Tue, 30 Nov, -0001
Nanjing: China finished as third-place winners in the AFC U-19 Women’s Championship after thrashing Myanmar 8-0 in China on Sunday and punched their ticket to the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2014.
The hosts joined champions Korea Republic and runners-up DPR Korea to fly the Asian flag at the world women’s extravaganza to be held in in August in Canada.
Wang Jun’s China side were on fire as they led 6-0 in the first half before adding two more goals to finish strongly against Myanmar at Jiangning Sports Centre.
Wang Shuang got on the score sheet three times (32, 45, 89mins) while Song Duan (34mins), Li Xiang (57mins), Li Mengwen (11mins), Zhao Xinzhai (39mins) and LV Yueyun (19mins) all scored a goal apiece.
China accumulated eight points from five games and leapfrogged Japan to the third spot based on goal difference while Myanmar led by head coach Radoy Hristov Minkovski finished their campaign at the bottom of the six-nation table winless.
“We knew that we had to win this match and get goals as many as possible,” said Wang. “So we enhanced our attacking to seek more goals. Fortunately we scored six in the first half that I didn't expect.
“Then I required our players to score four in the second half. I think we had the ability and we needed more goals to improve ourselves in terms of attacking. We only had 28 days to get all the players together to practise. We overcame a lot of difficulties.
“I know when we got a draw with Japan (in the second last match on Friday), there might be lack of confidence among the fans in us to qualify (for the World Cup). But we never gave up. We believed in our team.
“I would like to thank our players for their performance in this tournament. I appreciate everyone's input to make our goal achieved.”