The elusive goal of football glory

Missed chance: Chinese fans gathering in the stands ahead of the qualifying round Group B match between Vietnam and China at My Dinh National Stadium in Hanoi last month. — AFP

CHINA is a large sporting nation dominating various sports with many of its athletes achieving podium finishes.

The country finished second at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with 88 medals, including 38 golds, and in third position at the recent 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics with 15 medals.

The Chinese can brag about their domination in table tennis, diving, gymnastics, badminton and volleyball.

But there is one team they consider as a “disgrace to the country” – the men’s national football team.

Chinese football fans have constantly vented their anger and disappointment on social media over the team’s performance.

The sentiment worsened after the team lost 1–3 to Vietnam in the 2022 World Cup qualifying round last month, ending their dream to Qatar.

On the first day of Chinese New Year, it is taboo to say anything indecent or scold others but millions of angry fans took to the Internet, lashing out their grievances and asking why did the team keep losing?

The issue was off the radar for a while as all focus was diverted to the Winter Games.

It picked up steam again last week after Chinese sketch comedian Gong Hanlin complained about the below-par performance of the football team.

“Taking a few million to tens of millions in annual wages but never scored a goal, it is a disgrace,” he said in an interview during the recently concluded Two Sessions, dubbed the Chinese parliament meeting.

Although no name was mentioned, it is understood that he was referring to the men’s national football team.

Gong, who is also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference China’s top political advisory body – also criticised tax-evading celebrities, saying they earned big money and yet they wanted more.

He also slammed corrupted officials.

In fact, he was not targeting anyone but merely urging the government to highlight its National Role Model Worker honourship to send out the moral message of “you reap what you sow”.

(The National Role Model Worker title is the highest honour given to civilians with great contributions to society.)

However, Gong’s remarks were quickly picked up by netizens and they joined in the row.

A few days later, former captain of the men’s national football team Feng Xiaoting – in replying to a fan’s question if he was retiring from the sport – retorted: “Already retired, give way to Gong Hanlin.”

His answer started another round of online debates with netizens giving their own interpretation of the statement.

Then, Gong posted a video poking fun at the national team, followed by Feng’s over 2,200 Chinese characters-long article to defend his former mates.

Citing the Japan–Belgium match at the 2018 World Cup as an example, Feng said after Belgium scored the winning goal in 14-second, the Japanese reviewed the video clips from 28 cameras with their players as well as representatives from the European football clubs and experts to analyse the problem.

Every success has its price, he added.

“Whereas for us, we only care about winning and losing with critics calling for so and so to get out of the football field.

“Losing a game is not the fault of one particular player or the coach.

“A small mistake will be magnified by the critics and this is sad. No one cares about our injuries,” he went on.

Feng also explained that football players were not as “glamorous” as many would think and pointed out that players had a pay-cut and most of them had not received their wages for over a year.

“I’ve had a great time in football. We won the AFC Champions League twice, bagged a lot of league titles and defeated South Korea twice.

“We did not talk about these things. Now that we have reached a low point, we haven’t complained much but insist on doing what we love,” he wrote.

He hoped the people would be rational in their comments.

Many netizens poked fun at their national football team, calling them all sorts of names and body shaming them.

There are good Chinese football players and several have played for English football clubs, including Manchester United, Everton and Manchester City.

Sports is not just about winning and losing, I do hope that both could rectify their problems and move forward to another peak to make the nation proud again.