Despite a laudable performance in other sports at this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, China continues to flail in its footballing ambitions. Last Thursday, the men’s national team lost 7-0 to rival Japan in the third round of the World Cup Qualifiers group stage. The result became China’s worst ever defeat to Japan and its worst to any team since the all-time low of an 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. On Tuesday, the team then lost 2-1 at home to ten-man Saudi Arabia. Capping off the dreadful week, dozens of players were banned following a corruption investigation.
There was no hiding how bad things had become. “China has made a habit of plumbing new depths in recent years, but this does seem to be a new low,” Mark Dreyer told Nikkei Asia, adding, “Both the scale of the defeat and that it was against its historical rival Japan makes this a particularly galling result.” Former China captain Fan Zhiyi said, “If it weren’t far from here, I would have really jumped into the Huangpu river,” adding, “We can accept that you lose to Japan, but it’s really bad to let the opponents score so easily.” Even Global Times included this damning quote in its report on the match: “Li Boqing, a traditional storyteller, offered a pointed remark: ‘If we had forfeited the match and lost 0-3 by default, we could have saved travel expenses and invested in youth training instead, while also preserving a better goal difference. In World Cup qualifiers, sometimes a single goal difference can determine whether a team advances.’” Chris Lau from CNN shared several netizen comments lamenting the Chinese team’s poor performance:
“This is humiliating,” one China fan wrote on social media platform Weibo, where the defeat has become a trending topic, garnering more than 460 million views by Friday morning.
[…] “This is the most shameful day for Chinese football,” another fan wrote on Weibo after the defeat, calling it “a day that will always sting Chinese fans” and “a pain that can never be erased.”
Another angry fan called for the team to be dismissed, writing: “It’s hopeless… It should be abandoned!” [Source]
CCTV refused to broadcast the match against Japan, which netizens took as a sign that even state media anticipated that the Chinese team would take a beating. CDT Chinese provided a roundup of the online reactions to the match, including veiled references to censorship and appreciation that criticism of China was nonetheless permitted in at least the domain of football:
The national team’s crushing defeat triggered heated debate on social media. The Weibo hashtag “China 0-7 Japan” trended, reaching 600 million views. Comment sections were awash in netizen mockery: “I finally understand why CCTV didn’t broadcast it,” “Everyone figured they’d lose but didn’t think they’d lose so badly,” and “90 minutes of play and we still don’t know what the Japanese goalkeeper looks like.”
Some netizens also took solace in the fact that the national team remains a fair target for criticism: “The Chinese men’s football team is the only thing with the word ‘China’ in it that you can viciously criticize without being ripped for it,” and “At least the team can still go abroad, the matches aren’t fixed, and we can still complain about them.”
While people were scrambling to exercise their “limited right to free speech” through criticizing the team, others pointed out a sad truth: it’s only in places that allow live broadcasts that we’re able to see this huge gap [between the success of the Chinese and Japanese football systems]. So what do you think about “how much does China lose to Japan in mixed cooking oil, healthcare, education, the funeral industry, food safety, official integrity, social security, retirement care, justice, and people’s livelihoods?” [Chinese]
Ahead of China’s match against Saudi Arabia, South China Morning Post’s Lars Hamer reported, Weibo was awash with comments mocking the Chinese team. Users wrote, “The national football team have lost this match because of the rain. Let’s think of the reason first,” and “I think even if the opposition [had only] a goalkeeper, the national team still would not score.” The People’s Daily published an article criticizing the coach, writing: “China’s head coach Ivankovic’s on-the-spot decision-making is to blame. A useless general will waste three armies.” Netizens on Weibo and Twitter “maliciously” forwarded the article and insinuated that this criticism could apply to Xi Jinping, the “general” who has pointed the way on Chinese football. Others also criticized the People’s Daily for using the coach as a scapegoat for the structural issues that also account for China’s footballing failures:
北境开出租: Which general are you talking about?
桌上的绿植: This header could be used anywhere.
风魔三叔: Let’s not talk about the structural issues at all.
littlezhix1: An incompetent general has wasted an entire army. Who is this referring to?
wnda976470: Winnie is to blame for pointing in the wrong direction.
KofReadPoetry: Whoever points out the direction for Chinese football should stand up and take responsibility. [Chinese]
Meanwhile, corruption issues within China’s footballing world continue to surface. In August, Xinhua announced that the former vice president of the Chinese Football Association has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. CCTV also stated that the former director of the competition department at the Chinese Football Association, Huang Song, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for taking bribes, and a former executive committee member of the football association, Gu Jianming, was sentenced to six years imprisonment for bribery. This week, the Associated Press reported, China’s Football Association banned 34 people for life after the latest corruption investigation.
