China's 2018 World Cup bid is now in serious jeopardy as the team settled for a goalless draw with Hong Kong in their AFC World Cup qualifying match at the Mong Kok Stadium in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

With the draw, China is currently seven points behind Group C frontrunner Qatar with both teams having already played six games each, as per Yahoo Sports.

Like Us on Facebook

Team Dragon is set to battle lowly Maldives and Qatar in its final two games in the second round of the Asian qualifiers.

With the game against Maldives seemingly a sure win for the Chinese, their only hope of advancing to the final round would be to win their own match with the Maroons on March 29 next year at the Shaanxi Province Stadium in Xi'an.

Some complications will happen if Qatar loses to Hong Kong at the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha five days prior to their match with China.

If that happens, Qatar would still be on top of the group standings with 18 points, but China and Hong Kong will be tied at the second spot with 17 points. However, Alain Perrin's squad leads Hong Kong in goal differential so when the top four runner-up teams are tallied, China will still get the upper hand and could move forward to the next round.

But if Hong Kong loses to Qatar, then the Chinese will be in solo second and have one foot on the next round already.

The New York Times noted that Hong Kong fans consider the goalless tie "as a victory" that gave their team a "slim chance to advance".

If China loses both of its remaining two games and Hong Kong is defeated by Qatar, the latter may still have the chance to qualify for the next round. But if the Chinese wins at least one of their remaining matches and Hong Kong loses to Qatar, then it's all over for Kim Pan-Gon's side.

TagsAFC 2018 World Cup qualifers, AFC 2018 World Cup qualifers second round, Hong Kong, Qatar