China and Maldives players in action during their recent World Cup qualifying match. (Photo : Getty Images)
The Chinese national football team defeated Maldives, 4-0, in their penultimate match in the group stage of the AFC World Cup qualifiers at the Wuhan Sports Center Stadium last Thursday to keep their hopes of advancing in the FIFA 2018 Russia competitions alive.
Hebei China Fortune striker Jiang Ning was the star of the match for Team Dragon as he pulled off a hat trick, scoring at the second and 84th minutes and also in stoppage time to lead head coach Gao Hongbo's boys past a hard-fighting Red Snappers eleven and stave off elimination in the said tournament, as per Shanghai Daily.
Shandong Luneng striker Yang Xu netted one at the 12th minute to complete China PR's four-goal haul in the said contest.
China is in "the brink of elimination" before the game started as the team only had three wins to boot in the first six matchdays of the group stage competitions. The team's underperformance had forced the country to sack then manager Alain Perrin and replace him with local coach Hongbo earlier this year, as reported by Xinhuanet.
Neighborhood rival Hong Kong was ahead by three points and sitting at the second spot of the Group C table behind comfortable group leaders Qatar, but Kim Pan-Gon's side has a lesser goal differential stat of +10 as opposed to China's +20 at that time, which meant that this win by China propelled them up to overtake the Hong Kongese in the overall standings.
China is not yet assured of a spot in the next phase of qualifying competitions as only four out of the eight group runner-up teams will advance to the third round. "Their fate will still be decided on the situation of other groups," the report said.
As of the moment, Team Dragon is sixth among the eight runner-up squads with eight points, two points behind the second to fourth ranked runner-up teams of UAE, Jordan, and North Korea, which makes their game against Qatar this Tuesday at the Shaanxi Province Stadium virtually a must-win situation for Hongbo and his crew if they want to stay in the hunt for a 2018 World Cup spot.
If China wins against Qatar at home and any among the aforementioned teams lose their next assignment, then China will have the chance to grab a top four slot.
