China women's football team lost 2-0 to hosts Australia in an international friendly held on Monday, wrapping up their first trip abroad under the leadership of new head coach Ante Milicic with a 1-1 draw and Monday's loss.

The Accor Stadium was packed with 76,798 spectators with a pre-game ceremony dedicated to 36-year-old Australia goalkeeper and the Matildas' longest-serving player Lydia Williams, who has decided to retire from international football after the upcoming Paris Olympics.

With the support from a roaring home crowd waving green and gold scarves, an attack-minded Australia side fired eight shots at goal, two of which were on target, but China goalkeeper Xu Huan survived the test with the scoreboard untouched in the first half.

In the 48th minute, a header from Clare Wheeler found the back of the net before an unstoppable effort from Hayley Raso sealed Australia's victory in the 56th minute.

Before Monday's game, China had held Australia to a 1-1 draw in a friendly in Adelaide on Friday night.

At the post-match press conference, China's star forward Wang Shuang revealed that Milicic had tried different squads for the two games.

"Our coach has been telling us first to be brave and dare to play, to make short passes, to dribble, and to go one-on-one. You can see our young players trying to do that in both games. In this mentality part, they made the biggest improvements during this camp, and we showed something," said Wang.

Milicic told reporters that despite only having had a short time to train together, the team displayed an excellent defensive structure.

"Also, in transition, particularly when Wang Shuang and Pipi [Zhang Linyan] get together, we'll have some good central combinations. Now it's that next phase: can we start hurting the opposition and creating better chances?" said Milicic, who added that he believed there would be a big improvement with more time working together.

"If you look at the 18 months to two-year window, if we can have a good preparation, have a lot more international football, and the girls get those 15 to 20 games under their belt against strong opposition like this, for our girls to play in front of 80,000 against a strong team that is just about to go to the Olympics. That's where our learnings come," said Milicic.

"With their mentality and their discipline, there's already a good strong platform, and now it's up for us to just keep working the way we're going. I'm very pleased with actually a little bit of progress that we've made in two weeks, and we'll definitely continue to build from this," he added.

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)