In recent years, as Chinese football has collapsed on all fronts, "staying in the West" has become a hot topic. In the eyes of many people, only by allowing players to "go out" and play in leagues at a higher level overseas is the real way to the rise of Chinese football, and may even be the only way.
In the Chinese Football Association's plan to stay abroad, it is not only male footballers who want to "go out", but also female footballers. At the Tokyo Olympic Games, the Chinese women's football team performed dismally, without any ability to fight back in front of the world's strongest teams such as Brazil and the Netherlands, and suffered a big score rout; even in the face of Zambia, which was far lower than its own ranking in the world, it only drew with a humiliating 4-4 score.
In fact, in the Olympic qualifier stage, the women's football team was almost eliminated by South Korea at home, and the "sonorous rose" is now becoming more and more powerless in the world. After the defeat of the Olympics, female footballers Shen Mengyu and Tang Jiali quickly went to the United Kingdom to stay in the Ocean, which is obviously not a "coincidence", but under the decline of the women's football team, the Football Association tried to start a self-help movement through "Staying in the Ocean".
Indeed, the re-emergence of Chinese women's football through staying in the West is a useful attempt. Taking the neighboring South Korean women's football team as an example, in the past, there was not much lethality in front of the Chinese women's football team, but since the appearance of Chi Xiaoran, Li Jinwen and Zhao Zhaoxian, three players who played in the English league, the strength of the Korean women's football team was greatly expanded, and even almost conquered the home of the Chinese women's football team. Anyone who has seen the Battle of the Chinese and Korean Women's Football Team in April this year will certainly be impressed by the performance of several Foreign players in the Korean Women's Football Team.
However, if women's football players want to "stay in the ocean", they may face more complicated problems than men's football behind them. The motivation of male footballers to stay in the Ocean is very simple, one is to learn advanced football concepts abroad, and the other is to jump to a higher level of league for exercise. But for women footballers, the local women's Super League is already a world-class professional women's football league.
According to a report released by FIFA, the Chinese women's football league teams invest about 2 million US dollars a year, which is the largest investment in the world. At the same time, the salary scale for female footballers ranks second in the world, only lower than that of Japan. This means that if a female footballer stays in the ocean, the problem she faces is not only the decline in salary, but even the professionalism of the league itself cannot be compared with the women's Super League.
From another point of view, such a "stay in the ocean" for female footballers may be a kind of regression in their careers.
In addition, due to the overall low degree of marketization and professionalism of women's football, players often do not get the protection of professional agent teams like male footballers overseas, and can only rely on individual hard work, which also leads to women's footballers will be more difficult to adapt to overseas environments than men's football. For example, Wang Shuang, who once played in Paris, finally ended staying in the Ocean because he could not adapt to the football environment in France. If the Football Association intends to let more female footballers go out, then there may be more and more examples like Wang Shuang.
Overall, one of the fundamental reasons why China's women's football team has been declining in the world football world in the past ten years is that women's football in other countries in the world is developing rapidly. As the world's super team at that time, the Chinese women's football team actually surpassed most other countries in terms of player treatment and league investment. In this context, "staying in the Ocean" may only be a useful supplement for chinese women's football, and cannot become the "mainstream"; in order to save the sluggish Chinese women's football team, tap its own advantages, and base itself on localization training, it may be a more realistic path.