It happened in 1985, when the Chinese team, which had just finished runners-up in the 1984 Asian Cup, made its third attack on the World Cup under coach Zeng Xuelin, with Gu Guangming, Zhao Dayu, Li Huajun and Jia Xiuquan as the main players. In the group stage of the Asian zone preliminary round, the national football team only needs to draw in the final home match between Beijing and Hong Kong to qualify for the group and advance to the second round.
The Chinese team made the mistake of underestimating the enemy at the most crucial moment, and on May 19, they qualified from the group in a match against Hong Kong in Beijing. However, China lost 1-2 and finished second in the group, failing to advance to the second stage of the tournament.
It was a dark day for Chinese football, due to the painful loss of the perfect opportunity to reach the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. After the game, about 80,000 fans who were watching the game at the time wept bitterly and broke out in a painful blow, they surrounded players on both sides, smashed public facilities, attacked foreigners, and demanded dialogue with the leadership of the football association, which caused a disaster. Not only did they overturn the team's bus, but they didn't even survive the cars parked on the side of the road or even the Hong Kong team's robbery traffic booth.
After the game, disappointed fans rushed out of the stadium and began destroying items along the street, including some foreigners' cars, while Zeng Xuelin and his team were forced to hide in the athletes' building for three days because there were fans downstairs with beer bottles to talk to them, and the police did not allow the players and the manager to go downstairs. After that, fans also asked the president of the football association to talk to them (the president of the football association at that time was football veteran Li Fenglou).
The public security organs were quickly mobilized, and because of the damage to foreigners' belongings in the May 19 incident, the scope of influence expanded rapidly, including the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and other foreign media participated in the report, some fans who had smashed were detained, and two decades later, Soccer Night interviewed a client who was a student at the time, who said that surrounded by anger and group feelings, he acted irrationally.
"Football Daily" published a signed article by editor-in-chief Yan Junjun the day before, "Bamboo is difficult to stop flowing water", believing that no matter how tight the defense of the Hong Kong team, after all, it is difficult to stop the continuous attack of the Chinese team, the Chinese team is the runner-up of the Asian Cup, is the "Asian second oldest with diploma", at least 2-0 defeat Hong Kong. This article, objectively, fanned the wind and added dry firewood to the already lit firehead, and 2-0 became the tone of the battle between China and Hong Kong.
The reaction of fans after the 5/19 incident was characterized as "organized sabotage", but AFP did not agree, in the AFP report, they commented on the May 19 incident, "Chinese finally began to connect with the world", and before 5.19, the violence caused by football stadium riots in Europe was endless, the May 19 incident was more just a diarrhea of fan emotions, and did not cause casualties, and ten days after the May 19 incident, the Heiser tragedy broke out in Europe. 31 Juventus fans were killed by Liverpool fans.
The remedial measures taken after the 5.19 incident were to demand that such incidents no longer be allowed in future football matches, and a series of slogans such as "civilized watching the ball" were raised, and Li Fenglou left the position of president of the Football Association in November of that year, and Yuan Weimin, who created the miracle of the Chinese women's volleyball team, became the chairman of the Chinese Football Association.
It was on that night that Chinese football was put on a black veil. Since then, Chinese football and the World Cup have passed by, until 2001, when Milu led the Chinese team to the World Cup in Korea and Japan with a magical schedule, but it was only a faint walk, and it was fruitless. Since then, Chinese football has reached the bottom.
1. People's Daily characterized the incident the next day: The unreasonable disturbance that occurred at the Beijing Workers' Stadium on the night of May 19, and the behavior of fans who disrupted social order was a serious illegal incident, and the police arrested a total of 127 troublemakers. This has been the common understanding of May 19 for many years.
2. "The audience watching "Tilted Football Field" also refused to leave for a long time, and people were blocked with anger in their chests, resentment, disappointment, nest fire, couldn't figure it out, hated iron but not steel, everything was intertwined, bursting out like a roar that shook the mountain: 'Zeng Xuelin, come out! 'Zeng Xuelin can't come out, otherwise he will be torn to pieces and eaten alive... The raging torrent rushed out of the work, completely out of control, at least two cars parked on the side of the road were overturned, the angry flow of people lost their minds, red eyes, turned into a group of terrible beasts, smashed when they saw things, all foreigners with high noses and deep eye sockets, and Hong Kongers with southern accents, without exception, were attacked. A Reuters reporter reported that he raised his camera on the side of the road, and as soon as the flash turned on, stones immediately came at him, and a group of people rushed towards him, shouting non-stop, Hong Kong people! Hong Kong people! ——— wrote "The Leaning Football Field."
Due to the bad social impact caused by May 19, head coach Zeng Xuelin also left the national team. Zeng Xuelin recalled in an interview with reporters: "May 19 was a nightmare for me. Two mistakes were made when they were able to qualify by drawing with Hong Kong. At the pre-match preparation meeting, the leader sets the tone when the meeting is held, and the draw is dishonorable, and if you want to win, you have to win more than two. The players were in a hurry, shooting 28-6 on goal, but the result was a loss. It was the heaviest lesson and blow of my life and I never coached the team again."
At that time, the five consecutive championships of women's volleyball did not bring the joy of the Chinese people to the extent that a football victory made people happy, and the football victory at that time reflected a strong patriotic spirit. Just after May 19, many people lost confidence in Chinese football.
It is this black May 19, for our younger generation of fans, it is just a date, but it is more of a pain for our older generation of Chinese fans. The loss of confidence in Chinese football.