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We knew the Chinese Football Association was pretty terrible at what they do, but we didn't know they were quite this bad. In one of the funniest scandals to hit the beleaguered Chinese football (ahem, soccer) world, CFA players were actually able to win a world championship...
...a Middle School world championship.
Several CFA national youth team players were drafted into the Chongqing Daping Middle School girls team right before it went to play in the World Middle School Football Championships (世界中学生足球锦标赛). While 中学 could mean "high school" rather than "junior high," it doesn't change the fact that barely any of the players were actually from the school they were representing. According to Sohu, only two of Chongqing Daping's team members were actually students there - and they spent most of their time on the bench.
The CFA has said that though the entire team (minus two) was composed of CFA players, it had nothing to do with the substitutions. These individual players had decided of their own accord to join ranks with Chongqing Daping, it told the press. We guess the coach of the national team, who was present in Turkey as well, also came on his own accord.
While having a state-funded team playing against everybody else's kids was already pretty shameful, what Chinese netizens are especially upset about are the embarrassingly close scores.
The team did alright against teams from some countries - 6 to 0 against Turkey, 7 to 0 against Sweden and 9 to 0 against Belgium. But it was only able to win 1 to 0 against Brazil, 3 to 0 against France and 8 to 6 against Germany.
Before it juiced up its team with what amounts to the country's best youth, Chongqing Daping used to get killed. At the beginning of the year, at the Australian Youth Olympic Games, it lost 1 to 7 to Australia, 0 to 11 to Chile, and 0 to 14 to the United States.
The Chongqing Daily described Daping's 8-6 championship match victory over Gerrmany like this: "The student athletes maintained excellent defense in the final shootout with the German side, and their cool composure finally brought them a well deserved victory."
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If you look at China's current development, there is no way you are going to win at the "school" level, unlike in the West. This is because you are more likely to find a higher percentage of soccer players in the population of Germany or Brzil, for example, and many school sports programs are well developed. The CFA officers need to be shot, no doubt. But what is this obsession with soccer? Very few Chinese actually play the sport aand many are keen spectators. In India, their soccers sucks even more than China, but their cricket is very good, because everyone plays the game. The only way for China to make a dent on the sport is for the passion to ignite amongst the Chinese populace, to actually get off their couch watching on TV to actually playing. Walking around Chinese cities, you are more likely to see kids playing basketball, but very few kicking a soccer ball.
If you look at China's current development, there is no way you are going to win at the "school" level, unlike in the West. This is because you are more likely to find a higher percentage of soccer players in the population of Germany or Brzil, for example, and many school sports programs are well developed. The CFA officers need to be shot, no doubt. But what is this obsession with soccer? Very few Chinese actually play the sport aand many are keen spectators. In India, their soccers sucks even more than China, but their cricket is very good, because everyone plays the game. The only way for China to make a dent on the sport is for the passion to ignite amongst the Chinese populace, to actually get off their couch watching on TV to actually playing. Walking around Chinese cities, you are more likely to see kids playing basketball, but very few kicking a soccer ball.
Cheating, or at least bending the rules to crack-point, since the Olympic Games has become officially a national past-time. Unfortunate, but that is China...
It's soccer, not football.
No one calls football "soccer" in 90 percent of the world. The US version shud be renamed handball, since it's mostly played by hands, but then there is another game already called handball! LOL! Lamb shaslik, remember the US is not the centre of the world now! The baton has been passed! ;)
It's Soccer
Passed the baton to who? While China's GDP has them ranked at #2, their GDP per capita (person) has them ranked at 96. This depression has shown the US to be even MORE important. So many countries/people/companies have been buying US T-bills that the interest rate is effectively around Zero! The Chinese are unhappy to buy, but they're trapped; forced to buy the government bonds or risk crippling their own country.
Ignoring the US-China loans (which are purely financially derived), nobody even comes close to matching the US in terms of Foreign aid.
The US is also by far the largest player on the global arena, whom countries turn to to resolve their problems.
China also has no interest in being a responsible part of the world. Relatively speaking, they're not even doing anything regarding their neighbor North Korea, are supporting the oppressive government in Myanmar, and selling Sudan the weapons it uses to kill its own people. They've pretty much refused to take a meaningful part in anything outside their own boarders for the last 60 years, if not most of history. Sure, the Chinese have started to venture 'outside' into countries like Zimbabwe and Iran, but all they're doing there is building factories and for extracting 'stuff' out of the ground. They don't even bother to assist in things like building schools. If it doesn't directly put money in their hand or food in their belly, the Chinese largely see it as a waste.
Maybe someday China will try to become a responsible, active player in the Global Arena. Until then, the US will remain the clear center of the world. The US will remain the country that others turn to for help, the country where people want to live, and a model for rights like the Freedom of Speech (even though we weren't always practice them correctly during the last 8 Bush years).
Only people who've won the world cup can decide what it's called OK?
World Cup? Ha!! The US hopes they doe't win! They /me certainly don't like the idea of driving our kids to a Soccer Practice!! Hell, Olympic diving is more exciting then Soccer! Well, the free kicks are fun to watch, but the rest can do without!