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 quarterfinals 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 FIFA's 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 measure progress against European opponents, and narrow the gap with the strong footballing nations. In the tournament in Australia, China will face two tough opponents in the group stage, 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 has been very close to winning the World Cup before, but now we have a lot of room for improvement and will try to put in our best performance."

Shui Qingxia was part of China's historic 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 competing in the upcoming World Cup will play domestically. Three notable names playing abroad include striker Wang Shuang of Racing Louisville (USA), midfielder Wu Chengshu – Canberra United (Australia) and Shen Mengyu – Celtic (Scotland).

Ahead of the World Cup, China had a hard time finding friendly teams from Europe and America. They eventually arranged to play two games 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 to convince the two opponents to play.

Hieu Luong

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