of 12 World Cup Asian qualifiers, only 6 times to enter the final stage, and 6 times to fall in the first stage of the group stage.
Many times, the top ten and twelve matches are the World Cup of Chinese fans.
The only success was at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.
Looking back now, yan Shiduo, then full-time vice president of the Chinese Football Association, proposed the goal of the 2002 World Cup: "score a goal, score a point, win a game", we don't even feel funny anymore, because after so many years, we found that 2002 was the peak of national football.
There are three roads in life, up the ramp, down the ramp, and I didn't expect it.
Unexpectedly, after 2002, the national football team took the downhill slope.
If you understand the course of these 20 years, you will know that today's national football team, your heart may no longer be because of today's defeat on the waves, and even find a place to make yourself happy.
Compared with the promotion process in 2002, which was reversed, compared to the black N minutes countless times in the previous 44 years, we have fallen 4 times in front of the World Cup in these 20 years, and the reasons for failure have become more diverse.
Today we want to talk about this 21st century national football team to impact the World Cup road, but also a history of blood and tears.
01
2002-2006
It all started at noon on July 27, 2002 at the Kunlun Hotel in Beijing.
Yan Shiduo, on behalf of the Chinese Football Association, set up a banquet to send off Milu.
Milu, the head coach of the national football team who took office in January 2000, stepped down after historicly leading the Chinese team to the World Cup and is about to leave for China.
Milu
After the retirement of the magical coach who was considered "free and loose" by the Football Association, in the official "World Cup Summary Report" of that year, Milu was evaluated as a result and a lack of "six or four".
There is a more or less implication here that Chinese football looks like it can do better.
Stepping into the 21st century, China's accession to the WTO, Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games, and the Chinese men's football team entered the World Cup, everyone has a bright future.
In 2001, Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games
Although the group stage of the World Cup in South Korea and Japan lost three games, as a novice, that is just the beginning.
On December 21, 2002, it was still the Kunlun Hotel, the new manager finally took office, and Alihan officially became the head coach of the national football team.
AliHan
That year, the Football Association initially threw out three famous candidates, Jacquet, Hiddink and Trussier, but after some investigation, it was the Dutchman who was the manager of the Stuttgart kickers of the German Serie C side at the time.
He was one of the two-time World Cup runner-up in the Netherlands in the 1970s, yet as a coach he lacked experience.
Later, some people said that Alihan's business level was not good, and others said that he was wronged, after all, Alihan only lost two of his two most important official matches. Just these two games are enough to be unforgettable.
In the summer of 2004, the Asian Cup was held in China for the first time, and the national football team finally equaled the best result in history and won the runner-up.
Screenshot of World of Sports
If it were not for the referee's disregard for Japanese player Koji Nakata in a corner, the Chinese team would even have a chance to win the championship at home.
The referee of this final happened to be a Kuwaiti.
At that time, the Chinese team did not expect that it would suffer the harm of the Kuwaiti again after 3 months.
In the group stage of the 2006 WORLD Cup Asian Qualifiers, the Chinese team maintained all four victories in the first four games, but all of them were small scores, 1-0 victories over Hong Kong, China, 1-0 victories over Malaysia, and 1-0 victories over Kuwait, which laid the groundmine for the future.
In the crucial fifth game away to Kuwait, in the second half Sun Xiang made a low-level mistake and passed the ball to the Kuwaiti striker, Zhang Yaokun behind him was swung by the other side, and the Kuwaiti scored the winning goal.
China lost the match 0:1 and suddenly, the goal difference in the group rankings was 2 goals less than Kuwait. The final round against Hong Kong was a back-and-forth battle, not only to win, but to score as many goals as possible.
On 17 November, the final round went on at the same time, with China beating Hong Kong 7-0 in Guangzhou and Kuwait beating Malaysia 6-1 at home.
7:0 win over Hong Kong, China
In the case of the two sides in the same number of points, mutual win-loss relationship, goal difference, Kuwait with the advantage of 1 goal to overwhelm the Chinese team to advance, the national football team was relegated to the second place in the group and was eliminated.
The most unbelievable thing is that after the fact, many information showed that the Chinese Football Association and the Chinese coaching team did not calculate how many goals to win until the end of the game.
When the final whistle sounded, Yang Yimin, vice chairman of the Football Association on the rostrum, actually said to Xiao Tian, deputy director of the General Administration of Sports, who was watching the game: "The two sides are like goal differences, and they have to play the play-offs."
At that time, the commentary of the live broadcast and other media also said that they wanted to play the playoffs for the first time.
Today you may not imagine that two matches that started at the same time, it took 10 minutes after the game for the Chinese team to figure out their ending.
The more than 30,000 fans of the Tianhe Sports Center were left silent, Li Jinyu sat in the center of the stadium and sobbed, and Zheng Zhi, who lost a penalty in this game, had to hide his face.
In retrospect, the Football Association sent two people to Kuwait to ensure the opponent's situation.
But they did not rent a special fixed telephone line, and due to the poor signal of mobile phones in the stadium, there was a long period of contact in the second half.
The staff at the scene in Guangzhou also failed to learn the real score through the network in time, Tianhe Stadium had broadcast the Kuwaiti score in the first half of the live broadcast, but the midfielder was stopped by the Football Association, on the grounds that it would not affect the mood of the players on the field.
Under this strange layer of failure, the national football team, which was already leading 5:0 at the beginning of the second half, did not receive the command to attack until the last 10 minutes of the game, when Li Weifeng scored the 7th goal in the stoppage time and ran wildly with his jersey to celebrate, the assistant coach of the national football team Li Shubin pushed him back hard and loudly told the players that there was still one left.
But time is running out.
The day after the match, the front page headline of the Football Newspaper called the match a "mentally handicapped accident".
Screenshot of Sina Sports
Hong Kong insisted that there was no tacit understanding of the ball, but in the eyes of the outside world, Chinese football could not even "play match-fixing".
To this day, the "11.17 Incident" is considered to be the most far-reaching game in Chinese football.
The national football team, which maintained the 2002 team and won the runner-up of the Asian Cup, still had the strength to impact the qualifying quota at that time, but in the end it became a watershed, and since then Chinese football has fallen into darkness for more than 10 years.
This 7:0 is also called the most shameful victory in the history of Chinese football.
Dreaming of the World Cup in Germany, Arihan left after the game.
Also in that year, Shen Xiangfu led the "super platinum generation" national Olympic team including Qu Bo, Dewey, An Qi, etc. defeated the 2004 Athens Olympic Qualifiers, and just one month before the 1117 incident, seven club investors led by Xu Ming, then dalian Shide boss, launched a football reform with the main goal of "separation of government and enterprises, separation of management and office", and finally failed, which is the famous "G7 Revolution" in the first year of the Chinese Super League.
The good wishes and anger and disappointment of Chinese fans for the men's football team eventually created a hit on the Internet that year.
A nearly 19-minute short film , "Chinese Team Wins the World Cup " , which has exceeded one million hits in less than half a month since its release in July 2006 , has become a spoof masterpiece of the early years of the video era and "A Bloody Case Caused by a Steamed Bun".
Screenshot of "China Wins the World Cup"
02
2006-2010
In March 2005, Zhu Guanghu, who led the unpaid Shenzhen Jianlibao to the 2004 Chinese Super League championship, took over as the head coach of the national football team, and the Chinese team used a local coach for the first time since 1997.
Left one Zhu Guanghu
At the press conference, Zhu Guanghu bluntly said that he would achieve a double harvest in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2010 World Preliminary Tournament.
However, he simply did not have this opportunity, in the 2007 Asian Cup group stage, in the case of a draw to qualify, the Chinese team was fed three goals by Uzbekistan in the last 20 minutes, which directly led to Zhu Guanghu's dismissal.
The task of storming the 2010 World Cup in South Africa then fell to the two Serbs.
As we all know, because of the Beijing Olympic Games, the Football Association regards this Olympic Games as more important than the World Cup qualifiers.
It is also in this context that after Zhu Guanghu left the class, the Football Association decided to appoint Dujkovic, the head coach of the National Olympic Games at that time, to become the head coach of the national team and lead the national team and the national Olympic team, which is not unheard of in the history of Chinese men's football, and in 1999, Horton had two positions on the shoulder.
Middle Dujkovic
But this time it was different, and soon, under the needle lead of Duy, his good brother and good compatriot led the head coach of Dalian Shide to win the 2005 Chinese Super League championship, Andrado, became the executive head coach of the national team in September 2007.
This kind of peculiar double manager setting is also rare in international football, and it was subsequently proved that it was not suitable for China.
Left: Forado Right: Duy
In the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, due to the poor results of the Asian Cup, the national football team lost the qualification of the seeded team and could only start from the qualification match. After the big victory over Myanmar, Fratdo even said that Chinese football should learn from Spanish football and beat the opponent with a quick one-foot pass.
However, the signing luck of the Chinese team is indeed poor.
In the group stage top 20 group after the qualifying round, the Chinese team met Australia, which participated in the World Preliminary Round for the first time since joining the AFC, as well as Iraq and Qatar, which are the absolute death group.
2010 World Cup Qualifiers China Top 20 Schedule
In the first three games, the national football team was tied with 3 strong opponents, including two away games, retaining hope.
One of the biggest regrets was the second 0-0 draw with Australia, qu bo won a penalty for the Chinese team in the 86th minute, but Shao Jiayi missed the penalty.
The most crucial fourth game, back to Tianjin Waterdrop Stadium to face Qatar, Duy sent Gao Lin, who had lost his main position in the National Olympic Games at that time, on the front line to replace Han Peng, who had previously performed well.
As a surprise soldier, Gao Lin was positive, but he gave the opponent a penalty early in the 13th minute of the game by pulling down the opposing player in a free kick defense.
The lebanese referees of this game were of different measures, which made the scene boo everywhere, and even Sun Jihai, who was sitting on the bench, was asked to appear with a red card for expressing dissatisfaction with him.
Sun Jihai was sent off with a red card
In the end, the national football team lost this key battle 0:1, once again only the theoretical possibility of qualifying.
The double manager setting constantly spread contradictions, Frado's tactics are based on 451, while Duido uses 442; the lineup chooses Duy to favor the national Olympic team, and Forado hopes to use more players who are playing in the year, coupled with the lack of peace in the dressing room, making the hope of promotion more and more slim.
In the fifth match against Iraq, the national football team started with 7 new players, including 20-year-old Huang Bowen, who had 0 regular game experience at the time.
Later, it was reported that a veteran of the team handed a small note to the leader before the game, which read, "This is a play on Chinese football."
In the 33rd minute of the game, Zhou Haibin scored the first point for the Chinese team, but in the 41st and 66th minutes, Iraq scored two goals in a row, and the national football team lost 1-2 to the opponent.
This caused an uproar in China, an early round did not qualify for the top 10 matches, an early round locked the first place in the group, the first five games three draws and two losses, not a single sports battle goal, becoming the worst performance in the history of the national football team impacting the World Cup.
In the final game to Sydney to play In Australia, the national football team won a 1:0 victory in a useless victory with 2 teams sent by the opponent.
In this game, For the first time, Flado personally commanded, the previous 5 games he could only stand behind Duy, and it was after this game that the then national football team leader Wei Shaohui took the lead in the locker room and shouted "Frado, Cow X!" "Duy, Silly X!" statement.
This internal and external discord has undoubtedly exacerbated the decline of Chinese football, and also made this double coaching system the biggest laughing stock.
The defeat of Tianjin put Duy under siege by the media, and the "late door" and "silent mourning gate" including personal life problems all became the target of attack, and in the 33 days after losing to Iraq, Vladdouy was dismissed from class.
Xie Yalong, the director of the Football Management Center at the time who single-handedly created the DuFu era, was also choreographed by fans at that time into the classic upper league of "Thank God Xie Yalong", and the most famous lower league was the satire of the director of the Basketball Management Center at that time, "Believe in ghosts and believe in God Xin Lancheng", and the horizontal criticism was "the football basket hit the water and empty".
03
2010-2014
On May Fourth Youth Day in 2009, the then 44-year-old Gao Hongbo officially became the youngest coach in the history of national football, and after the much-maligned Du-Fu era, Chinese football once again chose a local coach.
Left: Gao Hongbo
Xu Genbao had three beloved disciples, and many people now only remember Wu Lei and Fan Zhiyi, but forgot that Gao Hongbo was actually their master brother.
Gao Hongbo began to follow Xu Genbao at the age of 9, from players to coaches, and this time he was able to take office, and Xu Genbao cast an important vote.
The official FIFA website commented after learning of Gao Hongbo's inauguration: "The former Chinese national team striker will lead this team without a clue and constant troubles".
A reporter asked him what he thought? Gao Hongbo said that if I did not have the confidence to revitalize the national football team, I would not have participated in the competition in the first place.
At that time, Chinese football was experiencing full-blown turmoil.
In 2010, in a series of anti-corruption and anti-gambling and anti-counterfeiting actions, former football association leaders Xie Yalong, Nan Yong and Yang Yimin fell one after another, and Wei Di, director of the Water Sports Management Center, took over the foot management center.
Just in July of that year, after returning home after watching the World Cup in South Africa, Wei Di put forward the idea of China's bid to host the 2026 World Cup, and wrote a report to submit to the General Administration of Sport.
At the same time, Gao Hongbo, in the face of the doubts of the internal determination of the coach, the self-danger of everyone under the rectification action, and the national team known as the worst foundation, opened his team polishing and raised the international ranking of the national football team from 108 to 69.
However, in 2011, Wang Jianlin's Wanda Group sponsored the Chinese Football Association with 500 million yuan in three years, disrupting his deployment.
Wanda sponsors Chinese football
There is an ancillary condition of this cooperation, Wang Jianlin asked the national football team to ask the foreign coach, and the anecdotal saying is that Wang Jianlin expressed his attitude after watching the Asian Cup Chinese team being eliminated in the group stage: "Just by virtue of Gao Hongbo's command at the Asian Cup, can the World Cup qualifier qualify?"
After leading the team to play the World Preliminary Round qualifiers and entering the top 20 group, Gao Hongbo still gave up his seat.
In August 2011, the national football team welcomed the 56-year-old biggest foreign coach, Camacho, who had coached Real Madrid and the Spanish national team, and in September, the top 20 competition will start.
Camacho
Singapore, Jordan, Iraq, this time the grouping seems to be much better than the last time.
Especially in the second bracket, the national football team drew Jordan, which had previously remained unbeaten in its record, avoiding the three bitter lords of Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Qatar.
However, on September 2, China only won 2-1 at home to Singapore. Then, on September 6, the national football team lost 1-2 to Jordan away from home, and after being scored two goals first by the opponent, the Chinese team fell into a long chase but missed opportunities one after another, losing to the opponent for the first time in history.
The key third and fourth opponents are Iraq.
The familiar plot happened again, in Shenzhen, the national football team lost the game 0:1, the qualifying situation, once again, not optimistic.
Chinese football has once again reached a desperate situation.
Known as Super Singles' Day on November 11, 2011, China and Iraq played their second match in doha, the midfield.
In the first half, Gao Lin had a goal that was blown offside, and in the second half, Hao Junmin's free-kick was blocked by the Iraqi goal crossbar and upright.
Zhang Linpeng and Li Weifeng, who replaced Dewey, formed a new center-back combination, but Zhang Linpeng won a red card in the 85th minute, and Iraq's goal came from the final stoppage time.
The Chinese team was eliminated in the group stage two rounds in advance, failed to enter the final stage of the World Preliminary Round for the third consecutive time, and once again lost the qualification to participate in the World Cup two years in advance.
Camacho, who was in a hurry to change the coach, was obviously not familiar with the national footballers, and six different sets of squads were arranged in six group matches, and they played live into warm-up matches.
Camacho's ending in China has also become a joke.
On June 15, 2013, the national football team lost 1-5 to the Thai second team in Hefei, and Camacho was dismissed after the game, while Fan Zhiyi left his classic quote: Face is not needed.
Screenshot of a five-star sports interview
But before it was over, Camacho appealed to FIFA because there was still a 1.5-year contract left to be fulfilled. Finally, in November 2016, the FA paid Camacho a total of about 50 million yuan in pre-tax liquidated damages.
04
2014-2018
At the same time as Camacho's costly failure, Chinese professional football is experiencing the craziest era of golden dollar football.
After Evergrande and Wanda, SIPG, Suning, Quan Jian, Huaxia Happiness and other enterprises have invested thousands of dollars, so many international big-name coaches and players have come to the Chinese Super League, which is like the "sixth largest league in the world".
But the road to the 2018 World Cup in Russia has not become comfortable, even more chaotic than the last time, a total of 3 national football coaches have been replaced.
Camacho was replaced by Frenchman Perrin in 2014, and he made a good start. First the historic group stage wins at the 2015 Asian Cup were won three times, and then the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers asia Top 40 were drawn to form a group with Qatar, Bhutan, Maldives and Hong Kong.
Alain Perrin
However, in the first six games, China lost 1-0 to Qatar, and more unexpectedly, two 0-0 games with Hong Kong, including eight unlucky goalposts.
It was these two muffles that directly allowed the Football Association to terminate the contract with Perrin in advance, and it seemed that it was going to stop the group stage.
At this time, Gao Hongbo stepped forward, in the case of less than 10% of the probability of qualifying, the home 4:0 victory over the Maldives, 2:0 victory over Qatar, the conditions of other group matches are also rare to meet the need to qualify, the national football team became the second best group in each group, which is a miracle for the Chinese team that is accustomed to calculating the theoretical qualification possibility.
More importantly, after 16 years, the national football team has finally advanced to the final stage of the World Cup Asian qualifiers.
However, Gao Hongbo's luck in entering the palace could not be continued. Four months later, in the round of 12, the national football team started with a 3-1 draw, and on October 11, the fourth game was lost 0-2 away to Uzbekistan, and Gao Hongbo announced his resignation after the game, leaving him and a Rashomon with Cai Zhenhua, then president of the Football Association.
After the third home game Xi'an 0:1 loss to Syria, there is also a famous scene: Nest and Cashback Brother RPM! refund! Video clips.
Xi'an Suzaku Stadium Off-site interview classic footage
With little hope of qualifying, the Football Association quickly invited the former head coach of Guangzhou Evergrande, and the Italian Lippi came out of the mountains again. The Football Association bears an annual salary of 4.5 million euros, while Evergrande hired him as a consultant for Evergrande Football School for 15.5 million euros, and the comprehensive annual salary of the coaching team reached a sky-high price of 20 million euros.
Lippi
Lippi, a firefighter, is not outstanding, with China winning 1-0 at home to powerful South Korea in the last three games with 2 wins and 1 draw to maintain the suspense until the last round, just one point away from entering the play-offs.
But the most difficult match is the penultimate game against Syria.
When the sign of 4 minutes of injury time was raised, the Chinese team still led 2:1. However, since then, a series of actions of the national football team have been questioned for a long time.
First Wu Lei broke the ball in midfield and rushed forward, and finally a kick of anti-aircraft cannon flew, and it was this foot that did not choose to consume time, which made him bear great public pressure in the next few years.
Syria launched a counter-attack as quickly as possible and scored a free-kick in the top of the arc a minute later.
At this time, the Chinese team put up an "open human wall" that was later controversial, and the next kick of Syria No. 2 Saleh not only blew away the 3 points that the national football team had in hand, but also destroyed the closest opportunity to the World Cup in the national football team in 16 years.
Looking back at this 2:2, in a sense, let the real money that was smashed into football in those years turn into a bubble, accelerating the bursting of the Golden Dollar Super League.
When the 2018 World Cup in Russia began, Bai Yansong said to the Chinese sponsors and the Chinese audience on the scene: "In the Russian World Cup, China has gone except for the football team."
White Rock Pine video screen
05
2018-2022
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar will be held for the first time in the winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but Chinese professional football has taken the lead in winter.
2020 Qatar World Cup promotional map
In August 2019, a month before the Start of the World Preliminary Round of 40, former SIPG Chairman Chen Shuyuan was elected as the new head of the Football Association.
But there is no good news for him, on the one hand, a number of professional clubs at all levels have announced closures or withdrawals;
On the other hand, the Round of 40 began, when the national football team drew 0:0 with the Philippines, and then after the 1:2 loss to Syria on November 14, Lippi first criticized the international's lack of morale, lack of desire and courage on the field after the game, and then issued the famous statement: "We lost tonight, my annual salary is very high, I take full responsibility for this loss, so I announce my resignation to everyone now." No longer as the head coach of the Chinese team."
Screenshot of CCTV Sports
Of course, when you look at the above 20 years of history and look at this matter, you should no longer be surprised by the change of coach.
Lippi's resignation and the loss of the national football team have swept everyone into the familiar rhythm, if even Lippi can't do anything, will we stop here.
Like Gao Hongbo 4 years ago, Li Tie stood up at this time.
Li Tie
Although the national football team has not played a formal game for more than a year due to the epidemic, from May to June this year, the Tiejia army brought us long-lost confidence with a wave of four consecutive wins.
Especially in the last game, when faced with the condition of "draw and qualify", which made Chinese fans shudder, guojian defeated the previous bitter host Syria 3:1 and rushed to the round of 12 as the second place in the best group.
At the end of August, the Football Association renewed li tie's contract until 2026, and no head coach in the history of national football has ever won a 5-year contract like him.
Although Li Tie's platooning in the first round of the match against Australia has once again been widely criticized, after experiencing various defeats in the past 19 years, we should have learned that scolding coaches and changing coaches cannot save Chinese football, and Jin Yuan and naturalized players cannot save Chinese football.
Only by returning to a scientific youth training system, a healthy professional league and a stable management policy can we hope.
After writing this copy, it has been 24 hours since the national football team lost to Australia. If nothing else, by the time you see it, the second round against Japan is over.
As a result, I don't really care, after all these years, any kind of result can be endured.
It is nothing more than waiting for the next 4 years, waiting for the next 4 years.
For so many years, the national football team has played the role of the punching bag of the whole society, and everyone can scold and ridicule.
But people who really watch the ball, no matter how angry to the point of liver pain, or angrily shout rpm to return the money, in the final analysis, love football.
After all, in any case, when 11 Chinese stand on the green field, we only have the choice of Chinese fans, and the same is true for other sports.
The change in football performance will never be a cycle of three or five years. Especially for the national football team, I am afraid that it will take the efforts of one or even two generations...
In the past 20 years, we have traveled through many detours, so it is better to correct our mentality, admit that we are a weak brigade, choose a correct path, and continue to walk.
No matter what happens in the middle, I still support Chinese football.
I remember the day 20 years ago, when I was young and confirmed that China had qualified, the whole community erupted into a huge roar, walked to the street, full of festive people, fans sat on the car on the street, it was a backlog of emotions for 44 years.
I hope that one day, the national football team can bring us this great joy again.