China coach says future bright after first football medal in 28 years

Chinese football has "a fantastic future" after winning their first Asian Games medal in nearly three decades on Saturday, their men's under-23 coach said.

Football's great underachievers have only qualified for the World Cup once, in 2002, and the senior side were hammered 5-0 at home by Palestine on Friday.

But China have enjoyed recent relative success at youth level and followed up their runner-up finish at the Under-23 Asian Cup in February with a bronze medal at the Asian Games in Japan.

China beat Uzbekistan on penalties after a 2-2 draw and coach Antonio Puche said he expects the new generation to go on to bigger and better things.

"These players for me have a fantastic future," said the Spaniard.

"We need to work, we need to push them because we have players with big quality and big heart, and this is very important in football."

Asian Games football is under-23 squads that can include three overage players.

Puche's team in Aichi-Nagoya included several players who are regulars with the full national side.

The senior team has struggled in their absence, also going down 3-0 at home to New Zealand in a friendly last week.

Puche backed coach Shao Jiayi to turn things around after the Palestine debacle.

"The result of that last match wasn't very good, that's for sure," he said.

"But the head coach is very capable and resilient and he will use this loss to make the team better."

China have never won Asian Games men's football gold.

They won bronze in 1998 at Bangkok.

AFP

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