Wasn't china good in the early 2000's? I think they made it to the finals or something, what happened?
Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
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Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#62Having an elite soccer team requires talented players, one of the most important talents is elite running speed. To have elite running speed you need to have a higher torso/leg ratio, basically long legs and a high center of gravity. There are regional differences around the world with torso/leg ratios. China is on the lower end, much of Africa is on the high end.
Messi is on the lower end then, as was Maradonna...
A low center of gravity is actually a good trait in 'soccer' as everyone knows that knows a thing about the game.
Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree. Just to pick a specific example and add on a bit: Germany reorganized their nationwide soccer development system in the mid-2000s to be much more centralized, and that's widely considered to be one of the reasons they have risen in prominence recently (they are the current reigning World Cup champions, for instance).
> one of the reasons they have risen in prominence recently Hmmmm.... From TFA: "West Germany ... won the World Cup in 1954, 1974 and 1990, and reached the final in 1966, 1982 and 1986."
Well, there was a really bad period in between then and now.
They finished last in their group in Euro 2000, and did quite badly in 2004 (though I don't remember specifics), and those were the results that motivated several changes (or, at least, moved some already-in-progress moves towards centralization forward).
Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#64This is not specific to China but many larger countries who are good at other sports but they don't do well at soccer. Australia is very good at Rugby, Cricket but their soccer team is average and they make it to world cups only because of limited competition in their confederation (OFC). Domestic soccer leagues are just picking up in China. They mostly comprise to Chinese players and/or end up with retirees of Europ…
Nitpick: Australia is in the Asian confederation, not Oceana. Still, Asia as a whole is a weak confederation.
That's not even a minor nitpick - the AFC is much more competitive. Not quite the level of UEFA or CONMEBOL but the latter stages have plenty of potential banana skins and qualification is by no means guaranteed. Indeed Australia were narrowly edged by France a few days back and today drew with Denmark - both well regarded UEFA nations. They're genuinely a decent side.
Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#65Why 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.
Bingo. Same exact reason why USA doesn't dominate boxing anymore. Our would-be best heavyweight boxers are NFL Linebackers.
Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#66Having an elite soccer team requires talented players, one of the most important talents is elite running speed. To have elite running speed you need to have a higher torso/leg ratio, basically long legs and a high center of gravity. There are regional differences around the world with torso/leg ratios. China is on the lower end, much of Africa is on the high end.
Where is your data? Where is your evidence for this borderline racist claim? Africa doesn't have strong teams, clearly your explanation falls apart with the slightest analysis.
Africa has the fastest teams, that's for sure. There are other factors that go into a team's success other than region, I definitely said speed is an important factor among others right?
Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#67read: Why India doesn't dominate soccer
Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#68Why United States doesn't dominate soccer?
Despite what other posters have said here, the US has a strong soccer culture and a ton of talent. With MLS academies picking up steam and more youth players training abroad, we are producing more talent than ever. The international competition in soccer is intense, and there is a lot of parity among top nations. If the US had adjusted tactics in the qualifiers, we'd be there instead of Panama. We're definitely stronger than a bunch of other countries at the WC.
Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#69There is a better explanation. Being talented individual is not enough. They have to play against other equally talented individuals in the highest level professional leagues from the age of 18 to develop tactically and technically. China needs a professional soccer league with top level foreigners or they need to send their best to European leagues. They can do it but it can take several generations. Soccer is the m…
Iceland's success is probably not reproducible in a larger nation. Due to their numerous indoor fields, which draw on the plentiful/cheap electricity from geothermal power to keep the lights heated and grass growing, and their plethora of coaches (I heard 500 per capita) for their 300k population, it's really not feasible in China.
Here in Uruguay we don´t have cheap energy but we do have a ridiculous number of both professional and amateur leagues and coaches (and a lot of grassland to convert into soccer fields)
For a population of 3 million:
- Pro league with 30 pro teams (each with a youth system with 7-8 teams) + 80 semi-amateur teams (with promotion to the pro leagues)
That's between 10.000 and 20.000 players in the pro system. 100 (or more) each year are sold overseas.
- Very serious amateur league with 8.000 players every weekend in the capital city, Montevideo (any of those 8.000 players could be a pro in a weak national league) plus 2.000 players in the league for smaller cities.
- Teenagers play leagues much like Americans might play high school and college sports, there are probably 30.000 teenagers playing in leagues
- 140.000 players in all the leagues across all the smaller cities.
So that's about 200.000 active players for a population of 3 million - I was one until a few years ago :)
If China or India could achieve that much sports penetration (imagine 200.000.000 Chinese playing competitive soccer every weekend!), I don't doubt they'd be one of the top ranked teams in the world.
https://www.ovaciondigital.com.uy/futbol/mundo-futbolistas.h...
https://www.referi.uy/tierra-fertil-2017-emigraron-107-jugad...
Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 It's hard not to be mean to someone who calls it soccer :-), but this betrays an obvious lack of familiarity with the history of this sport. USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia all had very strong national teams, pretty much until they were dissolved. Clubs from the comm…
> It's hard not to be mean to someone who calls it soccer > ... Champions Cup ... People in glass houses, my friend :D
To be fair, it used to be called European Champions' Cup when those teams were playing.