The frustrations only grew for those who did turn up to support their side, and many of them vented their anger at full-time.
Other fans at the stadium did show some support for the side, however.
A video circulating on social media showed one supporter, speaking to a reporter from state media CCTV outside the stadium, shouting “Chinese football needs us, we can’t give up! Team China, come on!”
Most of the fans around him applauded, but others shouted “the Chinese team should disband”.
There was not much support from fans online, though, as social media users tried to process the latest poor result.
“It’s shameless, what else can you say?” one fan wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform.
“We only let in one goal against the world’s strongest team, Syria. What a huge improvement,” another tongue-in-cheek comment read.
China had plenty of possession in the first half but failed to break down the visitors’ defence.
Syria – No 94 in the Fifa rankings – thought they had gone ahead in the 52nd minute but Yasin Alsamya’s effort was ruled offside after a VAR review. The breakthrough did come seven minutes later, though, when Krouma unleashed an unstoppable effort from outside the box that flew into the top right of Yan Junling’s net.
Star forward Wu Lei came close to scoring a dramatic equaliser for China in added time but his close-ranger header was saved by Syria goalkeeper Ibrahim Alma.
“We were unlucky not to win tonight, but we also fought hard and tried many changes, including tactics and substitutions, until the end,” Jankovic said at the post-match press conference.
“We worked hard. It can’t be said that we didn’t create opportunities, it’s just bad luck that we didn’t score. We can only look at the positive side now and continue to work hard.”
China had a total of 17 shots, with seven of them on target, while Syria had just one shot on target – which turned out to be the winning goal.
“It was a frustrating result for us,” Jankovic added. “We asked the players to react after the draw against Malaysia in terms of their energy level, but unfortunately we couldn’t win the match.
“It’s easy for me to talk about the players on the field, that they were not good enough, but I don’t like to do that.
“Every game is different, we can still collect important information from the loss. We will play against a low-defence team in the World Cup qualifiers and Asian Cup, the important thing is how to learn and manage.
China will play two more friendly games against Vietnam and Uzbekistan in October, with the AFC Asian Cup getting under way in January in Qatar.
Jankovic’s side have been drawn in group A alongside the hosts, Tajikistan. and Lebanon.
Hosts China have also been drawn in Group A of the men’s competition at the Hangzhou Asian Games, which start next week, alongside India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
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