When Xi Jinping came to power, he had three football dreams for China. Here's why he failed

Shuhang Li may be one of China's football team's biggest fans. 

But when asked about their recent performance at World Cup Qualifiers, his smile immediately vanished and he started to grumble.

«Of course I'm not happy,» said the 23-year-old university student, who had been following the team since age 14.

«No football fans — wherever they are from — would accept that their national football team had such a dreadful performance.»

On March 30, after losing to Japan 0-2 and Vietnam 0-3, China's national football team was defeated by Oman 0-2, ending its run for the upcoming FIFA World Cup final.

It has been 20 years since China last qualified for the tournament. 

In 2002, the team made it to the World Cup final but was knocked out in the group round after losing all three matches to Turkey, Brazil and Costa Rica.

The awful results this year sparked outrage on Chinese social media.

«We have 1.4 billion people in China and we couldn't find 11 football players that can make the team qualified for the World Cup, this is a huge shame,» one person wrote on Weibo.

So what has stopped China, a nation that for decades dominated sports like badminton and table tennis, from finding the best players to kick a soccer ball?

You might think the poor performances of China's national team results from the nation's lack of interest in soccer. 

But in fact, Beijing has made football one of its main sporting priorities over the past decade.

President Xi Jinping makes no secret of his football obsession. 

In 2011, a year before he became president, he told a South Korean politician that he had «three wishes»: For China to qualify for the World Cup, to host a tournament and to eventually win the world championship.

Beijing saw the financial potential of