Despite this, China's 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers immediately represented a huge problem for the Chinese side; they were held goalless by Hong Kong at home twice, and lost to Qatar. He was sacked for the team's poor performance at the middle of the second round following another goalless draw to Hong Kong, thus former coach Gao Hongbo returned to the role on 3 February 2016, where he had to face a task of guiding China in at the expense of North Korea which had a better second-place ranking than China. Gao's first two matches were consecutive wins against Maldives and importantly, Qatar, adding with North Korea suddenly slipped out in the Philippines, it secured the team's passage to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup and entering the final qualifying stage for the World Cup.