The national football team lost 1-3 to Vietnam and completely missed the World Cup. This match very clearly marked that the Chinese men's football team was officially reduced to "Asian third-rate", and there was no longer any room for illusion.
Phoenix Network Sports "Phoenix Family Stand" produced
Wen | senior sports commentator Feng Zhen
On the first day of the Chinese New Year, Chinese fans witnessed history. The Chinese men's football team lost 1-3 to Vietnam in the World Cup qualifiers, two rounds ahead of schedule, officially announcing that it did not qualify for the 2022 Qatar World Cup finals.
The Chinese team scored an innocuous goal in stoppage time after falling behind 3-0. The score was disgraceful, and the game was a great shame.
Losing to Vietnam is a bigger impact than shattering a dream once every four years.
The last time The Chinese team was so upset was a 1-5 defeat to Thailand on June 15, 2013, but that was a friendly match after all, which can be explained by the loose attitude. The rout to the Vietnamese team is a formal competition, and the Chinese team has done its best, but the original shape is exposed.
This game is a very clear, accurate and unquestionable mark that the Chinese men's football team has officially become an "Asian third-rate", marking that this generation of Chinese players has been very unpopular among Asian players, and there is no longer any room for illusion.
The loss of the national football team to Vietnam will inevitably be on the hot search, not to mention the blockage of fans on the first day of the New Year. But people who really understand Chinese football will not have any surprises about this ending. In the case of the author, a football journalist who has been writing on the front line for more than 10 years, before the round of twelve, I concluded that the possibility of the national football team losing to Vietnam away is very large, because the gap between the players between the two sides is obviously easy to see.
The facts confirmed my judgment. Although the truth is somewhat sad.
Compared with the Vietnamese team, the Chinese players have rough skills, can't control the ball, can't carry the ball, and can't pass the ball well. Summed up in one sentence: no talent. Chinese players lack the skills that footballers should have. The individual gap determines the overall gap, the Chinese team lacks a reasonable running position and effective connection, the pace is extremely slow, and it is playing football in ancient times.
On the other hand, the Vietnamese team, all the links are so modern and mainstream. Vietnam's three ways to score goals are
A header from the wing snatched the goal;
Rib penetration after the inverted triangle back knock push to break the goal;
Carry the ball to counter-attack long-range shots into the goal.
The Chinese players reflect the Vietnamese players like talents and masters.
After eight games of the round of 12, the picture is already very clear: Asian football has entered the era of fine industry, and our football is still in the era of raw edges.
The reasons are too complicated, but it can also be said in one sentence: this is the failure of the management system, the failure of the football soil. The long-term neglect of the youth training system, the long-term neglect of league rules and directions, and the long-term unscrupulous administrative interference of quick success and quick profit are the characteristics of Chinese football, which dooms all football practitioners to be in an unhealthy vicious circle.
Chinese may not love football so much, but Chinese a lot, in fact, there is no need for so many people to love football, and football can be done well. China loves football at least more than Vietnam, more than Iraq, more than Syria. Football is not good, and Chinese love football has nothing to do with whether they love football, mainly related to the level of football organization management, and this level is often determined by the nature of its system.
For example, our professional league has not had a home-and-away format for two consecutive years, but has changed to a centralized, closed game, and even a "perverted schedule" of playing 9 games a month, and the pace of player work has been disrupted. It's rare in the world. Whether it is a local player or a naturalized player, it is impossible for the state to remain unaffected. Note that the pandemic is by no means the whole story.
A friend said: Football is so beautiful, the whole world is competing with each other under uniform rules, and the results on the pitch are fair, real and direct.
Another friend said: After so many years of mixing in school and society, we who have lost in so many competitions and merits know the taste of losing, and the national football team is just like this. Sometimes I feel that if you watch teams like Vietnam and Oman enter the World Cup for the first time, imagining the ecstasy of their fans, it seems that they can also empathize and be moved.
Both friends spoke well, but the second friend may have slightly underestimated the meaning of football.
Football did not become the world's first sport for no reason, it is the best human activity that combines individual heroism and collective cooperation, and it is the sport that best shows the overall temperament of a group. If Chinese sports want to integrate into the mainstream world or even lead the mainstream world, they cannot escape the mainstream.
Football is so good that we can't always fail. In fact, losing Vietnam once is not terrible, I am afraid that there will be no real sense of "tearing down and starting over".