World Cup winner Lippi takes on 'Mission Improbable' with China

Chinese football is going through a turbulent patch despite the runaway success of the Super League and performances will be expected to improve under 2006 world champion coach

Chinese international football has suffered its fair share of “new lows” in recent years. There was an 8-0 friendly defeat by Brazil in 2012 as well as a 5-1 defeat by Thailand three years ago. Not much, however, could compare with the 1-0 reverse suffered in Xi’an earlier this month at the hands of Syria in World Cup 2018 qualification.

The current Syrian plight needs no further examination here but it’s fair to say a result like that was unacceptable to the Chinese football public. That was followed days later by a…