Contrasting fortunes for China's senior and Olympic sides over
the last 10 days have increased media pressure on Zhu Guanghu to
step down as coach of the national team in favour of Ratomir
Djukovic.
Goals from Changchun's Wang Dong and Manchester United's Dong
Fangzhuo finally gave Zhu's depleted squad a win on their Asian Cup
warm-up tour of the United States with a 2-1 victory over Colorado
Rapids on Sunday.
That victory, however, came on the back of a 4-1 thrashing by
the U.S. national team and 1-0 loss to the worst side in Major
League Soccer (MLS), Real Salt Lake.
At the same time, Dujkovic was leading his side to victories
over the Netherlands, Ghana and Ivory Coast and into the final of
an international tournament in Toulon, where they lost to hosts
France on Saturday.
Dujkovic said he was interested in leading the senior squad in
their qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup but only after
next year's Beijing Olympics.
"If offered the chance, everybody would like to lead the Chinese
team into their second World Cup," the Serb, who led Ghana to the
knockout stages of last year's World Cup finals, told the Xinhua
news agency in France.
"I think the Chinese players have the ability to do that."
CHINESE WAY
China reached the finals of the World Cup for the first time in
2002 under another Serbian coach, Bora Milutinovic.
Dujkovic, who has also been in charge of Rwanda, Venezuela and
Myanmar, was appointed to lead the Olympic squad last October and
said he had quickly adjusted to the Chinese way of doing
things.
"I have no problem coaching in China because I know I can't
change anything but have to adapt to it," he said.
"You know, I coached in different countries and that's part of
my job."
The 61-year-old said media calls for his under-23 side to go to
July's Asian Cup finals instead of the senior team were
impractical.
"Even if we got the call, we wouldn't be able to do it because
the Asian Cup wouldn't fit our schedule," he said.
"We've arranged an Italian tour in July.
"You shouldn't make a big fuss about the results of friendlies.
It doesn't mean much. They could still do well at the Asian
Cup."
Zhu was without players from two of the country's top clubs --
champions Shandong Luneng and Shanghai Shenhua -- for the US
tour.
Sympathy, however, has been in short supply for the 57-year-old
after a run of poor results culminated in a first defeat to
Thailand in 17 years last month.
(China Daily via Reuters June 12, 2007)