China experienced a crushing defeat to Brazil yesterday. I don’t want to talk about it too much, the Seleção played brilliantly while a beat up, tired Chinese side limped through it. The loss is the worst ever for the national team. While it was a horrible performance, we at don’t want to overreact and instead feel its best to play down the importance of the match (the exact opposite approach taken by many in the Chinese media). This article is cross-posted on our site after having appeared on Yahoo! China yesterday.
After having put up a decent fight against Sweden last week, China’s national team was embarrassed by Brazil this morning, 8-0. The match was entirely one sided and included a span of four minutes that saw Brazil score three goals.
The national team has long been a running joke, but this Brazil loss may have fans closer to giving up than ever before. However, that would be a mistake. China gave up a lot of opportunities to Sweden last week, but only lost 1-0. From there they travelled to Brazil for this match, the players had to be tired and that probably factored into their poor performance.
Unfortunately, too many will focus solely on the scoreline of this match as a sign of how bad things are in Chinese soccer. Few will bother asking why the CFA decided to fly the national team around the world, literally, going from China to Swedent to Brazil and back, scheduling China against one of the best teams in the world instead of finding a more reasonable opponent in Europe or the Middle East.
Neymar’s brilliance and this crushing defeat aside, things aren’t that bad. China’s results in 2012 have been favorable and many viewed the national team’s solid performance against world champions Spain as a sign that things were finally heading in the right direction. It would be easy to overreact after this thrashing, but doing so would be a mistake. The CFA’s idiotic decision to set up this match was just leading lambs to the slaughter and more than the players, it’s the organization that is supposed to act in the best interests of Chinese soccer that is to blame.
It’s not only at the national team level that China is struggling. The future of China, the U-19 side, was crushed by Mexico 5-1 over the weekend, with four of Mexico’s goals coming in the first half, resulting in a very disappointed manager angered at his side’s lack of fight.
What the CFA needs is a long-term development plan that is focused on the next 20 years and not just the next five. It needs to be well thought out and devoid of politics and corrupting influences, ensuring that no matter who the head of the CFA is, the plan will continue to be followed.
The United States and Japan are two excellent examples for China to look toward. Both were struggling also-rans in the early 1990s, but through development of the game at the youth level and not just placing the focus at the very top, both have risen to prominance in international soccer. The hiring of Tom Byer, an American who is famous for developing Japan’s grassroots programs, to take charge of the School Football program is a step in the right direction.
China’s loss to Brazil is bad, but little attention should be paid to it. Instead, the focus should be on grassroots development and getting more children to play the game. Today’s loss is meaningless, but if Chinese football hasn’t improved beyond this point in 20 years, it will be a disgrace.
by bcheng
Can’t see what the point of playing the Samba Boys was anyway. What could CFA/Comacho hope to get out of it?
China would have been better playing against the third ranked team (if it wasn’t for the WC qualifying games) – they might have even got a a draw.
Yeah, playing against Brazil (or any other team with that quality) isn’t really helping. If China played a draw or at least lost close, the one learning from it is the other team, seeing that that experiment didn’t work or they really have to change something, etc. And if China loses like this time … yeah, it doesn’t teach us anything, because it’s not the top national teams China needs to or can compete with.
They should concentrate on playing against teams with a similar or slightly better qualitiy, because those are the ones, they need to beat.
I completely agree. What do China or for that matter Brazil gain from this? A Brazil outing is useful for the likes of England and the Netherlands for example as it gives the opportunity to punch above their weight as the Sweden friendly did for China but Brazil, regardless of the score is a waste of time and money
England against anybody is an opportunity to punch above their weight
Good article. I was deeply disappointed in this loss because it was plain embarrassing. However, this article put things in perspective and it’s a little more bearable. China did draw with Ghana recently and lost 1-0 to Spain before the Euros, so it’s not all doom and gloom. About the long-term plan being not 5, but 20 years; yes, that’s a really good idea.
Decisions for friendly matches are often made more on ‘diplomatic relations’ between FA’s especially if said match is not in preparation for any tournament or qualifiers (as is the case for China in this match). For all we know, this match may have been initiated by Brazilian Football Federation to promote the 2014 World Cup and Brazilian football in China.
Speculation aside, the point about United States and Brazil with their long term plans fails to recognize a key factor and common denominator between both nations’ football development. They both hosted a World Cup, which was very much the ‘ignition’ factor. There is no better person to attest to this than the Grassroots Guru himself, Tom Byer, who had front row seats to both world cups and long term grassroots/professional programs being launched in the US and Japan.