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Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

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Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#101

Post by bilbo0s »

erikb wrote: post #93
bilbo0s wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even martial arts to be perfectly frank. We don't think of it as a sport, because it doesn't necessarily fit our western view of sport. But you'd be hard pressed to say that football or basketball is more popular than martial arts as an athletic pass time in China.

Just because Jacky Chan does kungfu, doesn't mean all Chinese do. The amount of Chinese who invest serious effort into kungfu is quite small. I wouldn't be surprised if hip-hop has a bigger hobby base in China. However almost all Chinese I know have at least some interest in soccer. Of course they bet on European teams in lack of having own strong teams. But they are more into it than most Europeans I know (who mostl…

The number of Americans who invest "serious effort" into playing hockey, or basketball, or NFL football is quite small. Doesn't mean those aren't popular sports here in the US.

In fact, I'm CERTAIN that hip-hop, yoga, or jogging all have a bigger hobby base in the US than hockey, or basketball, or NFL football. If by "hobby" and "serious effort" you mean personally engages in activity twice a week or more. That doesn't make any of them necessarily more "popular" than hockey, or basketball, or NFL football.

Just because it isn't played daily, doesn't mean it isn't a pass time. Martial arts tournaments are enormously popular.

It's arguably even worse in China. Because football is being propped up by the government. Which means even where the government is, let's say, "subtly to strongly urging" people to interact with football, they are still choosing to interact with basketball, martial arts, ping pong, etc instead. Without the government backing, football would fade quickly. Not so for table tennis, or basketball, or boxing. (Which all maintain their popularity with no government intervention.)

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#103

Post by nabla9 »

peruvian wrote: post #84
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…

> from the age of 18 18 is too late. I doubt any one in any of the good national teams started playing seriously and tactically at age 18. This is in fact one of the problems with the US - our soccer players start too late.

18 is when best prospects are recruited into the best leagues. They have played long time before that in the lower levels.

National teams are just temporary arrangements. Real growth happens in the clubs.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#104

Post by oska »

the_af wrote: post #3

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?

Yes, it's a naked piece of propaganda.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#105

Post by alxlaz »

smcl wrote: post #52
alxlaz wrote: post #35

Earlier 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

The predecessor of the Champions' League used to be called the European Champion Clubs' Cup. That's a mouthful in many European languages, but especially in many of the Eastern languages. It used to be referred to as the European Cup in most of the English-speaking or English-influenced West, but we called it the Champions' Cup or the European Champions' Cup in most of the East.

Here's why.

Most sports clubs around here used to be very diverse in terms of sports, on account of the Party insisting that the working class has to practice sports and on account of there not being much entertainment. It would be routine for the same club to have a football team, a basketball team, a handball team and a hockey team, all playing at the highest domestic level. Red Star Belgrade or Dynamo Moscow would, at one point or another, have several teams participating in some sort of "Club Champions' Cup" (e.g. in 1986, Steaua Bucharest football team won the Club Champions' Cup, and the handball team came in third in the handball Champions' Cup)

Consequently, for most of this period, we did not take "club" to mean footbal club. This still persists today, in fact -- it was only around 2000-2005 that most clubs disbanded everything but their football teams, or football-only clubs began to be founded, so except for folks who are now in the 13-18 age group, everyone grew up with "club" meaning "an organization that organizes and maintain a great diversity of sporting events".

(Ironically enough, the party press experimented with an augmented version of the cup's name, which would be translated roughly as "European Football Club Champions' Cup". Suffice to say that did not turn out to be too popular. It took two lines of a narrow newspaper column to print it and there was no way you could pronounce it after the third beer or so).

"European Cup" didn't catch up, either, probably because it would inevitably attract the question "which one?" It didn't help that "European competitions" wasn't a useful term back then: there were various regional competitions as well, such as the Balkans Cup, and less important European competitions, such as the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, so in order to refer to the UEFA Cup, the Champions' Cup and the Cup Winners Cup, we'd say "European cups".

Consequently, everyone here called in "the Champions' Cup", or "the European Champions' Cup". That's how me, my friends or my parents' friends from (what used to be) Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic called it. Unfortunately, my Russian isn't exactly top notch, so I can't say much about the USSR, but I'd be surprised if they called it anything else.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#106

Post by masonic »

KSS42 wrote: post #95
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…

Another counter point is the USSR excelling in hockey. They even had star players : i.e. Vladislav Tretiak.

Tretiak is so highly regarded in the hockey world, numerous NHL goalies have worn #20 to honor him (including non-Russians like Ed Belfour).

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#107

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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…

I'm from UK - I spent hours practicing football by myself (spot kicks, volleying to myself, keepie-uppy, trying show-off skills like rainbow kicks). Many, many hours playing football with just a few friends at the park ("spot", "Wembley singles", "headers and volleys"). At high school we'd play football mostly with a tennis ball, but we'd kick around a drinks-can if there was no ball.

I was only ever a mediocre player, mainly relying on speed - which also got me in just about every school team (small high-school, small market town). At Uni our team did come 2nd in the intra-University cup.

Why did I do all that rather than basketball (a sport I've really enjoyed playing), pervading culture would probably be the main reason (which in turn means availability of fields/courts, etc.).

After Uni I took up volleyball because that was the social sport played at my workplace; now I do karate because that's the sport my kids are doing.

tl;dr You can play football without a football and with 1+ players.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#108

Post by pbhjpbhj »

moorhosj wrote: post #49
zhdc1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US actually has a fairly good men's national team. As weak as CONCACAF is, there's a reason why they've qualified for seven of the last eight World Cups - and why their tie with Trinidad and Tobago was so surprising.

Currently 25th in FIFA rankings (3rd in CONCACAF). Is there any other major men's sport where the US ranks outside the top 20 (maybe cricket)? - 15th in rugby https://www.worldrugby.org/rankings/mru?lang=en - 6th in tennis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITF_Rankings#Men - 4th in hockey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IIHF_World_Ranking - 2nd in volleyball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIVB_World_Rankings

What we in the UK call hockey (field hockey) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIH_World_Rankings - USA women 7th, USA men not listed.

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#109

Post by pbhjpbhj »

whooshee wrote: post #34
fjsolwmv wrote: post #23

What sports to Chinese kids play?

Ping Pong, Basketball, and e-sports..

How does basketball get popular amongst a shorter population for widespread playing - according to this chart http://www.wecare4eyes.com/averageemployeeheights.htm average height in PRC is one of the bottom few.

I'm above average in UK but playing basketball or volleyball my height was always a major disadvantage. I realise you can improve your jump game (plyometrics ftw!) but still ...

Re: Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

#110

Post by petraeus »

Its simple really, chinese ppl in general dont care about sports let alone hockey, most of my friends have never been to a hockey game, or baseball or a soccer match. Chinese people would rather work and have other hobbies outside of sports. Sports isnt the end all be all. its actually not very important at all in the big scheme, you can get excerise in many other ways and be successful in many different professions.
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