Hope for the future

With a scintillating display of skills and poise beyond his years, China's soccer prodigy Wang Yudong has emerged as a rare silver lining in the country's total failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.

As an irrelevant finale of its qualifying journey, Team China's medicore1-0 home win over Bahrain in its final group match on Tuesday did very little to console the heart-broken Chinese fans, after it had already been eliminated from contention for the Cup finals following last week's 1-0 loss to Indonesia.

The country's long-anticipated wait to return to the FIFA marquee tournament, since its sole appearance in 2002, has been delayed by at least another four years, but seems not entirely hopeless, thanks to the emergence of Wang and his peers on the international stage.

The impressive performance of Wang, who scored China's only goal against Bahrain from a second-half penalty to give the host its closing win in Chongqing, has sparked fresh hopes that his generation might help realize the country's dream of another World Cup appearance in the foreseeable future.

"I want to apologize to our fans for failing to emerge from this group. Hopefully, they will keep their faith alive, continue to trust in us and we won't let them down again in 2030," said Wang, who became Team China's youngest ever scorer in a World Cup qualifier at 18 years and 199 days.

"I am afraid this will be the final World Cup qualifier for a lot of older players on the national team. I wanted to win a game for them.

"And for our generation, I hope we can come back stronger from this match," said the talented striker, who has, so far this season, scored eight goals in 13 matches for Chinese Super League club Zhejiang FC.

After finishing with only three wins and seven losses, Team China eventually finished above continental minnow Bahrain, settling for fifth place in the six-team group, where leader Japan and runner-up Australia secured direct qualification berths for the expanded 48-team 2026 Cup finals to be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico next summer.

Respective third- and fourth-ranked Saudi Arabia and Indonesia advanced into the Asian qualifiers' fourth stage alongside four other teams, where two more direct tickets to the finals will be up for grabs.

As the No 94 team on FIFA's world ranking, and the 14th side in Asia, Team China's knockout during the 18-team third stage was a disappointing, yet technically fair outcome.

It was the way the squad, led by controversial coach Branko Ivankovic, squandered early leads in multiple matches that stung the most — particularly its 2-1 home loss to Saudi Arabia in September, having led 1-0, and playing with an extra man.