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Chinese Internationals: Enjoy Soccer
Since China's humiliating 3-2 home loss to Qatar on October 31,1997 in the 1998 World Cup qualifiers, the Chinese internationals have vowed to make revenge on the West Asian team some day.
The long-awaiting revengeful chance came Saturday night when China trounced Qatar 3-0 in the northeast city Shenyang to crush their World Cup dream completely.
Qatar, with 9 points after all the eight games, stay in the third place in the Asian zone Group B behind the second-placed United Arab Emirates, who have a game in hand with 10 points.
Although they succeeded in revenging on the archrivals, Chinese players prefered to indulge in the huge triumph rather than revive the old revengeful thoughts.
"Win or loss is a normal thing for the sport of soccer, why must we mention the word of 'revenge' again and again." said striker Hao Haidong, who was the starter in 1997's defeat to Qatar.
Other than Hao, Ma Mingyu, Li Tie, Sun Jihai, Fan Zhiyi, Zhang Enhua and Li Ming also played in the 1997 game.
"I don't want to talk about our loss to Qatar in 1997, because Chinese national team was not as strong as now and it's no thing special for us to beat them this time. It's not significant to put the triumph equal to revenge." said Fan Zhiyi, who now plays for English first division side Crystal Palace.
Since Bora Milutinovic took over the Chinese national squad last year, Chinese internationals have gradually accepted his idea of playing soccer happily and have generally let these unhappy experiences go.
"Sometimes, the thoughts of revenge will emerge in my head but then I will forget them rapidly. Games are just the games. We can' t play well and enjoy soccer if we have the revengeful thoughts on our hearts. we should relax when playing games." said defender Li Ming, who plays with Chinese champions Dalian Shide.
Li, who played his 99th game for the Chinese national team, added that he had a new goal after China making a berth in next year's World Cup finals.
"Now I have a fresh goal, that is to play 100 games for Chinese national team." said Li, who is reported to link with a possible move to England.
China, who have qualified for their first ever World Cup finals, will play their final qualifier against Uzbekistan on October 19.
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