The National Times - 'Hell to heaven' as China reignite World Cup hopes with late winner

Zhang Yuning prodded home in the 91st minute on Thursday, moments after Bahrain had what they thought was a winner of their own ruled out by VAR for offside.

It blew Group C wide open with Australia, Saudi Arabia and China all on six points at the halfway stage of the third round of Asian qualifying for 2026.

Their team's second win in a row had Chinese supporters dreaming of making the World Cup again, the only previous occasion going back to 2002.

The hashtag "national team goes from hell one second to heaven the next" trended on Weibo in China, racking up at least 22 million views by Friday morning.

"If China makes it to the World Cup I'll quit my job and head straight there," said one user on the social media site.

Branko Ivankovic's side face another crunch qualifier on Tuesday when they host Group C leaders Japan in Xiamen.

The top two teams in each of the three Asian qualifying groups go straight through to the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Captain and goalkeeper Wang Dalei told reporters in Riffa: "We had lots of chances in this game, so even though we got some luck, I'm very happy.

"We can come up short but we can't lose our unity and our fighting spirit," he added.

"As long as we don't give up, we’ll have a chance."

Striker Zhang struggled to articulate his joy at hitting the close-range winner at the death.

"It's difficult to describe," he said.

"The emotions are difficult to control and I was very excited."

But not everyone was getting carried away after the narrow win, which came on the back of a 2-1 home victory last month over Indonesia.

"I saw it was trending and assumed they must have beaten Brazil," one fan wrote online.

V.Allen--TNT