Chinese Fan Posts Tearful Video at Japan's Victory Over Germany
President Xi Jinping's 'Soccer Rise' Investment Still Struggling
On the 23rd (Korean time), at the Khalifa International Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar, during the first match of Group E in the 2022 Qatar World Cup between Germany and Japan, the Japanese players who achieved a 2-1 comeback victory are joyfully running onto the field. Photo by Yonhap News
[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Sumi] A Chinese soccer fan's video posted while watching the 2022 FIFA Qatar World Cup has become a hot topic locally.
According to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP), the match this fan watched was the Group E first round match between Japan and Germany held on the 23rd (Korean time) at Khalifa International Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar. In this match, Japan created a major upset by defeating the German Panzer Army 2-1.
This came as a huge shock to Chinese fans who had already been eliminated early in the qualifiers. The fan, who has over 200,000 followers on Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter), posted a tearful video saying, "Japan is a neighboring country, and their physique is similar to ours, so why can't we win (at the World Cup)?"
Chinese netizens who sympathized with this commented, "Anyone who was at that stadium would have felt something similar," and "We can only watch other countries' matches on TV." One netizen, comparing to China's large population, commented, "Is it really so difficult to select 14 players from 1.4 billion people?"
On the 23rd (Korean time), soccer fans are cheering for the Group E first match between Germany and Japan at the Khalifa International Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar, during the 2022 Qatar World Cup group stage. Photo by Yonhap News
Soccer is known as one of the popular sports in China. In the 2021-2022 English Premier League (EPL) season, Son Heung-min (Tottenham) became the first Asian player to win the top scorer title, and this news even entered the popular search rankings on Weibo for a time.
However, despite the interest, it is a sport that has not shown great achievements on the international stage. The Chinese men's national soccer team has only qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals once, at the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. Even then, they recorded three losses in the group stage, ranking 31st among the participating countries, the second lowest after Saudi Arabia.
Since then, the Chinese men's team has yet to appear in the World Cup finals. In the Asian final qualifiers for this Qatar World Cup, they were eliminated amid poor performance with only one win. At that time, the Chinese team suffered a complete defeat to Vietnam, which was considered the weakest team, causing a great shock to domestic soccer fans. President Xi Jinping called for the so-called 'Soccer Revival,' investing huge budgets and even changing the head coach during the final qualifiers, but it was not enough to turn the tide.
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