April 8 – After waiting to start their Tokyo Olympic knockout qualifier for more than a year, China emerged favourites for the last AFC qualification slot after a 2-1 away over South Korea in Goyang City.
Wang Shuang, who missed the earlier qualifying matches while being locked down in Wuhan, scored the winning goal from the penalty spot in the 73rd minute after Zhang Xin and Kang Chae-rim had traded first half goals.
China now only need to avoid defeat in Suzhou, China, on Tuesday to qualify for Tokyo.
This is a match-up that has been scheduled several times over the past year but has been postponed due to the spread of the pandemic.
China’s Olympic qualification campaign has been a long covid-challenged journey. Having been forced to quarantine in Australia before the qualification group stage, and forced to proceed without key players, the Chinese literally went from hotel rooms to the pitch to defy expectations and emerge unbeaten from a Sydney-based group featuring Australia, Thailand and Chinese Taipei.
China have played at five Olympic tournaments and claimed the silver medal in Atlanta 1996. The Chinese were present in South Korea in force with the breakout players from the Sydney qualifiers, captain Wu Haiyan and Tang Jiali both starting. However the Chinese were without 2018 AFC Women’s Asian Cup Golden Boot winner Li Ying, who wasn’t named in the squad.
South Korea have never qualified for an Olympic finals tournament but do have their own star quality to call on. Chelsea midfielder Ji So-yun is perhaps the biggest name on show and was joined by Lee Geum-min and captain Cho So-hyun who also play in England. However, Cho So-hyun started on the bench having been delayed on her travel.
South Korean coach Colin Bell was confident his home-based players would be competitive before the tournament though they have a significant deficit to overcome in China where they will need to win by two goal.
“We made our lives even harder and more difficult, which was totally unnecessary,” Bell said to local media. “We should have at least had a 1-1 draw.”
“The girls dominated in the last 15 to 20 minutes. We had some good passages of play. In the second half, I can’t remember a chance for China apart from the penalty. So we just have to look at the game and pick out the moments and the areas that we need to improve, and also identify the areas that China have weaknesses in that we can exploit a little bit better. We know of course, yes, it’s a tough one, but it’s not impossible.”
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