Bora stays cool on China's chances against Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): Chinese team coach Velibor 'Bora' Milutinovic stayed cool on his team's chances of beating host Indonesia in the last match of the Group Nine Asia Zone 2002 World Cup qualifier at Bung Karno stadium on Sunday.

Despite the fact that the Chinese have practically booked a ticket for the second qualifier, Bora refused to predict Sunday's match, but said that his team members would try their best to win.

Indonesia must score five goals at least without conceding any goals to take over China's top ranking and go ahead with the other nine Asian zone group champions to the final qualification round.

"I never speak of (how many goals the Chinese team should score). It's not fair. We only try to do better," the Serb told reporters after the team's first practice session at Lebak Bulus stadium in South Jakarta Thursday.

He also refused to reveal his strategy or name the players who will fill out the starting line-up.

"Team formation is nothing for me. Only the attitude of the players during the match. Bayern Munich did not play well (in the Champions League on Wednesday) but it won anyway," he said, referring to newly-crowned European club champion.

"The most important thing is the result. They (the Chinese) pay me for that."

Milutinovic also said that the temperature in Jakarta would not affect the team's performance. Yet the team's key players, Fan Zhiyi and Xie Hui, skipped Thursday's practice due to sore throats.

The team's striker, Yang Chen, echoed his coach's comments.

"The most important thing is to win the match. The more goals I score the better," he said through an interpreter.

Yang contributed a goal when his team beat Indonesia 5-1 at Kunming on May 13. Xie scored two goals, while Li Wei Feng and Qi Hong scored one each.

China tops the group nine standings with 15 points after winning all five matches. Indonesia is second with 12 points from four wins and one loss.

The Chinese arrived at Soekarno Hatta international airport on Wednesday night. the entourage consists of 20 players, 19 officials and about 30 journalists.

The Indonesian team started practicing on Wednesday.

With his team's current underdog status, coach Benny Dolo could only promise to put up a good fight to satisfy local soccer fans.

"China is better than us but we're playing in front of our own fans so we must satisfy them. We have to give more than 100 percent of our best efforts for this final game," he said after a coaching session in the stadium on Thursday.

He said he would not push his players to score five goals. "Don't think too far ahead. We have to try to play well first. If we say we want to score five goals, the Chinese might try to crush us from the early minutes of the game."

In contrast to the high expectation for a satisfying result, most of the players complained of fatigue due to the tight schedule in the Bank Mandiri national soccer league after three- weeks abroad for away matches.

"I don't think all of the players can perform optimally. We are very tired. The PSSI should know that as soccer players, we cannot just ignore our responsibilities to the clubs," said striker Bambang Pamungkas, who has already played twice with Persija after the national team arrived back in Jakarta last Tuesday.

Uston Nawawi, who also played twice in the league for PSM Makassar, agreed with Bambang.

"I'm also tired but we can't let down our soccer fans through a poor performance," he said. (ivy)