Ten years on, Chinese soccer still needs change to move on

It's been 10 years since the Chinese national soccer team last time reached the AFC Asian Cup final.

The 2004 final on home soil was remembered for Koji -Nakata's infamous handball goal that denied China's chance of winning their first-ever -regional championship.

Aside from the talk of the final, China never made the -latter stages in the following two Asian Cups. It is said even a tea bag lasts longer than the team in a cup.

Many consider then coaches Zhu Guanghu in 2007 and Gao Hongbo in 2011 to be to blame for their lack of tactical understanding in certain games.

Their successors did really badly as both hit new lows in World Cup qualification. The most populous country's national soccer team was outside Asia's top 10.

In the past 10 years, several former China internationals and officials at the governing body have been jailed in match-fixing scandals.

With the reform and opening--up of China, and in turn the Chinese Super League (CSL), more and more clubs tend to employ a foreigner-dominated attack.

The current top 10 scorers for the CSL 2014 season are all foreign except Wu Lei of Shanghai East Asia, who sits in eighth place with seven goals.

With the occupation of foreign powers in attack for club games, China's offensive players often stutter during their national duty.

Guangzhou Evergrande's Gao Lin plays as a target man during national duty and is considered a key player, but is a winger when he plays for Guangzhou Evergrande.

Gao Lin's quality is questioned as he often misses close-range chances and some media even doubted his commitment to the national team.

This June he was caught storming out of a news briefing with the excuse that "training has already started" at the National Football Training Base in Xianghe, Hebei Province when a journalist asked him to talk about his duties after assistant coach Ali Boumnijel introduced the team.

Coach Alain Perrin said his team will face a "big challenge" in preparing for the next AFC Asian Cup, which will be held in five Australian cities in -January.

Chinese clubs should consider making changes if they really want to help the advance of Chinese soccer.