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Seems pretty weak and unsupported. It can be summed up as "China doesn't excel at soccer because of authoritarianism and because the sport is not well understood by anyone and central planning doesn't help". Ok, if you say so. Where's the evidence?
> American mainstream sports tend to rely heavily on the authoritarian figure of the coach, who draws up plays for obedient players to execute. Which sports is the author referring to other than American Football? I played volleyball, and the coach had little control over the way a serve would play out other than which players were on the court.
> Which sports is the author referring to other than American Football? I mean this pretty clearly refers to Baseball as well.
This is like asking why Brazil (pop 208M) and Nigeria (pop 191m) don't field competitive cricket teams. Interestingly enough, China does have a fairly decent women's soccer team (~17th in the world), so they must be doing something right.
This is like asking why Brazil (pop 208M) and Nigeria (pop 191m) don't field competitive cricket teams. Interestingly enough, China does have a fairly decent women's soccer team (~17th in the world), so they must be doing something right.
If the people don't play a sport, why try to force it on them?
In places like China, Indonesia, and even the US, rightly or wrongly, the people are not really very big on football. (In China, the government is attempting to prop up football unilaterally, but it is having limited success).
Now maybe this aversion cultural, maybe its economic, whatever. But I'm not seeing why the Chinese people should be pushed into football when they have an obvious preference for other activities?
Why United States doesn't dominate soccer?
For the US it is more about the quality of athletes and interest in the sport. The best athletes don't play soccer. They go to football, basketball, and to some extent baseball. On my son's club basketball team they regularly get some of the best soccer players in the city joining, and dropping soccer. The inverse (great basketball players joining soccer and leaving basketball) rarely/never happens.
Why United States doesn't dominate soccer?
Because soccer is not popular, it doesn't make you as much money or respect as other sports. Strong athletes will overwhelmingly choose sports better for them in the long run.
Elitist. For some reason, in the US, soccer is expensive. Leagues are expensive, classes are expensive, etc. It is squarely an middle to upper middle class sport. This cuts off a huge part of the population. I cannot tell you why because everywhere else, soccer is for everyone and a lot of famous players come from poor backgrounds. When the game was invented, it was a working class' game.
Soccer starts too late. There is no progression from childhood to pro like there is everywhere. The best clubs and teams of the world (and even the ones that aren't so good) have special programs for K-12 kids (e.g. Barcelona has been training Messi since he was 13). Most soccer players I know didn't start playing seriously until high school or even college.
This is like asking why Brazil (pop 208M) and Nigeria (pop 191m) don't field competitive cricket teams. Interestingly enough, China does have a fairly decent women's soccer team (~17th in the world), so they must be doing something right.
Cricket is not the most popular sport of those countries. Football is.
Seems pretty weak and unsupported. It can be summed up as "China doesn't excel at soccer because of authoritarianism and because the sport is not well understood by anyone and central planning doesn't help". Ok, if you say so. Where's the evidence?
I'm being ironic, the USSR had both very strong club teams and a very strong national team.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's similar to the US. I think a lot of it just comes down to the number of kids that grow up playing a sport i.e. the talent pool. In the US lots of kids try playing soccer but most focus more on baseball / basketball / football / hockey. Whereas in countries where soccer is the main sport the talent pool is larger and you have tons of talented kids who've been playing for two decades
Yet, the US dominates in women’s soccer. Maybe there are fewer options for them to play other sports (football specifically)?