Chinese coach dreams of winning the 2023 Women's World Cup

After winning the 2022 Asian Cup, coach Shui Qingxia is optimistic that China will win the first Women's World Cup in history.

Before 2023, China's best result at the Women's World Cup was runners-up in 1999. They also finished fourth in 1995, and reached the quarter-finals four times in 1991, 2003, 2007 and 2015. Since then, China's football development has shown signs of slowing down before returning to glory at the 2022 Asian Cup, to boost confidence.

"It allows us to dream of winning the World Cup," coach Shui Qingxia told the FIFA website. "There is a glimmer of hope when we think about it, and if we do, it will go down in history."

Coach Shui Qingxia of the Chinese women's team. Photo: FIFA

The 56-year-old coach hopes to be able to measure progress against European opponents, and narrow the gap with the strong football nations. In the tournament in Australia, China will face two tough opponents in the group stage, the reigning European champions England and Denmark, then first-time participants Haiti.

"We started by training well and playing well in the group stage," said Shui Qingxia. "China was very close to winning the World Cup before, but now we have a lot of things to improve and try to bring our best performance."

Shui Qingxia was part of China's historic first Women's World Cup squad in 1991, held on home soil. Thirty-one years later, she became the first former female footballer to be appointed national team coach and has made numerous tactical changes to the team.

The Chinese women's team celebrates their 3-1 win over Vietnam at the 2022 Asian Cup. Photo: AFC

Most of the 23 Chinese players participating in the upcoming World Cup will play domestically. Three names that are considered to be playing abroad include striker Wang Shuang of Racing Louisville (USA), midfielder Wu Chengshu of Canberra United (Australia) and Shen Mengyu of Celtic (Scotland).

Before the World Cup, China had a hard time finding friendly teams from Europe and America. They finally arranged two matches with Russia, winning 1-0 and 2-1 respectively. On July 13 and 17, China will play Brazil and Colombia in Australia. According to Dexing News, China had to pay extra money to convince the two opponents to play.

Hieu Luong

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