Local coach to take over women's team

BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Football Association (CFA) is expected to appoint local coach Shang Ruihua as new boss of the Chinese women's soccer team after former coach Elizabeth Loisel was sent packing by an e-mail from the CFA.

The 63-year-old Shang, who coached the Chinese women's team between 1988 and 1991, will become the fifth coach of the team within the past 14 months.

"The association has talked to me about the job but no confirmation has been made yet," Shang told news web portal sohu.com on Thursday, but declining to make comments on the possible appointment.

"They told me to go to Hebei's Xianghe soccer base on Friday and I will see what's going on."

The stricken team, once dubbed as "steel roses" after finishing runners-up in 1999 women's World Cup, produced a string of under-performing results in build-up to the Beijing Olympics since Frenchwoman Loisel took helm at squad last October.

The team's brawl came out when Loisel, 44, was accused of indiscipline and having no coaching knacks in steering the squad by team leader Zhang Jianqiang, Chinese coaching staff and even some players.

While the former France boss claimed that she got nowhere with team leader Zhang as Zhang kept on being nosy in the team's affairs. Loisel also threatened to leave the national side after leading it to a remote ninth place in the 12-team Algarve Cup in Portugal early March.

A defiant Loisel did not return to China with the squad after the Algarve defeat but came back to France instead, purporting to leave the post if Zhang and other Chinese coaches still stay.

Local media in Beijing reported recently that the CFA's director Xie Yalong has sent Loisel an e-mail in which he informed that the Frenchwoman was fired as her bottom line could never be met.

Close behind came the packing orders which saw team leader Zhang and assistant coach Wang Haiming were dropped off the team.

Loisel's contract is due to expire until the Beijing Olympics, the Frenchwoman's compensation remaining unknown.

Shang, who has groomed a band of key players for the 1999 WorldCup squad, led the team to win the soccer tournament at the 1990 Asian Games and finish fifth in the inaugural women's World Cup inSouthern China's Guangzhou the next year.

In 2006, Shang guided the Chinese women's junior team to a runners-up finish at the women's juniors World Cup in Russia.

The women's team has been in a downward spiral in the past 10 years, dropping to a worst 14th place in the latest FIFA rankings while neighbouring Japan and DPR Korea were in sixth and tenth places separately.

The issue of how to work with the Chinese trainers had turned out a sticking point for foreign coaches, including Swede Marika Domanski-Lyfors, Loisel's predecessor, and the Chinese football governing body.

Domanski-Lyfors and Loisel had always demanded more leeway within the team and would like to see the removal of the Chinese staff, but the CFA insisted on their stay.

During the Swede's reign, Wang, arguably the most knowledgeable brain of Chinese women's football, had even been reduced to work as a technician mainly responsible for editing some game video tapes.