里皮新国足将以恒大球员为班底

The World Cup winning coach replaced Gao Hongbo, resigned this month after a 2-0 defeat to Uzbekistan in the World Cup qualifiers.

The loss left China bottom of the six-team Asian Group A with one draw and three defeats after four of 10 matches in the round.

Lippi acknowledged the severe challenges his team faced in the qualifiers, but said he thought the door to the 2018 World Cup was not closed completely.

He stressed the huge importance of rebuilding confidence.

"Our main goal at the moment is to help the players to become more confident, know our own tactics and build the team around it. We have only one point after four matches in the World Cup qualifier. But if we can win 3-4 matches among the next six of the campaign, I think it would still be huge improvement no matter whether we qualify or not. We all hope a miracle can happen and for the Chinese national team to qualify for the World Cup. But the more important thing is to help the national team to get better. If we fail to reach the World Cup, our main goal will then be the AFC Asian Cup."

The Italian's current contract will run to the Asian Cup in 2019 and then, he and the Chinese Football Association will discuss an extension based on the Chinese performance during the tournament.

Lippi is already familiar with Chinese football at club level.

The 68-year-old enjoyed a successful three-year spell with Guangzhou Evergrande, winning the Chinese League title three times and the Asian Champions League in 2013.

His first match in charge will be the World Cup qualifier against Qatar in Kunming on November 15.

He said that the training list for the Qatar game would be announced soon and that he would be taking a number of players from the Evergrande team to form the basis for his China squad.

"Because this shows they have a winning mentality, that they have an understanding of international soccer, and these are all positive things, which could lead us to positive results. This is especially important for the first game when we need to be safe and be conservative."

China has only qualified for the tournament once, in 2002, but was knocked out of the group stages without scoring a goal.

Cai Zhenhua, President of Chinese FA, says he expected Lippi to bring new management standards and new tactics.

"In the past, we have seen inconsistency in following the style of developed football countries. We have learned from Italy, Germany, UK, Brazil and Japan, but none of them brought us success. There was also no consensus reached by the governing body, the media and the fans. I hope the new coach can bring us new management standards and new tactics in order to earn maximum support from the fans and the media."

With a 4-game win-less run in the World Cup campaign, China has only one point in the group which includes South Korea, Iran, Uzbekistan, Qatar and Syria.

After a home-and-away round-robin, the top two teams will qualify for the Russian World Cup finals directly and the third finisher will enter a playoff with its counterpart in the other group.