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China ties with Mexico in four-nation women's soccer tournament

Xinhua, January 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

China failed to capitalise a bunch of clear chances and drew with Mexico 0-0 in the four-nation women's soccer tournament here on Thursday.

Under the chilly drizzle, and with less than one hundred fans in the 60,000-capacity stadium, Chinese strikers Ma Xiaoxu and Li Ying both wasted a one-to-one chance in the area and the whole team was seemed in a running - in period, lacking in fluency in short passes and ball possession.

"To be honest, I feel a little disappointed with the players' performances in techniques today," said the Frenchman and Chinese head coach Bruno Bini.

"We easily lost too many balls and had some mistakes in simple passes," added Bini, who has a glorious career by steering the French team to a fourth finish at the 2011 World Cup as well as the London Olympic Games.

After the draw in this opening match, China, 17th place in FIFA rankings, will meet the regional competitors Vietnam and South Korea, who are also opponents of the Chinese team in the Olympic qualifications to be staged on Feb.29.

"However, I'm not worried a lot about the problem so far," said Bini. He replaced Hao Wei after the 2015 World Cup to become the 15th head coach of the Chinese women's side and third foreigner for that job.

"As I said before the match, our aim is to reach the best form in the late February bot not in this match. We are still in a period of preparation," he added.

The tournament in Shenzhen is the last one for the Chinese team to play before the Olympic battle. They will set up a three-week training camp in France later this month and then fly to Japan for the six-team Olympic qualifications including the other three powerhouses of Japan, Australia and DPR Korea. Two of them with highest points after five matches will go to Rio 2016.

China reached its first quarterfinal of the World Cup in eight years in Canada last June, but was still reckoned underdog in Asia's qualifications for Rio 2016.

With about one month to go before Olympics qualifications slated from Feb.29 to March.9, the Frenchman foresaw an uphill battle in vying for the two tickets on offer against World Cup runners-up Japan and world No. 9 Australia. Endit