Belgium 2 – 0 China, this Olympic pool match last year was as boring as the score line suggests. Yet it was a huge moment in what could be historically judged as a turning point for modern Chinese football, it was the last straw. The match itself was quite a mundane affair which exposed huge flaws in the Chinese team, firstly their inability to play as a team and a worrying trend of players turning to violence if the game looks to be out of their control.
The Chinese Olympic team had been earlier sent home after an on field melee with a QPR reserve team and the football association was fined for an ugly appearance at the Asian football championships, where amazingly China received nine yellow cards in the first two matches against South Korea and Japan, and received eight yellows and two reds in the last game against North Korea. During the Belgium match two players were sent off and China was all but eliminated. Afterwards the players were caught in a bizarre training ground sex scandal, after which the now usual communist cliché of self denouncements were issued and accusations started flying. Even though technically the national squad and the Olympic squad are separate teams both are run under the same association and both make any Chinese football fan groan and curse with genuine disappointment.
The nickname of the national team is 國豬 (Guo Zhu). It’s a clever pun which means ‘National Pig’ but sounds similar to ‘Guo Zu’ which means ‘National Team’. It might seem a little hard on a team which is ranked one place above Sierra Leone in the FIFA rankings (97th), yet public opinion has always been one of high expectation as all major sports have been lavishly funded and developed due to the 2008 Olympics.
Football is played throughout the country and European football in particular is extremely popular, the top Chinese players are handsomely paid and a few have moved to clubs in Europe although none have been very successful and a cynical mind would cast doubt as to whether the transfers of Chinese players are at all related to playing matters. A much quoted story is from 1993, the Chinese football association sent a group of young talented footballers to Brazil to learn some techniques and to try to assimilate with the locals. The results of this experiment were mixed with very little success or any improvement gained by the experience.
Much is made of the potential of Chinese football and the spending of China’s increasingly well off fans. With a disgraced national league, tainted with rumours of corruption and live league games taken off national TV because of growing player violence, and an uninterested public which has lost patience. It seems that instead of looking at solutions abroad, the Chinese football association would do well to look at itself and set itself more realistic targets. Top players in Europe are trained by complex scientific methods that are at the cutting edge of sports science, no matter how much the Chinese government or the top domestic clubs are willing to spend on development, it can never match the facilities or recruit the top coaches that most successful European clubs have at their disposal.
When Manchester United were on a lucrative tour of South China in 2007, Sir Alex Ferguson told a regional expat magazine that he believed China and America would be the next big football superpowers, yet he knows more than most that throwing money at a team and buying talent doesn’t always guarantee you success.
FURTHER READING
China relies on its boys from Brazil (The Independent)
Fine for Chinese football (China Daily)
Chinese football team in sex scandal (Telegraph)
China FA opens QPR brawl inquiry (BBC)
Why is Chinese football team so stink? (Baidu Questions)
WORDS BY WILL CROOK
PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKEASAURUS
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