Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/06/18/why-china-doesnt-dominate-soccer/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cedd45e3e104

by pmcpinto • 8 years ago

76 107 8 years ago

washingtonpost.com

aaavl28213• 8 years ago

While I think things like vision, communication and teamwork, spatial awareness and improvisational ability are critically important and can't be taught (though they can be learned through lots of play), this article definitely shortchanges the amount of physical and technical skills required for soccer / football that can be taught and developed through practice

Good stamina is a prerequisite for being good at soccer / football. Players run 5-10 miles per game and a lot of that is intense bursts of speed with lots of changes of direction and agile footwork -- which is incredibly tiring. A team gets a limited number of substitutions and there are no timeouts / breaks other than halftime. So you have to be in good shape, and that's definitely a skill that comes with practice

Technique / "touch" is also critical and can be developed. The most immediately striking easily observable difference btw pros and less skilled players is that pros touch is just impeccable -- the ball just goes exactly where they want it. It's like a part of their body. That comes with drills and repetition.

If you are in good shape and have a good touch, you'll be better than most players up to probably a US division 3 college level (you can also be good at this level sacrificing touch for intelligence / game sense, speed, or another attribute). But beyond that you need to either have freakish skills / athleticism and good game sense or just really good game sense

padobson• 8 years ago

So if you look at a distribution of folks possessing the attributes required of a footballer, you can be fairly competitive amongst the general population with one or two, but the long tail of elite players requires all seven of the attributes you mention.

you'll be better than most players up to probably a US division 3 college level

If you really love the game, this sounds like a fairly satisfying career peak. A reasonably healthy player should take comfort in knowing it's achievable through effort alone.

aaavl28213• 8 years ago

I think that's true. I had friends I played with in high school who played D3 who were just fast and decently skilled, some who played D1 who were just very skilled and athletic but didnt have the best game sense, and some who walked on to D1 teams who werent that athletic but just disciplined, safe players -- usually central mid / defenders who could control the ball and pass quickly

As I've gotten older I've found that having decent ball control and stamina makes up for me being slower and less agile, and helps me enjoy casual pickup games with younger players. Instead of jogging I'll do dribbling exercises for a cardio workout. I love playing soccer but its harder to play as I get older, and these exercises enable me to keep playing casual pickup games

the_af• 8 years ago

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?

sjm-lbm2• 8 years ago

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).

JackFr• 8 years ago

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."

unexpected• 8 years ago

The Chinese women's team is actually pretty good. This is just banal political tripe. I feel like the author had a point that he wanted to make and just said anything to support it.

oblio• 8 years ago

The evidence is obviously football in the USSR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_in_the_Soviet_Union

I'm being ironic, the USSR had both very strong club teams and a very strong national team.

alxlaz2• 8 years ago

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 communist bloc did not dominate football, but put very convincing performances and were routinely represented in the higher stages of European competitions. Red Star Belgrade and Steaua Bucharest won the Champions Cup within a few years of each other -- all this while players trained in sub-par conditions, worked with sub-par equipment, had access to sub-par medical conditions, research and treatment, and were usually unable to play abroad and further their career at the truly major European clubs.

If anything, the quality of football in most ex-communist countries, Russia included, has steadily declined. Poland and Croatia are the only major and steady exceptions (Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Romania enjoyed some brief stints but not much else), and it's probably no coincidence that their national economies are faring better than those of most ex-communist countries.

smcl3• 8 years ago

It's hard not to be mean to someone who calls it soccer
... Champions Cup ...

People in glass houses, my friend :D

ashwinaj• 8 years ago

Well put. Another stupid "Hate China" propaganda piece; no wonder people have lost faith in journalism.

oska• 8 years ago

Yes, it's a naked piece of propaganda.

CodeSheikh• 8 years ago

This 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 European clubs (Retired Andre Iniesta of Barcelona/Spain moving to some club in China).

aaavl28213• 8 years ago

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

moorhosj3• 8 years ago

Yet, the US dominates in women’s soccer. Maybe there are fewer options for them to play other sports (football specifically)?

LargeWu• 8 years ago

Nitpick: Australia is in the Asian confederation, not Oceana. Still, Asia as a whole is a weak confederation.

smcl3• 8 years ago

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.

aekotra2• 8 years ago

Yeah, but they've only been there for 12 years. OFC before then.

chrxr• 8 years ago

Iniesta moved to Japan.

Also, Australia has 5200% less people than China, so not a great comparison. A better comparison would have been India, who have a comparable population but a heavy focus on cricket.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/23/football/barcelona-iniesta-ja...

nacho2sweet• 8 years ago

There is a really good BBC podcast about it. There are full soccer academy's now. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p066783g . They delve in some cultural stuff and how they need creativity and individualism in their game and should get over their players having tattoos (they make them cover them up).

klexin1• 8 years ago

The social structure in many cities does not enable sports. If you have a city of millions but heavy pollution, factory jobs with long hours, expensive real estate so no pitches

ythn• 8 years ago

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.

kristianc• 8 years ago

Which sports is the author referring to other than American Football?

I mean this pretty clearly refers to Baseball as well.

fjsolwmv2• 8 years ago

Almost the only play planning in baseball is the catcher calling pitches. Everything else is reaction to where the ball goes. The coach does staffing.

ccnafr• 8 years ago

There are articles online that claim the opposite. I guess it's a matter of perspective.

abakus• 8 years ago

Why United States doesn't dominate soccer?

kenjackson• 8 years ago

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.

megaman22• 8 years ago

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 - you don't even need another person, you can spend hours blissfully shooting by yourself.

hiccuphippo• 8 years ago

Msybe it's a catch22. It's not very popular so not many people try it so the team doesn't have very good players so it's not popular. Argentina has soccer schools for children everywhere. And recruiters are always looking for rising stars in them.

sotojuan• 8 years ago

Not popular. This means public parks and even schools are less likely to have soccer fields or soccer programs. Note how almost every single park has a basketball court. Although this is changing, soccer is associated with elementary school kids or even as feminine (?).

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.

edmundhuber• 8 years ago

Limited interest: most of the country views it as a child's sport, to be outgrown. There's not many places for a kid to just kick around the ball with friends, because it's hard to get to a field, you might have to reserve it, how do you get your friends there, etc. It's not an organic sport like football (in the US).

Pay to play: for youth development, the player's family has to be fairly well off. This is pay for either an academy, or going to a D1 college team, paying for travel, etc etc

Limited coaching talent: not very many soccer coaches play or even watch soccer regularly. This leads to an emphasis on agility and strength rather than skills and strategy. Agility and strength work out pretty well if the team you're facing has the same focus, but if you're playing against a team that has drilled and nurtured intelligence it will end badly for you.

coupdejarnac2• 8 years ago

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.

AtlasBarfed3• 8 years ago

This will change because

1) Latino immigration and their inherent interest in soccer

2) Pigskin Football is plummeting due to concussion fears

3) Steady rise in popularity of the sport, especially as a social/hipster rebellion to old guard leagues like the NFL

4) MLS, for better or worse, seems stable and can provide some degree of professional support for players. That will attract more athletes and keep athletes in the sport

I think the US will rise to the level of the less talented Euro nations that qualify, like maybe Denmark or Iceland.

bluejekyll• 8 years ago

I find it hard to believe coaches of any professional Soccer/Football team abide by non-compliance of the team.

The people called out in this story are all super stars, and have more power in a sense than the coaches of their teams. Much like Lebron James is in basketball.

But if you look at other teams, like Spain, in which there is less dependence on a single player, and more on the team play, my guess is that part of that is due to the coach pushing for more passing, more calm control of the ball. Not to say they don’t have individually great players on the team, but they clearly play as a team, and not individuals.

The article might be right that to excel in Soccer one needs to be more free in expression and experimentation. My theory on why Brazil excels, is that socially the sport is played almost all the time by everyone... and it’s a great sport for low income areas, ball, field, game. In the US, we rarely did pickup games of soccer, even though many of us played in the neighborhood, because most of the other kids wanted to play American Football...

zhdc13• 8 years ago

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.

endisukaj2• 8 years ago

Cricket is not the most popular sport of those countries. Football is.

bilbo0s5• 8 years ago

I think you may have misinterpreted zhdc1's point. I think they mean to say that if Brazilians and Nigerians have a cultural preference for football, why attempt to force cricket onto them?

bilbo0s5• 8 years ago

This.

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?

erikb2• 8 years ago

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.

qihqi• 8 years ago

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).

fjsolwmv2• 8 years ago

What sports to Chinese kids play?

strig• 8 years ago

League of Legends

whooshee• 8 years ago

Ping Pong, Basketball, and e-sports..

pbhjpbhj4• 8 years ago

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 ...

627467• 8 years ago

Parallel to the article's argument, I'd argue football (soccer) unpredictability are due to size and diversity in almost all it's aspects: most number of fans/aspiring players, also inherently (culturally) most diverse set of potential players/strategies and leagues organization.

At the regional scale, those also tend to be the most competitive and popular leagues, enabling breeding grounds of diverse playing styles. There's diversity even in how those leagues are managed and organized.

Compared to popular US sports franchises, which according to the article and my understanding (non-american), football(soccer) leagues around the world are much less centralized.

I don't know about China now, but growing up in Asia in 90s I'd say it is hard to foster the type of rivalry/diversity/competition needed to adapt to football(soccer).

nabla92• 8 years ago

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 most popular sport in the world and has most professional athletes by far. Best individuals from all over the world go to play in best professional teams, mostly in Europe and they continue to grow with better opponents and teammates. Talented Brazilians playing in top leagues all over the world a bring all that with them to their national team. Iceland (population little over 300,000) has professional players playing in England, Russia, Sweden, Netherlands ...

WhompingWindows4• 8 years ago

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.

GFischer3• 8 years ago

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...

bohadi• 8 years ago

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?!

vraid• 8 years ago

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.

peruvian• 8 years ago

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.

rconti• 8 years ago

Our soccer players don't start too late, they stop too early.

nabla92• 8 years ago

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.

narag• 8 years ago

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.

Exactly. Nothing teaches better than having your ass kicked.

A number of high profile spanish players are considering going China for their last active years, so maybe they're on the right way.

KSS42• 8 years ago

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

masonic• 8 years ago

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

ggg99902• 8 years ago

China plays the US for the gold medal in Olympic BEACH VOLLEYBALL. They can dominate anything they want, they just haven’t invested the effort and money into soccer yet. There are more popular sports in China like basketball which they will go after first.

rc_hadoken• 8 years ago

Basketball? Yeah, I'm all for chasing and achieving goals...dreams in this case. But China ain't going nowhere in Basketball any time in my lifetime..or two lifetimes at that.

AtlasBarfed3• 8 years ago

Average Division III teams used to beat pro chinese teams, but this was back in the 90s. They probably are better now.

scarejunba• 8 years ago

Basketball is more popular than football in China? Article says opposite.

kneel2• 8 years ago

Having 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.

larrydag• 8 years ago

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

WhompingWindows4• 8 years ago

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.

WhompingWindows4• 8 years ago

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.

kneel2• 8 years ago

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?

tP5n• 8 years ago

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.

aekotra2• 8 years ago

one of the most important talents is elite running speed

That would be on my shortlist for among the least important talents for team success.

mdekkers• 8 years ago

paywall

LiweiZ• 8 years ago

Dynamic coordination among a group of people. Top down approach does not work best under this. It's not reactive enough. There are just so many to talk about regarding this. But I think that's one of the very core dimensions of this game. And there are so many other national teams do not reach their potentials. China is a nice key word for clickbait. And it worked well.

PappaPatat• 8 years ago

Wrong tittle, should be: why China doesn’t dominate soccer yet.

They are investing heavily, buying loads of European youth football trainers, scouting their own youth at great rate and building their league up pretty fast.

You heard it here first: they will host the World Cup football in 2030 or 34 and will be contesting for the highest rank.

SurrealSoul• 8 years ago

Wasn't china good in the early 2000's? I think they made it to the finals or something, what happened?

nomy99• 8 years ago

read: Why India doesn't dominate soccer

pmcpinto• 8 years ago

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.

eumenides1• 8 years ago

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...

coatmatter• 8 years ago

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...

username3• 8 years ago

Soccer is slow. Soccer takes too long to fail. Expend energy running across the field to take one shot.

amaccuish• 8 years ago

Is there a reason for the recent china bashing? Seemingly every article about china is finding some new way to criticise it.

petraeus• 8 years ago

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.

Why China doesn’t dominate soccer

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