A lot has been written about how much Chinese love soccer and the spectacle of the World Cup, but the Chinese team is sitting at home, having yet again failed to qualify. They talk about a nation of 1.3 billion not being able to produce 11 great players. They talk and talk and talk about why this is the case, about what is wrong with the system, and what needs to be changed. Some of the talk is good, some is bad, much of it is mystified as to what is wrong.
As someone who writes a lot (perhaps too much) on Chinese soccer, I had to throw my hat in the ring. First off, I think there needs to be a clarification, there’s a difference in answering why the Chinese team continues to fail vs. why a country of 1.3 billion people can’t field a better football side. Also, excuses about things like the lack of fields is a complete cop out if you look at how soccer is played by kids everywhere else in the world. On top of that, I’ve seen plenty of foreign kids kicking balls around their apartment community, but rarely if ever Chinese kids. So let’s get to the explanations and possible solutions. So here’s my assessment of the real problems.
1. the Education System
The dog eat dog nature of the Chinese education system is unbelievable. From a young age, kids must go from the “right” elementary school to the “right” junior high to the “right” high school if they have a prayer of getting into the “right” college. The concept of “playtime” doesn’t exist for most kids, they get out of school (later than in most places in the world) and then go home to study or to an after school program. They don’t have time to kick a ball around and their parents would be unhappy if they caught them using their time in such a frivolous manner. There are no grass roots weekend youth soccer progra***ike you find in the US, but even in the few that do exist, expat kids are in the majority. Among some in the middle/upper class in China, who’ve been educated and/or spent a lot of time abroad, there is a growing looseness and allowing their kids more time to be kids, but they often will only choose a single activity and those tend to be something along the lines of golf or hockey, a more “exotic” sport that makes their kid unique among his peers. The large size of China’s population, the reason why so many people think it should be so easy to find 11 decent soccer players, also hurts it, with so many young people competing for a finite number of university spots, an hour or two kicking a ball around is seen as a waste of time.
2. Sports Schools
Connected with the above point is the Chinese system of sports schools. Kids as young as 7 are watched by coaches from local sports schools and chosen to take part in afterschool sports training or leave the normal education path to attend a sports school. At the same time, parents view their kid’s failure to be selected as a sign they aren’t good enough and that their focus needs to be on getting a good education. The sports schools usually stop making their selections around age 11 or 12, meaning that any late developers are pretty much out of luck, and ignoring a massive segment of the population. While this is important if you’re choosing small statured gymnasts or looking for tall basketball players, it doesn’t jive with what’s needed to be a star soccer player.