Contrasting fortunes for China's senior and Olympic sides over the last 10 days have increased media pressure on Zhu Guanghu to step down as coach of the national team in favour of Ratomir Djukovic.

Goals from Changchun's Wang Dong and Manchester United's Dong Fangzhuo finally gave Zhu's depleted squad a win on their Asian Cup warm-up tour of the United States with a 2-1 victory over Colorado Rapids on Sunday.

That victory, however, came on the back of a 4-1 thrashing by the U.S. national team and 1-0 loss to the worst side in Major League Soccer (MLS), Real Salt Lake.

At the same time, Dujkovic was leading his side to victories over the Netherlands, Ghana and Ivory Coast and into the final of an international tournament in Toulon, where they lost to hosts France on Saturday.

Dujkovic said he was interested in leading the senior squad in their qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup but only after next year's Beijing Olympics.

"If offered the chance, everybody would like to lead the Chinese team into their second World Cup," the Serb, who led Ghana to the knockout stages of last year's World Cup finals, told the Xinhua news agency in France.

"I think the Chinese players have the ability to do that."

CHINESE WAY

China reached the finals of the World Cup for the first time in 2002 under another Serbian coach, Bora Milutinovic.

Dujkovic, who has also been in charge of Rwanda, Venezuela and Myanmar, was appointed to lead the Olympic squad last October and said he had quickly adjusted to the Chinese way of doing things.

"I have no problem coaching in China because I know I can't change anything but have to adapt to it," he said.

"You know, I coached in different countries and that's part of my job."

The 61-year-old said media calls for his under-23 side to go to July's Asian Cup finals instead of the senior team were impractical.

"Even if we got the call, we wouldn't be able to do it because the Asian Cup wouldn't fit our schedule," he said.

"We've arranged an Italian tour in July.

"You shouldn't make a big fuss about the results of friendlies. It doesn't mean much. They could still do well at the Asian Cup."

Zhu was without players from two of the country's top clubs -- champions Shandong Luneng and Shanghai Shenhua -- for the US tour.

Sympathy, however, has been in short supply for the 57-year-old after a run of poor results culminated in a first defeat to Thailand in 17 years last month.

(China Daily via Reuters June 12, 2007)