Although Li made several changes, the Chinese team, once the Olympic silver medallists and the World Cup runners-up, still missed out on a podium finish for the first time in the Asian Games.

The poor results made the chance of an Olympics berth once seemed nearly impossible as China has to face arch rivals Japan, South Korea and DPR Korea for only two tickets.

But this time at the four-nation tourney, China showed signs of revival. And an Olympic berth might not be that hard for the new team.

The 35-year-old coach gave many chances to young players. Among the Chinese team, three are under the age of 20, and the oldest player is only 26. The young players have big potentials.

"I need to know all the players," Li said. "I can't count on just one or two players because I don't know what will happen before September. The Olympic qualifiers has 15 matches and it will be very tough, maybe some players will get injured."

The Chinese team also improved a lot in attacks, and former Chinese men's national team forward Li Jinyu helped much in that. He joined the team as the assistant coach in January and especially took charge of the training of the strikers.

"Li Jinyu's arrival is no doubt a big help to us," said Li Xiaopeng. "Our strikers made a lot of progress."

However, the young team still have lots of weakness. They made too many mistakes during the match and are lack of strength and experience.

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