
Why China doesn’t dominate soccer - pmcpinto
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/06/18/why-china-doesnt-dominate-soccer/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cedd45e3e104
======
nabla9
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 ...

~~~
WhompingWindows
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.

~~~
GFischer
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.ovaciondigital.com.uy/futbol/mundo-
futbolistas.html)

[https://www.referi.uy/tierra-
fertil-2017-emigraron-107-jugad...](https://www.referi.uy/tierra-
fertil-2017-emigraron-107-jugadores-casi-10-equipos-n1155154)

~~~
tiuPapa
India has the penetration with cricket. Football has been growing, but I don't
see any significant improvement happening before at least a decade.

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the_af
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-lbm
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
> 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."

~~~
sjm-lbm
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).

------
aaavl2821
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
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.

~~~
aaavl2821
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

------
zhdc1
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.

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

~~~
bilbo0s
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?

~~~
endisukaj
I didn't misinterpret it, but even in the article it's mentioned that China's
most popular sport is Football. So it's the same as in Brazil in that respect.

~~~
bilbo0s
That's because they don't count martial arts.

They claim it's an "amateur" sport in china. Which is just this side of
ridiculous.

Even basketball is growing faster than football in China. This despite the
government propping football up. Which is not an indictment of the Chinese,
just pointing out that the people there, left to their own devices, would just
as soon do something other than play football.

------
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...

~~~
coatmatter
> _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...](http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/653673.html)

------
bluejekyll
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...

------
klexin1
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

------
abakus
Why United States doesn't dominate soccer?

~~~
kenjackson
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
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.

~~~
eftpotrm
Three kids, one ball, not very much space. One goes in goal (if needs be a
jumper or coat on each side), the other two compete to put the ball past them
x times, then rotate the goalkeeper. Continue ad nauseam.

Or go to a park and practice ball skills, solo. Ex-England captain Wayne
Rooney was famous for having done that for hours at a time as a kid.

I'm not actually a particular soccer fan and quite enjoy basketball, but it's
definitely not true that soccer has higher kit, space or numbers requirements
to get in a game as a kid.

~~~
thesz
>Continue ad nauseam.

This is what we did. A great way to spend summer when you are teen.

As for practicing ball skills, the very nickname Pele was from the sound of
the can Pele played instead of ball - his family was too poor to have soccer
ball.

------
nacho2sweet
There is a really good BBC podcast about it. There are full soccer academy's
now.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p066783g](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).

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

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

~~~
WhompingWindows
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.

~~~
prewett
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...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/why-
kenyans-make-such-great-runners-a-story-of-genes-and-cultures/256015/)

------
627467
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).

------
ggg9990
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
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.

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

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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.

------
CodeSheikh
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).

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

~~~
smcl
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.

------
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.

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

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username3
Soccer is slow. Soccer takes too long to fail. Expend energy running across
the field to take one shot.

------
fjsolwmv
What sports to Chinese kids play?

~~~
whooshee
Ping Pong, Basketball, and e-sports..

~~~
pbhjpbhj
How does basketball get popular amongst a shorter population for widespread
playing - according to this chart
[http://www.wecare4eyes.com/averageemployeeheights.htm](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 ...

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

------
nomy99
read: Why India doesn't dominate soccer

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mdekkers
paywall

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

I mean this pretty clearly refers to Baseball as well.

~~~
fjsolwmv
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.

~~~
onychomys
The manager (the head of a baseball team is the manager, not the coach, for
whatever reason) is also responsible for putting on the shift, telling the
batter to bunt, calling for stolen base attempts, and other strategic things
along those lines.

