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| June 9, 2002 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 27,1423 |
Chinese look to future
BEIJING, June 8: Football fans here accepted China’s 4-0 World Cup defeat to perennial favorites Brazil Saturday, although there was still some discontent over the side’s two losses in the tournament.
“We are just not that good,” said a fan named Wu watching the match in Beijing’s Sanlitun bar district. “But it doesn’t matter because we are just happy to be playing in the World Cup.”
Good-natured crowds and several thousand fans watching the match on a big screen outside the capital’s Worker’s Stadium cheered every chance the Chinese side had during the game, watching stoically as Brazil ran riot.
There was a heavy police presence in the bar district and near the stadium.
Still some voiced dissatisfaction over China’s two losses, which have all eliminated Bora Milutinovic’s team from the tournament.
“We all hated it, everyone hated,” said Wang Chunhong, who watched the game at home with her family in Beijing. “But everyone kept watching,” she said.
Said Feng Peixun, manager of a sports complex in Beijing, “We stunk, the team is losing face for our whole country.”
“You can just watch how the players play, their faces are blank, they are overwhelmed by the whole situation,” he said.—AFP
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