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On a hot, humid Thursday night in Saitama, China’s national football team hit its lowest ebb. With a minute left on the clock and trailing Japan 6-0, Chinese defenders were likely wishing for the sweet relief of the final whistle. But Japan’s Takefusa Kubo was not feeling charitable. After watching his teammates toy with their opponents for a while, he received a pass on the edge of the Chinese box and rammed home Japan’s seventh goal. The ball rocketed into the roof of the net, and the man known as “Japanese Messi” condemned China to their worst-ever defeat in a World Cup qualifier.
The 7-0 spanking in September – described as “rock-bottom” by a Shanghai-based newspaper – followed a year-long line of humiliating defeats which included losses to Oman, Uzbekistan, and Hong Kong. But worse was to come. A week later, dozens of players, coaches, and administrators were arrested for gambling, match-fixing, and bribery as part of a two-year probe into corruption in the domestic game.
And the defeats have continued. On Tuesday, Australia beat China 2-0 in Hangzhou – cementing them at the bottom of their World Cup qualifying group.
It wasn’t long ago that China had dreamed of becoming a footballing superpower. The world’s largest population, a thriving economy, and a determined Communist Party led by an avid football fan, President Xi Jinping. What could go wrong?
When Xi came to power in 2012, his love for the sport spurred a drive to reform and improve Chinese football. His dream, he once said, was for China to qualify for the World Cup, host it, and ultimately win it. These were his “three wishes”. But a decade later, even Xi seemed to have lost the faith. While making small talk with Thailand’s prime minister on the sidelines of an international summit in 2023, the Chinese president was heard saying that China had “got lucky” in a recent victory against Thailand.
When China’s government puts its mind to something, it will get done, they say. But the optimistic projections for China’s football success have been blown to bits. And the country’s officials have been left dealing with the fallout.
For many, the 7-0 defeat to Japan was the latest in a long line of embarrassing results for China. The loss to Japan particularly stung. While Japan have gone from strength to strength over the past two decades, China have failed to qualify for a single World Cup.
As China’s economy reels from a sustained downturn, its officials have bigger challenges than football woes. But that is little consolation to fans. The loss to Japan showed how far China has fallen. “When the taste of bitterness reaches its extreme, all that is left is numbness.” According to Mr Dreyer, Japan’s approach is antithetical to China’s: a long-term vision, a lack of political interference, and a commercially savvy club structure.
“Even so, the fan culture here [in China] is still remarkably good,” he adds. “They deserve so much more.” Their disappointment showed following Tuesday’s defeat against Australia – but so did their humour. “It seems like the national team’s performance is as consistent as ever,” wrote one fan on social media. Another joked that if China wants to continue thriving economically, then its football team must suffer so there is a balance in “national fortune”. Perhaps they had resigned themselves to what a popular Chinese journalist had written in his blog after Japan beat China. Football “cannot be boosted by singing odes or telling stories”, he noted. “It needs skill, and physical and tactical training. It cannot be accomplished through politics.”
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