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Dujkovic confident ahead of Asian Cup(Reuters)Updated: 2006-11-07 08:59 BEIJING, Nov 6 - China Olympic team coach Ratomir Dujkovic forecast a promising future for Chinese soccer and urged fans to trust in his powers ahead of an Asian Cup warm-up match, local media reported on Monday.
"I have discovered that our team has talented players with a lot of potential," Dujkovic told the Beijing Times after his first full training session with the team on Sunday. "Although I am not naming names, I believe that this is absolutely a team with prospects." Dujkovic said he had "already found some ways to solve some problems with the team". Last month, after signing a contract until the end of the Olympics as coach of the national under-23s and technical director of the senior team, Dujkovic said China would need to be more aggressive and score goals on their way to a targeted semi-final place at the 2008 Beijing Games. He then watched the under-21 side lose to Japan in a friendly in Tokyo last week. Dujkovic said fans should have faith in his ability to turn China's flagging soccer fortunes around, given his success in taking African side Ghana to the knock-out stages of the 2006 World Cup finals. "Ghana has only 2 million people, but they were able to make the last 16 at the World Cup. China has such a huge population, so Chinese football can definitely make similar achievements." Dujkovic faces an uphill battle making China, currently 87th in FIFA world rankings, competitive in less than two years. On Friday, Dujkovic named a provisional 27-man squad for next month's Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.
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