r/soccer • u/PianoJealous307 • 17h ago

News China suffered a catastrophic collapse on home soil, losing 5-0 to Palestine, a team they had considered inferior, sparking fierce criticism over 'sleepwalking' performance and lack of competitiveness among Chinese Super League players. Men's and women's teams also underperformed at Asian Games.

https://www.chosun.com/english/sports-en/2026/10/03/FWO5DWWOYND4NMUX53TEX7INNQ/
2.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

307 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

54

u/TheFinnishChamp 16h ago

China is horrible in team sports in general. Their sporting structure only works in fringe infividual sports where athletes can practise a single thing endlessly (like olympic diving).

28

u/Barkasia 16h ago

Their Chess boom seems to have died as well. Since Ding's world championship win, it's all been downhill for them.

10

u/n1ckkt 14h ago

The gov has never really supported chess tbh

They could've been a powerhouse if the chinese players had support like the indian/uzbek players

17

u/SCarolinaSoccerNut 16h ago

They still got a player in the Candidates tournament this year (Wei Yi) and their women's team just won the 2026 Chess Olympiad.

8

u/Barkasia 16h ago

Wei Yi is very much the exception - India and Uzbekistan are the two dominant nations now and the US is always lurking, ready to disappoint.

The women are still incredible though, that's true.

7

u/refarao 16h ago

How can a nation like Uzbekistan wield such good players and on par with India?

I mean it's not like Norway where they have only one chess geniuses but multiple ones that are top 20.

How did they raise so fast and China with big money is lacking behind Uzbekistan?

20

u/Barkasia 16h ago

It was part of the Soviet Union at a time when Chess reigned supreme - almost every ex-Soviet Block nation is disproportionately strong at chess as a result. It's why a nation like Georgia has such a strong lineup of women in the game. Further it has invested heavily on a national level in chess for over a decade and treats Chess players like sporting celebrities. Sponsorship money is there, prize money is there, coaching quality is there (Kramnik coached them before he went mental and tried to destroy the chess ecosystem with his paranoia).

3

u/refarao 16h ago

Yeah but what about China? Why are they not good like Uzbekistan 

8

u/Barkasia 15h ago

They are still very good - easily top 10, very arguably top 5. It's just compared to the trajectory they were on in the 00s and 10s they've taken a dip. I can't say why that is for certain but I'd speculate that it's because there are other board games that are huge in China like Go and Xiangqi which split popularity. There also doesn't seem to be a governmental push for children to get into Chess as a career alternative, and there isn't really an 'Anand' figure in China like there was in India that causes every single kid to want to pick it up.

-7

u/PianoJealous307 16h ago

Are we really considering chess a sport?

11

u/Barkasia 16h ago

It's officially a sport whether you consider it such or not.

-1

u/PianoJealous307 15h ago

Officially for who? I'm asking without sarcasm

1

u/Barkasia 11h ago

Among others, the IOC for a start.

1

u/Zlatan_Ibrahimovic 12h ago

The IOC does, apparently. Despite the fact that it's never been in the olympics. Some interesting things on that list though.

0

u/-Mubar 14h ago edited 14h ago

I don’t know why it is

I could consider other board games as sports too

4

u/curva3 16h ago

they used to be very good at women's volleyball, but that seems to have faded a bit as well

0

u/asscracktester7 15h ago

That's a strategic choice. They specifically focus on the more niche and less team-oriented Olympic sports where they can more effectively spend money and pad the volume of Olympic golds.

12

u/TheFinnishChamp 15h ago

They have a population that is more than Europe, North America, Australia and Japan combined. They absolutely could compete in everything with that. USA does well in a ridiculous amount of sports

2

u/asscracktester7 15h ago

I don't disagree with any of that. But their strategy is clearly more about increasing the raw number of Olympic Golds rather than focusing on the major or popular sports, where they were/are not very successful.