China vs Canada: Tale of two coaches?

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 02, 2003

China vs Canada: Tale of two coaches?

China have a good squad and Canada a good coach. It seems that the two sides have equal chances to win when they meet in the women's World Cup quarter-finals at Portland's PGE Park on Thursday.

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China have a good squad and Canada a good coach.

It seems that the two sides have equal chances to win when they meet in the women's World Cup quarter-finals at Portland's PGE Park on Thursday.

But China head coach Ma Liangxing disagrees.

"We hope to defeat them within 90 minutes," Ma said after Tuesday's training.

The former Shanghai coach, who took the job in early 2002, had no World Cup or Olympic Games experiences before China edged Ghana1-0 in their Group D game in Carson two weeks ago.

China, arguably the best team who have yet to win a World Cup title, played without confidence and scored only three goals from as many matches. Critics said that Ma is a failed replacement forhis legendary predecessor Ma Yuan'an.

Ma was under fire after the 1999 World Cup runners-up were heldby lowly Australia 1-1 in their second group game, which put them on the brink of elimination from the group stage for the first time.

But he finally weathered the storm, primarily thanks to Ghana'smiraculous 2-1 victory over Australia. The win sent China directly through to the quarter-finals before their match with Russia.

Sitting a few steps away from Ma behind the sideline on Thursday will be Canada head coach Even Pellerud, who led Norway to champions in the 1995 World Cup finals in Sweden.

Unlike China, it was a totally different and beautiful story for Canada in Pellerud's charge.

The North Americans, who failed to win a game in its previous two trips to World Cup, beat Japan 3-1 and Argentina 3-0 before losing to Germany 4-1, advancing out of the group stage for the first time in World Cup history.

But Ma, who nurtured a group of talents including captain Sun Wen when he was coach of the Shanghai youth team, paid little respect to his Canadian counterpart.

"I know we will meet some fierce challenge from them. They area strong team. But even if we cannot beat them within 90 minutes,we can prevail eventually in the penalty shoot-out," Ma said.

Midfielder Liu Ying's penalty kick miss in the Russia game rungalarm for the Chinese, who also lost the last World Cup final to the United States after an epic penalty shoot-out.

Ma has ordered his girls to work harder on penalty kicks in thepast two days.

"We will finally step out the shadow in the 1999 final and the victory will be at our side this time if the match cannot be decided after 90 minutes," Ma said on Thursday.

Pellerud, whose side scored seven goals from three games, was surprisingly cautious about Thursday's match. He was even full ofpraise for Ma's side.

"It is a terrible team to play against because you never get the ball. They can play against light," Pellerud said. "They keep the ball as long as they want with their skill and technique.We need to stay very patient and organized and hopefully we can get the ball against all that.

"It's a very good team. Sophisticated."

He said their head coach had changed but the team had not.

"They are the same Chinese team I've been watching for 14 yearsnow," he said.

"I know them pretty well. They always play the same game. They are very capable, very quick and never stressed. We will have to play a 100 per cent tactical game against them. The mentalpart of the game will mean so much. Not to panic because we don'thave the ball. To be patient," Pellerud said.

What if China wins?

No surprise. Ma just inherited a good team.

Also no surprise for Pellerud. Canada are not Norway.

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