Hong Kong great Yapp Hung-fai's warning over 2034 Saudi Arabia World Cup goal
Hong Kong most capped footballer said the city's 2034 World Cup ambition was doomed to failure unless there was speedy and significant improvement in the local game.
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In its Vision 2025 plan, released in 2020, the Football Association of Hong Kong, China, listed qualification for the tournament in Saudi Arabia as one of its seven strategic goals.
Despite undeniable improvement under former boss Jorn Andersen, who led Hong Kong to last year's AFC Asian Cup finals, they were nowhere near reaching the third qualifying round for the 2026 World Cup.
And goalkeeper Yapp Hung-fai – the only player with a century of appearances for Hong Kong, having earned 104 caps – said he believed qualifying was 'going to be difficult'.
'It's only nine years away,' he said. 'The generation [of players] will change, but if you can't improve local matches, you can't improve the Hong Kong team.
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'Our players have good technique and skills, but when we play internationals, after 60-to-70 minutes, physically, we're done. There's a big gap between the rhythm of those games and local matches. If we could improve physically, we'd perform much better.'
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