Camacho begins China reign

New China coach Jose Antonio Camacho has taken his first training session with the squad on Monday in Yunnan province.

The 56-year-old Spaniard, who led Spain to the quarter-finals of the European Championships in 2000 and the 2002 World Cup, signed a three-year contract with China on Sunday.

But the coach said it was still early days in his education in Asian football.

“We’ve been watching matches and learning about Chinese football and that’s about how as far as it has gone,” Camacho said.

China have reached the World Cup finals only once, qualifying for the 2002 competition in South Korea and Japan, but lost all their group matches and failed to score a goal.

After a poor performance at the 2010 Asian Cup, where they exited the competition at the first stage, they have been grouped with Jordan, Iraq and Singapore in the third-round of World Cup qualifying in the Asian zone.

Their first match is against Singapore on September 2 as they look to reach the finals in Brazil in 2014, and China captain Du Wei said the team was looking forward to playing under Camacho.

“Everyone was happy to see the new coach,” Du said.

“He asked me to introduce each player to him and he wanted to remember the names of all our players.”

“I don’t really know him, I just met him at the cafeteria, but I think he is quite affable.”