Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 112 posts

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#71

Post by coupdejarnac »

megaman22 wrote: post #26
kenjackson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I was in school, we played soccer to get in shape for basketball season (we were too small to field a football team). People tried really hard to push soccer, and we were actually better at soccer than basketball, but soccer just never had the same kind of excitement. You need too many people and too much space to actually play soccer, compared to a little bit of driveway and a ubiquitous hoop for basketball - y…

Kids in other countries play soccer in tight spaces. This helps them develop ball control skills. And with a soccer ball, you can practice juggling, shooting, or doing moves by yourself. For me, shooting hoops by myself was always very dull.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#72

Post by pmcpinto »

I think that so far a weak professional league it's one of the main factors. Yes they're being able to hire some good players and coaches, but they go there because of the money and don't are at the top of their game. For example, Andre Villas Boas left the chinese club he was coaching in order to participate in Dakar rally. That would never happen if he was coaching a european club.

Investing in youth academies will be the best path to achieve a comparative level to some european leagues.

It would be interesting if they are already doing this and for how long, because we don't see any significant results yet.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#73

Post by bohadi »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #53
nabla9 wrote: post #37

There 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.

500 coaches per capita? Energy resources for success in soccer?

I'm happy for their team to go far this tournament as much as the next guy, but what in the world are you talking about?!

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#74

Post by smcl »

GFischer wrote: post #70
smcl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nah it's not ever been called that either. It seems it was technically "European Champion Clubs' Cup" but I have literally never heard that term in my life (and I know a LOT of Celtic fans who have a lot to say about a certain night in Lisbon in 1967).

Mainly my comment was just a playful "maybe don't get snippy with someone's terminology, nobody's perfect"

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#75

Post by GFischer »

megaman22 wrote: post #26
kenjackson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I was in school, we played soccer to get in shape for basketball season (we were too small to field a football team). People tried really hard to push soccer, and we were actually better at soccer than basketball, but soccer just never had the same kind of excitement. You need too many people and too much space to actually play soccer, compared to a little bit of driveway and a ubiquitous hoop for basketball - y…

Have you tried five-a-side soccer? Great sport! But it does need a special pitch for sure - much smaller than an 11-a-side field but still a hindrance.

Over here (Uruguay) there's a whole cottage industry of five-a-side soccer fields, many workers play it after office hours.

Edit: as a side comment said, poorer people usually cordon off a stretch of road and play there, that's also very very common (especially during the day when there's no much traffic). Two rocks (or logs, or bundles of clothes) can serve as goalposts.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#76

Post by vraid »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #53
nabla9 wrote: post #37

There 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.

> I heard 500 per capita

You may have swapped your units there. 150 million coaches would be somewhat excessive for a population of 300 thousand.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#77

Post by prewett »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #54
larrydag wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ugh. explain Mexico then. Not a quality post here.

Yeah, this is not a good explanation at all, bordering on racist honestly. No data cited for claims, and plenty of counterexamples to disprove the point easily.

What, exactly, about the post is racist? The parent cited specific biological characteristics. Generalizations are not racist. Nobody claims it's racist to say that Kenyans tend to be good runners because of genes. In fact, The Atlantic made that claim [1]. The parent poster is making similar types of claims as The Atlantic article.

Poor post, ok. Racist, no.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/wh...

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#78

Post by eumenides1 »

The reasons why presented in the article aren't right as most of the commenters have pointed out.

My counter point to this is Hockey and the USSR. Hockey is also a free flowing game that relies on team discipline and individual creativity. The USSR was an amazing hockey machine.

It comes down to cultural reasons. USSR's people liked hockey and the USSR supported hockey monetarily. The USSR finds success in hockey. Brazil's people like soccer and Brazil+Brazil's private teams supported soccer monetarily. Brazil finds success in soccer. China's people don't know what they like yet. The people have just started to have have free time because of the recent economical liberalization. China has only started to support soccer monetarily. So it's reasonable to expect that China doesn't play soccer well. They could be better in the future as long as they have the time and culture change it needs.

Side note: I don't know why England sucks. The people love it, god awful amounts of money are spent on soccer/football. But thank god they haven't figured it because the world would not hear the end of it...

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#79

Post by coatmatter »

eumenides1 wrote: post #78

The reasons why presented in the article aren't right as most of the commenters have pointed out. My counter point to this is Hockey and the USSR. Hockey is also a free flowing game that relies on team discipline and individual creativity. The USSR was an amazing hockey machine. It comes down to cultural reasons. USSR's people liked hockey and the USSR supported hockey monetarily. The USSR finds success in hockey. Br…

> Side note: I don't know why England sucks. The people love it, god awful amounts of money are spent on soccer/football. But thank god they haven't figured it because the world would not hear the end of it...

I wonder if it just comes down to how they practise it and the level of dedication - similar to how this feature alludes in the case of cricket: http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/653673.ht...

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#80

Post by qihqi »

erikb wrote: post #42
zhdc1 wrote: post #19

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. Why? Soccer is by far the most popular sport in China for quite some time now. I think you need to spend a generation or two to also get the systems right, tho.

Comparing to other athletic sport. I doubt it is more popular than LOL or Dota2 or whatever current popular eSport tho. Or even werewolves (langrensha).
Post reply on HN