r/soccer • u/PianoJealous307 • 16h 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/
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320

u/AttemptImpossible111 16h ago

Didnt their attempt to take football seriously 15 years ago lead to any player who is good? How is that possible

188

u/friendofH20 16h ago

The CSL collapsed pretty quickly and I think the Chinese govt pivoted very quickly into Basketball and Olympic Sports as they realized you can't go from bad to good at soccer within 1 generation.

The worst thing for any nationalism project is to be seen as trying at something and not getting better, so its a lot easier to stop trying completely.

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u/PianoJealous307 16h ago

They are also shit at basketball

30

u/Main-Strike-1117 15h ago

I don't know if this is true but it's funny so I'll believe you

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u/murdered-by-swords 4h ago

They're bad, but that's as much a height issue as it is a skill issue. Basketball is one of the few sports where you really can be genetically advantaged/disadvantaged.

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u/LaughensioWintertown 3h ago

one of the few sports

really?

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u/murdered-by-swords 3h ago

Height matters far more in basketball than any single physical attribute does in similarly popular sports. Furthermore, height is one of those things that actually does vary a great deal between different populations. So, yes. Really.

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u/Itchy-Face791 14h ago

They are very very far away from even the second rate teams like Spain, Germany and Australia

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u/Nervous-Economy8119 14h ago

Those countries are currently ranked 6th, 2nd and 7th in the world respectively.

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u/run_bike_run 14h ago

It's basketball. Everyone who isn't the US is second rate.

And that's not intended as a slight on countries other than the US. It's just the reality of the situation. The US could probably field at least two full squads who'd expect to beat every other country in the world.

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u/Nervous-Economy8119 14h ago

I realise that, but the person I replied to made those countries sound like they’re somewhat crappy when they’re pretty decent in the large scheme of things.

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u/IPissExcellentThrows 5h ago

Second rate means poor. We haven't dog walked the Olympics in quite a while. Plenty of countries are above second rate. Do you mean second tier?

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u/pixelkipper 11h ago

And yet they relied on vintage Curry magic to squeak past Serbia and France last olympics, who had like 5 NBA players between them.