Former Real Madrid and Spain boss Jose Antonio Camacho took over China’s beleaguered national football team yesterday, as the underachieving Asian nation sets its sights on the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The 56-year-old replaces Gao Hongbo and will be tasked with turning round the fortunes of the national side at a time of crisis for the Chinese top league, which has been dogged by corruption and sporadic bouts of hooliganism.

Despite a huge and passionate fanbase, China’s record on the international stage is disappointing – the national team has qualified for just one World Cup, in 2002.

They failed to make it to South Africa 2010 after a poor qualifying campaign and earlier this year crashed out of the Asian Cup in Qatar at the group stage.

Camacho, who led Spain to the quarter-finals of Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup, signed a three-year contract yesterday.

The Spaniard, sacked by La Liga side Osasuna in February as they flirted with relegation, said he was looking forward to the challenge.

“Although the current level of Chinese football is not high, it has big potential for development,” he said.

Camacho will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of Bora Milutinovic, the Serb coach who earned folk hero status in the world’s most populous nation for leading them to the 2002 World Cup finals.

Wei Di, vice-head of the CFA, said Camacho was tasked with “quickly raising the level of the team, and actively carrying out the national team’s preparation work for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers”.

Things have started to look up recently, with China unbeaten in five friendly matches that included wins against Honduras, Uzbekistan and North Korea.

On Wednesday they beat Jamaica 1-0 at home, but with less than three weeks to go before the first 2014 qualifier, against Singapore, the CFA decided to ditch the Chinese Gao for the experienced Camacho.

Details of Camacho’s wages have not been announced, but Chinese media have reported he will earn three million euros ($4.3 million) a year.