Last night's World Cup deciders finished with China beating HK 7-0, but it wasn't enough as Kuwait beat Malaysia 6-1, thus ending China's advance and China coach Arie Haan's career. There was a glimmer of hope at half time as reports of a 1-1 scoreline at the Kuwait game, but by the end the perverse result in the China game was that both teams effectively lost, both leaving the ground dejected and lamenting missed opportunities. What will hurt more is the advance of South Korea and Japan. The SCMP* finds the silver lining:

The only plus point is that China needs a crisis in its football. It needs to go back and sort out the missed opportunity of the Black Whistles affair of 2001-2002. The one referee to confess, the one referee to provide his country with the chance to get to the heart of corruption, Gong Jianping, died of cancer this year while serving a 10-year prison sentence. The problems outlived him.

For all the money the China Football Association has invested in foreign coaches, the time long passed when they should back what they invested in "the coaches expertise" and get the team the kind of five-goal hammerings against the French that Japan and South Korea used as springboards for considerable improvement prior to the 2002 World Cup.

China has a huge advantage in attempting to secure such fixtures: the entire corporate world wants a slice of the mainland, and that interest will open doors. But first you have to knock.

* _{This is the same paper that in today's World section has two headlines that read: Hed Here. Not just once, but twice. What kind of "quality" paper lets such a mistake get through? Or were the layout and sub-editiors asleep last night? They could have been if they had read the paper.}