
We recently wrote about how basketball is incredibly popular in China, but in the hearts of Chinese sports fans, soccer is a serious competitor (just call it soccer from now on, #sorrynotsorry #maybeabitsorry).
However, unlike basketball, which has produced a Cadre of world-class Chinese players and an increasingly respected domestic league, Chinese football is kind of... bad.
The domestic league (Chinese Super League or Chinese Super League) is well funded and occasionally brings in stars, but the quality of the matches is much lower than in the lower European leagues, although the crowds watching the games are quite large. To
me, that's okay: football is popular and played by large numbers of children and adults, but it doesn't have any international success.
For example, the Chinese men's football team participated in the World Cup once, but they were eliminated in the group stage with close to zero goals (zero to be precise).
So let's take a quick look at the current state of Chinese football and try to diagnose its problems:
corruption
Corruption is not new in Chinese officialdom, but for a number of reasons the Chinese football establishment has fostered a particularly impressive form of corruption.
Where to start? One summer day three years ago, 11 football players and officials, including the former chairman of the Chinese Football Association, were sentenced to various prison terms for match-fixing, bribery and other crimes.
There's even a widely circulated joke that men's national team stars sell for as low as 100,000 yuan (about $16,000), but no one knows if this is true.
Worst of all, corruption has also emerged within China's youth football ranks, with reports that youth coaches and organizers have accepted bribes and neglected their duties.
In 2009, at the World High School Football Championship in Turkey, the winning record of the high school women's team was canceled due to the revelation that members of the national team had been bribed to play with so-called ordinary female students.
Despite multiple purges, problems across the system remain unresolved, suggesting that deep-seated structural problems won't easily go away.
Lack of youth recreational leagues
This was hard to imagine for North American kids, who tended to play organized, casual soccer at the youth level (which I reluctantly went through for about a year until my dad realized it would be easier not to let me go). Eight years of competition and training)).
But apart from official sports academies, organized and well-trained football does not exist in China.
Players who do not show high potential early on are overlooked and encouraged to pursue other paths, thereby eliminating the opportunity for late bloomers to contribute to the national team system.
Chinese fans saw firsthand the failure of this system when legendary Chelsea forward Didier Drogba signed with Shanghai Shenhua in the Chinese Super League in 2012.
Drogba, of course, is one of the greatest foreign players in Premier League history and was studying accountancy when he landed a spot at a French second division club at 21.
External influences are strong here too. If a football player does not show obvious ability at an early age, parents will be reluctant to allow their children to continue playing football if the chances of success are not obvious.
Apparently, spending time developing skills on the court can give you an eight-year head start on college entrance exams.
Urban social space is limited
An argument often circulated is that China's growing urban population means there is a shortage of space for suitable football stadiums and facilities.
While it's a bit strange to think that the world's third largest country lacks enough space to house anything, there are some facts here.
Only the better schools have full-size courts, and while basketball requires much less space, many basketball courts actually take up space that could be used for football. This is the legacy of the country’s push to build basketball infrastructure.
So while many people, young and old, play football, few play it on an organized, formal, full-size pitch.
Other basic questions
But in the final analysis, the above problems are all environmental factors. For example, highly urbanized countries such as Japan and South Korea continue to achieve international success, while football corruption is not widespread in China.
The real basis of the whole issue, in my opinion, is that for football to be successful it needs a grassroots, long-term, highly integrated cultural approach.
Players must start training at a young age, but more importantly, they need to start training at a young age in the right way with the right players , constantly focusing on the future, and developing the unique combination of creativity and discipline that makes players transform. Be great.
Unfortunately, this is not the way China does things now.
For example, their national team has gone through eight coaches in a decade (the level of instability here is close to that of the Redskins, which is saying a lot), and the atmosphere isn't really conducive to long-term development plans.
And, unlike basketball or individual sports, where one or two superstars can truly carry a team or a program, soccer requires a more team-based strategic approach—something even Messi or Ronaldo can only do So much, and just having 2006-era Yao Ming on your basketball team will get you far.
How culture affects football teams
That's more or less how it works in China right now: get it while it's good, because who knows what will happen in 15, 10 or even 5 years.
This mentality is most evident in the experience of former New Yorker writer Evan Osnos, who lived in Beijing for more than a decade.
One year, the front door of his four-year-old house started to get stuck, so he called the building's maintenance man, who explained:
“When I was renovating this house, the landlord only wanted to pay for materials that would last five years because his lease—from his previous landlord—was only for five years. So when it came to choosing metals, wood, and details, we Only buy materials that will last five years.”
Judging from the current spirit of Beijing, this has a certain logic. We often see homes in our neighborhood being torn down and rebuilt within a matter of weeks, so it's not a stretch to imagine a home's lifespan in terms of a few years.
This is just a symptom of the massive changes that have occurred over the last century, but the impact on the football field is that there is a lack of consistency, stability or long-term planning solutions needed to build a successful national program from the ground up. start.
There's also the issue of cultural identity and what that means for football.
Think of some of the great national teams and how they have a strong team identity that aligns with their national culture: Brazil's “Beautiful Game” reflects the free, open culture the country is known for.
The long-term success of Dutch "total football " is largely due to the Dutch's pragmatic, fair-minded strategic genius.
Not to mention Spain's famous passing-based "tiki taka" strategy , honed over more than a decade with the same core group, which has brought them huge international acclaim.
What is the identity of Chinese football? This question has a more important but also more difficult to answer antecedent: What is the identity of modern Chinese culture?
Chinese football needs to figure out what it is before it can succeed, but doing so may require a lot of cultural soul-searching.