China books ticket to Rio Olympics after beating South Korea 1-0

The Chinese women's national football team beat South Korea 1-0 and booked the ticket to Rio Olympics together with Australia here on Monday.

Both China and ROK opened the game aggressively. Standing on two points, the Korean team desperately needed a win to keep their qualification hopes alive, while for China, a victory would give it an advantage that could be hardly surpassed by the other four teams except Australia.

In the 43th minute, the deadlock was broken by Chinese player Wang Shanshan, who netted a goal crossed by Wang Shuang and brought the score to 1-0.

In the second half, the Korean team tried frantically to even the score. The game turned more and more intense, with players from both sides yellow-carded.

In the 82th minute, three Chinese players made successive attacks to the opponent's goal but failed to score.

The game ended at 1-0, awarding the Chinese team three more points and eliminating any hope for the Korean team to qualify for Rio.

"We won and got three points today. It's the best result that we could expect. We were a little bit tired in today's game, maybe because it was the fourth game. But we performed better and better." said Wang Shanshan after the game.

"I would like to congratulate the Chinese team. They deserve this victory. But our players did the best they could." said Yoon Duk Yeo, South Korean's head coach.

In a game later, Australia beat DPR Korea 2-1. With 12 points and 10 points respectively, Australia and China would advance to Rio together. Endit