"We were waiting for good luck but it turned out really, really bad," said Petrovic. "There are going to be tough competitions. We have no choice but to challenge the strong opponents."

The result is also devastating for highly scrutinized CFA officials, who are looking for some relief after their team's early group elimination from the Asian Cup in August.

"It's been a bad year for Chinese soccer," said team manager Wei Shaohui. "We were praying for some good luck after a disappointing result in the Asian Cup. We did not expect to be drawn into such a bad group."

FIFA divided all the Asian teams into four tiers according to their 2006 World Cup preliminary round performances. China was a second-tier team, Iraq was third-tier and Qatar forth-tier.

But FIFA's latest world rankings list Iraq 70th, 15 places higher than China. Qatar is ranked 86th by FIFA, just one place behind China. Group favorite Australia, a first-tier team, is ranked 48th.

The Aussies beat China 2-0 in Guangzhou in their latest meeting. In their previous seven matches, including the meeting in Guangzhou, Australia has won five times and China only once with one draw between them.

Without any distinct advantage over Iraq or Qatar, China has to play every match like it's a matter of life and death.

"Now we have nothing to complain about. We have to play the third round matches like final round competitions," Wei said. "We should keep the confidence and get 100 percent ready for every match."

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