China Hammered by Japan in World Cup Qualifier

Top Asian team Japan easily beat China 7-0 on Thursday

Chinese football fans are finding it hard to swallow its "humiliating" defeat to Japan in the World Cup qualifiers. Japan handily beat China 7-0 on Thursday in Saitama, Japan, and it's a difficult loss considering the two countries are geopolitical rivals in Asia.

Even though China is still alive in the group despite the disastrous start, Oriental Sports Daily blamed China's national coach Branko Ivankovic of Croatia for his "incompetence... a contributing factor to this crushing defeat".

Ivankovic says loss was "a tough match"

Meanwhile Ivankovic defended himself, saying: "Japan is not only one of Asia's strongest teams but also a world-class team. We specifically focused on defence during our prematch preparations, but we conceded too many goals during the game, and some of those should not have happened.

"It was a tough match, and as a coach, this was the most difficult night for me."

Journalist and commentator Zhang Feng was critical of the loss. "Football cannot be boosted by singing odes, or telling stories," he wrote on his popular blog. "It cannot be accomplished through politics."

Fans cannot understand why China was able to win 40 gold medals at the Paris Olympics, but not win the game in the World Cup qualifier.

"I still don't understand why they can't find 11 players out of more than 1.4 billion people," commented one.

Chinese fans angered by humiliating loss

China has only qualified for the World Cup once in 2002; it lost all three matches and failed to score a goal.

The country is currently ranted No. 87 by FIFA, just below the Caribbean island of Curacao (population 150,000), and just above the African nation of Equatorial Guinea (1.7 million).