China women want more than better result from Algarve Cup

The Chinese women's soccer team wants to improve both individual skills and tactic abilities in the upcoming Algarve Cup.

Arguably women's most prestigious international exhibition tournament, the Algarve Cup, held annually in the Algarve region of Southern Portugal since 1994, will kick off its 22nd edition on Wednesday.

China, against Brazil on the opening day, claimed their best result in four years after finishing fifth in 2014 and now eye on bettering last year's result in their 20th entry.

"We are in building process with many young players, averaged just 23 years old," the Chinese head coach Hao Wei told Xinhua after a kick-off press conference here on Tuesday.

"What we're expecting from this tournament is not just to get better results but to get more experience and to continue growing up both technically and tactically," he added.

It won't be an easy job for the Chinese side as they've been drawn in a so called "Group of Death" alongside with defending champions and current world No. 1 Germany, No. 5 Sweden and No. 8 Brazil in the three-group event.

The former world runners-up won their first Algarve Cup in 1999, lifted the trophy again in 2002 and finished second in 2003. But they never reached top three since then.

They hit the bottem in 2007 by finishing just the 10th out of 12 teams and were beaten to the ninth place in 2012 when Hao took the reign as the caretaker coach.

"My team has improved a lot in the past three years," said Hao. "The players are young but capable of making rapid progress, and I've seen a much more promising future from them."

The former China international was echoed by his players.

"For sure, we want better grades from the tournament, but also we want to become stronger as a team while vying for a specific trophy," said skipper Wu Haiyan.

With the Women's World Cup to be held in Canada in June, the Algarve Cup serves as a warm-up tourney as whoever comes out on top will gain a major shot of confidence.

The two best group winners will face off in the final, while the odd one out will contest the match for third place against the leading runners-up. All the other teams will go into the placement round, in which everything from fifth to 12th position will be determined through direct match-ups pitting teams against their closest counterparts based on their round-robin results.

Reigning world champions Japan are playing in Group C side by side with a hugely ambitious France side, while the United States were pitted against another former World Cup titlists Norway in Group B. Enditem