The Chinese Olympic football team beat the Vietnamese national team 3-2 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province on Sunday in their warmup for the Beijing Olympic Games.
Chinese forward Gao Lin opened the scoring in the 29th minute but Nguyen Viet Thang tied the score for Vietnam with a penalty kick 10 minutes later.
The other three goals all came in the last minutes of the game. Zhou Haibin lifted China to 2-1 lead in the 88th minute and an own goal widened the gap to 3-1 one minute later. Then Vietnam scored again in the injury time.
The Vietnamese team came to Shenyang on July 5. As their players were tired for long trip, the squad's form was in doubt before today's game. But they played competitively in the match.
Vietnam had been beaten 1-0 by Indonesia in a warmup game on June 11.
Before July 6 game, several Chinese players got injured. Zhao Ming and Yu Hai went to Beijing for therapy. Playmaker Zheng Zhi and key defender Li Weifeng got injured as well. China head coach Dujkovic told that his lineup would be fixed before the end of July.
The Chinese team began training for the Olympic Games in Shenyang on July 2. Dujkovic held much hope for this team after the Chinese national squad was out of the 2010 World Cup. "Everything will start again, for Olympiad," he said.
After the match with Vietnam, Dujkovic will lead his team to the Jilin Province in Northeast China for more training and the other three warmup games with teams form Malaysia, Australia and Serbia.
From August 6 to 16, 12 Olympic teams will play 24 games in Shenyang mainly in its Olympic Spot Center Stadium.
(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2008)