Failure of the Chinese National Soccer Team

Xu, the professor at Kalamazoo College, wrote: “When it come to our beloved sport, China is not just the sick man of Asia. It’s the sick man of the world. Our soccer tragedy is epic. In the late 1970s, when China resumed international play, after decades of self-imposed isolation, our national men’s team has made it to the World Cup only once.” The poor performances of the team “have also prompted doubts about Chinese manhood, undermined the country’s vaulted can-do spirit and sparked agonized questions about politics, culture and society—even about what it means to be Chinese.”

“On a deeper level, many Chinese — especially Chinese men—are unhappy, deeply frustrated and prone to strong, deep-rooted pangs of helplessness and abandonment. And it’s all soccer’s fault...Millions of Chinese fans link soccer to their national sense of honor. But when your team isn’t very good, that linkage between nationalism and sport can mean tumult and even tragedy.”

Xu wrote the success of the women’s team “only makes matters worse for the country’s pouting men. If the Chinese could win and prove their manhood in the 1930s? And why are China’s men less impressive on the field than its women?...Some pundits have pontificated that we’re going through an era of yin, or femininity, and have wondered what’s wrong with our yang.”

The poor performance of the national team and match fixing scandals in the Chinese league has turned many Chinese off to soccer and stadiums at games are often nearly empty. Some think that soccer in China will only improve if changes are made in China as a whole: more transparency, the rule of law, less corruption, loosening the Communist Party’s grip on power. Others think the team will only improve if individualism is downplayed and there is return to a Confucian sense of collectivism.