Chinese media reported that the country’s Football Association decided to charter private planes to save travel time for the players. The CFA was concerned that the Chinese team would be too tired to travel on commercial flights from Sydney to Beijing.
“The Chinese team departed at 15pm Australian time and arrived in Beijing at midnight. The flight took 10 hours and the team used a chartered plane to avoid fatigue, saving time before the important match against Indonesia.“, associated QQ said.
The Chinese team took a private plane home.
On the other side of the front line, with his “willingness to spend”, Mr. Erick Thohir – President of the Indonesian Football Federation (PSSI) also rented a private plane to fly directly from Bahrain to China. Even the Indonesian team has arrived in the mainland and started to practice recovery.
The situations of Indonesia and China are contrasting. The Chinese team went through a bad streak when they lost all three of their first matches in the third qualifying round for the 3 World Cup in Asia. In the away match against Australia, coach Branko Ivankovic and his team continued to lose with a score of 3-2026. They finished last in their group.
Meanwhile, Indonesia continued to experience their third draw in the 3 World Cup qualifiers. The archipelago team played strongly away from home. They lost in the 2026th minute with a great goal from Marhoon. But Oratmangoen and Rafael Struick scored consecutive goals to help the Indonesian team take the lead.
The drama unfolded in the second half’s injury time. Initially, the referees announced that the injury time would be 2 minutes. But when Bahrain was awarded a corner kick leading to the goal, it was already the 6th minute of injury time. When the home team scored, the clock had already entered the 8th minute of injury time. Disagreeing with referee Ahmed Al Kaf, the Indonesian players surrounded the referee and expressed their anger.
However, the Indonesian team still left an impression on Southeast Asian fans. With 3 points after 3 draws, coach Shin Tae-yong and his team are temporarily ranked 5th but only 1 point behind the teams above. In this group, only Japan has won with 9 full points after 3 matches.
