(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-08 11:44

Marika Domanski-Lyfors has been tasked to take her reviving Chinese side to the semi-finals or beyond in the upcoming Women's World Cup, a feat they are reckoned to be dubiously capable of.

Marika Domanski, the head coach of the Chinese women soccer team talks to journalists after the team arrived in Shenyang of Northeast China, for the "Good Luck Beijing" friendly game July 2, 2007. [Xinhua]

As the first ever women's football foreign coach in China, the 47-year-old Swede was in a process of transforming the Chinese team who was left in shambles after a string of losses in the Algarve Cup tournament and was disenchanted with the managerial infighting which culminated in the walkout of Domanski's predecessor Ma Liangxing.

"We could not work out on a consistent basis, especially after Mr. Ma left," a player complained.

"The meddling of the Chinese FA officials disrupted our training plan, the caretaker Wang Haiming and his coaching staff could not exert their authority on the FA officials as well as the players."

"That is the underlying reason for our fiasco in the Algarve, the losses including a 4-1 drubbing by the minnows Iceland thrust us into a big crisis. We didnot know what we were capable of, our morale could be found nowhere," she said.

Ma's departure defined what had been wrong with the Chinese side at the managerial level, a scourge undermined the "Rose of Steel" who had once enjoyed a short-lived glory.

Under the guidance of Ma Yuan'an, an illustrious figure in China's women football, the Chinese side played in style and swept their way with a flourish into the final of the 1999 World Cup where they lost to hosts the United States in penalty shootout.

Then they suffered a frightful free fall highlighted by their 8-0 thrashing at the hands of Germany in the Athens Olympic Games.

Ma Yuan'an, acclaimed as godfather of Chinese women's football, stepped down after his side failed to qualify for the knockout stage in the football tournament of the Sydney Olympics.

Then Chinese FA began to engage in a frenzy of coach appointings and sackings, but never found an ideal one who could bring them glorious results.

"It's not the coaches' fault, they were scapegoats," said Zhang Wei, a Titan magazine reporter who is following the Chinese side.

"It's the fault of FA officials who are fixated on kudos. On one hand they wanted a submissive coach who would tolerate their intervention in the team affairs, on the other hand, they did not belive in the coach's abilities and always sticked their nose into the team management."

"Ma Liangxing rejected to be a lackey and was falling out with them, and finally he grew weary of it and left citing ill health."

"The too constant change of head coaches has amounted to a farce which unsettled the players," he said.

An FA official produced a riposte to Zhang's utterance, claiming that the Chinese native coaches are not professional enough and untrustworthy.

"The only way to tackle this predicament was to find an established foreign coach who can take full responsibility of the team issues, and then we would be content of doing our own business.

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