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China beats Australia in soccer friendly

Monday, 21st July 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)

Changchun—China beat Australia 1-0 in a pre-Olympic friendly on Sunday. Zhao Xuri scored on a pass from Yuan Weiwei in the 80th minute. It was China's first game without former head coach Ratomir Dujkovic, who was reassigned within the organization last week. According to Xinhua, Dujkovic was scouting Belgium, which is in China's Olympic draw, in a match against the Netherlands. Yin Tiesheng is now the team's head coach.

Midfielder Zheng Zhi, one of China's best players who two weeks ago was rumored to be injured and missing the Olympics, did play in the match.

Tags: football, Ratomir Dujkovic, soccer, Zheng Zhi

China's Olympic soccer coach replaced

Saturday, 19th July 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)

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About a week after sacking men's national team coach Vladimir Petrovic and, more remarkably, three weeks before the Olympics, China removed its men's soccer (football) Olympic head coach Ratomir Dujkovic on Thursday. The Chinese Football Association (CFA) has replaced him with Yin Tiesheng, who led the men's under-20 national team in 2004 and has also coached the CFA's Qingdao team.

Dujkovic, who is Serbian, has not been fired by the association, according to this Xinhua story, but moved to another job. No reason has been given for the change and Dujkovic has not made public comment.

This is the third elite-level coach the CFA has removed from a post in four months; it has now completely overhauled its head coaching lineup for both men's and women's teams. The CFA let national team men's coach Vladimir Petrovic (also Serbian) go last week after a failed World Cup qualifying run. In March, it fired women's coach, Elizabeth Loisel of France, by e-mail after political conflicts with team officials.

Related:
China Fires Men's National Soccer Coach
Au Revoir (Loisel fired)

Tags: Elizabeth Loisel, football, Olympics, Ratomir Dujkovic, soccer, Vladimir Petrovic

China Fires Men's National Soccer Coach

Monday, 7th July 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)

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China's men's national soccer (football) team is letting head coach Vladimir Petrovic's contract expire after the team's disappointing attempt to qualify for the 2010 World Cup (Asian Football Confederation report).

The Serbian was hired on an 11-month contract last August. In World Cup qualifying matches this spring, the team tied Australia 0-0 in Kunming, lost to Qatar 1-0 in Tianjin and lost to Iraq 2-1 in Tianjin. China's lone win of the campaign came against Australia, a 1-0 win in Sydney. But China was a lame duck going into the game, with no chance of qualifying. In a statement posted by the Asian Football Confederation, he was positive and gracious but expressed some frustration with the brief amount of time he'd been given to turn the team around.

"Elimination from the World Cup left me very sad but I have had many (positive) emotions which I appreciate," said Petrovic, who was named coach of the year in the Chinese Super League for his success with Dalian Shide in 2005. "The time I have had here was too short to change anything and maybe I could have done better if I had enough time."

Petrovic is the second coach to get canned from the national soccer program in just over three months, after women's team head coach Elizabeth Loisel was let go in late March. China's Olympic team coach, Ratomir Dujkovic, also Serbian, remains in place.

Image: Asian Football Confederation

Tags: football, men's soccer, Ratomir Dujkovic, Vladimir Petrovic