Why China SUCKS at Soccer But Japan & Korea Are Great

China's women's football/soccer team is actually really good, but the mens team....WDYT?

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#worldcup #korea #japan

Fung Bros

[Apieceofgarbage]

A Korean's view. While a friend of mine was traveling Japan, he saw so many high school students enjoy playing soccer in their school. Without worrying about the outcome, he said they really seemed to enjoy. If you have a wider pool, there must be someone outstainding. He said he envied that..

[Heman]

It's a mystery that Chinese men can not play in any team systems, the total opposite of Chinese women. The Chinese Women have dominated sports like Soccer, Volleyball and Basketball on international levels at one time or another.

[unifieddynasty]

There was a recent CGTN interview with the Uruguayan ambassador regarding this topic. The ambassador basically said, 'the kids have to grow up playing it for fun in the neighborhood.' There are some sports that you can train gifted people in to get gold medals in the Olympics. There are some sports that have to grow organically on the streets. For the latter, it's harder to grow in China because of such a high emphasis on academics and structured extracurriculars.

[shinapig]

The most important thing is that China lacks the environment for the growth of football. Even if some teenagers like football, most of them will be forced to give up football eventually due to the increasingly heavy academic burden. In China, almost all parents believe that going to college is the only thing their children should do, so most recreational activities are considered heretical and banned. Even if there are some sports talents, most of them exercise to score more points in college exams. Moreover, many Chinese fans do not know how to learn. As East Asian yellow men, the success of South Korea and Japan in football should be a reference for China, but most people only hate everything about the two countries because of historical reasons, including football. When South Korea and Japan entered the round of 16, many Chinese people were very angry, thinking that they qualified by cheating and luck. And for the next they will play against a stronger team and excited, and hope they immediately fail to go home, Chinese fans only like Brazil, France and Argentina such as the strong but can not see the efforts of South Korea and Japan represented by the East Asian team.

[raypoon]

Corruption, wrong coach, bad players

[zachmiller]

Japanese and Koreans take soccer seriously. The way Chinese play soccer, you can tell the Chinese think soccer is another form of Kung Fu.

[RedPanda]

I think China just focuses on Olympic sports more tbh. (even though soccer is technically an Olympic sport lol)

[isaacmartinez]

At least the Chinese women's football team are alright. Sure, the team have struggled, but during their prime they got at least second place back in 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup.

[meejinhuang]

It's youth academies. China and the US don't have proper academies that train and find young future stars like other nations.

[matthewpark]

I am mostly Korean but my grandpa was Japanese so I speak both languages and also follow football for Korea & Japan. Some Korean & Japanese players have talked about this issue (most notably 이천수 from Korea) `but the problem with Chinese football is simply this. Lack of respect for one another & their coaches. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese are closely related people and it's not like Japanese & Korean players have higher physical ability than Chinese players to play soccer. Culturally, Japanese & Korean men develop a sense of respect for their fellow team members and their coaches. This makes them very coachable.

Both Hiddink and Bento had incredible success in Korea but both failed miserably in China. Why do you suppose that is? It's not because Chinese players lack physical ability. Hiddink and Bento (especially Bento) were all praises for cooperative Korean players but did not hide their displeasure for selfish and arrogant Chinese players. In 1980's and 1990's, Chinese national football team was not weak. There were brief periods where Chinese team was even considered stronger than the Korean national team. But as one child policy generation players began to fill up the Chinese national squad, the Chinese national team began its long downfall.

[nbastar]

South Korean and Japanese players on the national teams already have exposure and experience playing on top notch competitive leagues/teams, so that alone makes it easier for national teams to perform better because they are already familiar competing on the international stage. We can see this in the NBA where national teams like the Spanish, Argentinian, and French teams have so many players playing in the NBA. I would say for the Chinese team to field a competitive team, they must build a program where youth soccer have exposure to international competition and giving talents an opportunity to play on youth teams abroad. It will have to be a stepwise fashion where hopefully over the course for a generation, eventually one generation of players will build on the knowledge and talents of the previous generation. Easier said than done, i.e., even the US youth soccer struggled to get this done.

[haguetroller]

Height doesn't matter in football look at messi. Maradona.Elton Jose etc..its your passion for the game.

[花房白香]

중국에는 축구 문화가 없잖아..
한국은 보통 어렸을때부터 학교 운동장이나 동네 길거리에서 축구를 함..
그리고 축구는 다른 올림픽 종목처럼 돈으로 되는게 아님..
가장 대중적이며 글로벌화 되어 있고 세계 200개 국가와 경쟁을 해야되고 2억명이 넘는 잠재적인 선수와 넘쳐나는 인재풀 그리고 선수 개개인의 개성이 매우 중요한 스포츠임.
중국은 체조나 다이빙 역도 탁구 같은 개인만 잘하는 스포츠 종목에서는 성적을 낼수 있지만
1분 1초 다른 플레이를 요구하며 시시각각 변덕이 심하고 개인의 창의성을 요구하는 축구는 매우 힘들다고 본다.

[HaIodust]

This has begun to be an inside joke in our school, literally no one tries to defend our country's soccer team anymore.

[randallcheung]

You can't make a competitive soccer team with so many corrupted politicians and cunning speculators.

Like recently the head coach of China's soccer team has been held in custody. He deliberately kept those imported Brazilian players out of the starting line-up since they didn't bribe him for the position.

Plus a lot of teams in Chinese soccer league were actually sponsored by real-estate syndicates that invest in soccer teams for money-laundering, and many of them refused to pay their players salary.

Soccer is a sport and a business per se, while Chinese decision makers simply see the business part.

[fungbros]

Why do YOU think China is so bad at soccer?

[ShubhoBose]

India and Vietnam in that respect are actually a lot better than China when it comes to soccer/football. Their current FIFA rankings are 99 and 95 respectively, China is 80. For India specifically, soccer is at least the 2nd most popular sport, and growing in popularity still. And while not the most popular throughout the country overall, in certain regions like the east and southwest, soccer is THE most popular sport.

[tigerfist]

now the only solution for china is they have to promote football in movies/anime to inspire kids and then send hundreds of thousands of kids/youth to many european football academies, I mean they use this strategy in education, sending many students to many top universities in western countries for decades, and the result when they came back they made china economy better, this logic also can be applies to football or any sport
fun fact even all argentinan player also only play in europe club ! their skill improved a lot in europe, theres no way u can make great nation team if only play in local club ! so send all young chinese player to europe academy is the only solution

[jeffrichardjr]

I'm a Tigers fan but shout out to China's Women's for winning the AFC this year!! Congrats 👏 🇨🇳

[musafawundu]

You did touch on an important point. Not enough playing of the game at a grass roots level from pre teen years into adulthood by persons who are talented in large part because of a very heavy focus on academics on the part of parents. People did point out that Japan and South Korea also have a strong societal focus on academics, but there's still the encouragement that those who are talented and passionate about team sports such as soccer in Korea and Japan and baseball in Japan should pursue their talents and they have a youth development system for it...

I see people in the comments section saying that there are not enough places to actually play the game in China. On Google Maps I have noticed that most Chinese cities have numerous soccer fields that dot them... Those are definitely venues for playing the game.... But I do not know the reality of access to those fields for recreational purposes or to play competitive games...