China soccer.

Why is the Chinese national team so weak? I mean China excells in thousands of other sports, whats up with soccer. China by virtue of its population probably has millions of world class players to choose from. Where is the problem, why is this talent not mined??

People should just lay off the Chinese.  They excel in so many other sports.  Football (ahem..."soccer") is not even the most loved sport here.

Instead of questioning their abilities, perhaps we should question our guys back home? Football/soccer is the ultimate sport in Africa.  Yet, I doubt any no African country has ever won the World Cup...

People should just lay off the Chinese.  They excel in so many other sports.  Football (ahem..."soccer") is not even the most loved sport here.

Instead of questioning their abilities, perhaps we should question our guys back home? Football/soccer is the ultimate sport in Africa.  Yet, I doubt any no African country has ever won the World Cup...

The main reason is that players of African teams most of the time are all over the world and are brought together just a few days before games and major tournaments, so they have less time to really learn to play with each other. As a proof, many African nations have won under 15, under 17 world cups and other young tournaments (such as the olympic tournament which basically is under 23), because by this time most of them have not yet emigrated to Europe/the Middle East/Asia etc.
You can compare this with European players who play most of the time in their countries or origin and have a decent national team program.

Other reasons include:
-Lack of organization
-Bad choice of coaches
-Emphasis on physical abilities instead of technical and strategic preparation
-Corruption and problems relative to the players remuneration...

Sheer talent is not enough to win in football today (unless your country's name is Brazil obviously). Put any African team against any Asian country (other than Japan, Korea and a couple of middle east countries) and most luckily the African team will come on top. But until the problems above are not resolved African teams will always have a hard time to win against the global football powerhouses, and, eventually, win the World cup.

But South Africa 2010 is just two years away, maybe we will see some change this time 

Why is the Chinese national team so weak? I mean China excells in thousands of other sports, whats up with soccer. China by virtue of its population probably has millions of world class players to choose from. Where is the problem, why is this talent not mined??

I doubt the best Chinese players are the ones we see in the national team or even in the national league. Criteria of selection are very dubious at best. I remember when being an undergraduate in Xiamen, our foreign student team used to get seriously kicked by the local under 15 team (I won't disclose the scores here... ). But from the word of their coach, only the tallest had a chance at making it to the provincial team or later in the professional league. "Those" who were making the choices obviously tought height was proportional to football ability. I doubt there must be some guanxi-related issues in this as well...

People should just lay off the Chinese.  They excel in so many other sports.  Football (ahem..."soccer") is not even the most loved sport here.

Instead of questioning their abilities, perhaps we should question our guys back home? Football/soccer is the ultimate sport in Africa.  Yet, I doubt any no African country has ever won the World Cup...

The main reason is that players of African teams most of the time are all over the world and are brought together just a few days before games and major tournaments, so they have less time to really learn to play with each other. As a proof, many African nations have won under 15, under 17 world cups and other young tournaments (such as the olympic tournament which basically is under 23), because by this time most of them have not yet emigrated to Europe/the Middle East/Asia etc.
You can compare this with European players who play most of the time in their countries or origin and have a decent national team program.

Other reasons include:
-Lack of organization
-Bad choice of coaches
-Emphasis on physical abilities instead of technical and strategic preparation
-Corruption and problems relative to the players remuneration...

Sheer talent is not enough to win in football today (unless your country's name is Brazil obviously). Put any African team against any Asian country (other than Japan, Korea and a couple of middle east countries) and most luckily the African team will come on top. But until the problems above are not resolved African teams will always have a hard time to win against the global football powerhouses, and, eventually, win the World cup.

But South Africa 2010 is just two years away, maybe we will see some change this time 

Wow...I'll tell you one thing we'll definitely win a World Cup for: excuses.

...and I am no exception.

 

[/quote .....I remember when being an undergraduate in Xiamen, our foreign student team used to get seriously kicked by the local under 15 team (I won't disclose the scores here... ).

hahahah my goodness,... ;Dhahahahahahahahah!!!!!!

You can compare this with European players who play most of the time in their countries or origin...

That's not a fact.

Actually it is. Other than the French, most great European football nations have most of their squad playing in their home championship (Italy, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal etc.). Of course some of the stars play in other championships, but it is still Europe, not Africa or Asia. On the other hand, you will find it hard to find two or three Africans from the same country in the same European club.