China, Qatar coaches believe 'team mentality' key to win
China head coach Marcello -Lippi insists his team only needs three points in the upcoming Asian qualifier to see China's 2018 World Cup hopes come alive, as China host Qatar in Kunming, Yunnan Province on Tuesday.
"It is a crucial match, What we need to do is to win the match, to grab three points and keep the hopes alive, to make the World Cup dream come true," said the Italian, who took charge of the team less than a month ago.
China currently rank 84th in the FIFA ranking and bottom of the six-team group of the qualifier series. The top two will qualify for the 2018 World Cup automatically, while the third-placed team to go to playoffs.
"We know this is going to be hard, but we will try our best, continue to hope for this qualification," said the 68-year-old. "We need to do a lot of work, physically and tactically, but the most important thing is, we need to restore confidence to go ahead."
After just 11 days of training in Kunming, Lippi seemed very confident for his players.
"In the ranking, we are in the last position, but it didn't represent a big gap between us and other teams in the group," the former Guangzhou Evergrande coach said.
"I really believe we have very good players for the national team. I believe we can play very good football if we are very -organized on the pitch."
Lippi had his squad backboned with Evergrande players, whose participation he believes will help some internationals who do not understand his tactics very well.
But the man who masterminded Italy's triumph in the 2006 World Cup also mentioned that, if China cannot achieve the "miracle," they need a long-term plan to make the team "better and better."
China captain Zheng Zhi, who also skippers Evergrande, said the great pressure of representing China has made the team underperform. He noted Lippi has helped the team on how to handle this and vowed to let supporters see the improvement.
Qatar, who arrived in Kunming on Monday, nearly 30 hours later than planned, will only have a few hours' training in the high-altitude city.
Head coach Jorge Forssati blamed the Chinese Football Association for Qatar's late -arrival, saying "fair play is not only inside the pitch."
"It's an unhappy journey, I don't know who, but Chinese people put us in this problem," he said, before adding that world governing body FIFA has acknowledged the situation.
Qatar planned to have a chartered plane landed in -Kunming from Doha on Sunday, but their request was denied by China's aviation authority, which Forssati said he only got to know about four days ago.
They spent 12 hours at Bangkok airport, according to Forssati, who said his team have done what they can to prepare for the game, as the airport is not suitable for training.
Chinese authorities later -denied any wrongdoing in a statement, claiming that Qatar only have themselves to blame for the delay.
"It will be a difficult game for both teams," said Forssati. "With all the possibilities, we are thinking of a victory, and I think it's the same with China."
