Pressure on Ivankovic to lift the gloom

Croatian Branko Ivankovic will try and hit the ground running as the newly appointed head coach of the Chinese men's team arrived in Beijing on Monday with just over two weeks to prepare for the squad's latest FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

The Chinese Football Association announced on Monday that Ivankovic has begun to select players for the squad that will face Singapore in back-to-back games on March 21 and 26.

The 70-year-old is scheduled to meet his new squad for the first time on March 11 in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. A week later, the national team will fly to Singapore for the first qualifier, before heading to Tianjin for the home game.

The length of Ivankovic's tenure will be dependent on results, with a clause in his contract reportedly allowing the CFA to terminate the deal if the team suffers an early exit in qualification.

The coaching team for the upcoming qualifiers will be a combination of an Ivankovic selection and Chinese coaches.

"The Chinese Football Association will fully support the work of head coach Branko Ivankovic, and we will help build a great environment for the new coach. The time before the qualifiers in March is very limited, and we will work together with the head coach to make the best possible preparations," read a CFA announcement on Monday.

After a succession of disappointing results in recent years, Team China suffered a fresh blow in January when it failed to progress through the group stage at the AFC Asian Cup, going scoreless in two draws and one defeat.

The dismal performances resulted in the firing of the squad's Serbian head coach Aleksandar Jankovic, with striker Wu Lei lamenting that Team China is now "barely a second-class squad in Asia".

Team China opened the second round of its World Cup qualifying campaign in November with a 2-1 win over Thailand before losing 3-0 to South Korea in a match it was not expected to pick up any points. China currently ranks third in Group C.

The first round of Asian zone qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by Canada, the United States and Mexico, kicked off in October 2023.The ongoing second round consists of nine four-team groups, with teams playing home and away against each other. The top two teams from each group will progress to the third round.

Those 18 remaining teams will then be split into three groups of six, with each team again playing one another home and away from September 2024 to June 2025. The top two finishers in each group will be assured of World Cup spots, with a round of Asian playoffs then offering the third- and fourth-place teams another route to the finals.

For the first time Asia will have eight direct berths at the FIFA World Cup, with an additional team participating in the FIFA Play-Off Tournament for a possible total of nine AFC participants. Despite the extra slot, Team China is still considered an underdog to reach the finals for the first time since its sole appearance in 2002.

The players, however, are determined to show they should not be written off just yet.

"It's a pity about our results at this year's Asian Cup, but we paid close attention to the teams that went deep in that tournament, and actually we think the gap between us and them is not insurmountable. But it's true that Asian soccer is progressing fast," Team China stalwart Wei Shihao said in a recent interview.

"With the competition becoming fiercer, we need to be more professional. The goal is to go to the third round of qualification. And we should never lose hope of reaching the World Cup finals."

shifutian@chinadaily.com.cn