Football in China
"Football's coming home" was the anthem of the European Football Championship 1996 in England. Yet, what does that mean? Does that imply that England is the motherland of football? At least this is the most common belief about the heritage of the most popular sport of the present. However, contrary to popular belief, this is not entirely true.
The first forms of the soccer are dated way back into the third century before Christ. In the course of military education, a ball game was practiced, where a leather ball filled with feathers had to be conveyed into a little net. From 200 B.C until about 600 A.C. this particular football game reached the peak of its popularity in China. It became a popular entertainment sport with numerous spectators. The first rules were determined and the air-filled ball was invented during that time. From the year 900 on, the once fashionable and well-liked game fell into oblivion.
The Chinese soccer then took a more than 1000-year-old ‘creative break’. Finally, in the year 1924, the actual founding country of football awoke again and the Chinese soccer association was founded. Between 1931 and 1958, the Chinese national team belonged to the world football association; in 1979 China became a member of FIFA. The first time the Chinese national football team made headlines on the international scene was in 1984 when they reached the final of the Asia Cup, where they eventually lost against Saudi Arabia. This upward trend carried on under English coach Bob Houghton when China won the bronze medal in the Asia-Cup in 1998.
The year 2002 is regarded as a key year in the history of the Chinese football national team: Under Serbian coach Bora Milutinovic for the first time in their history, China qualified for the final stages of the World Cup. On the other hand, the qualification for the World Cup in Germany 2006 went conceivably unfortunate for the Chinese team. Meanwhile coached by the Dutch Arie Haan, China lost out to Kuwait in the preliminary qualifying stages. Despite the same number of points and identical goal differences, the Kuwaitis finally went through to the next stage – they scored one more goal.
Despite missing out on the qualification to the World Cup 2006, football experiences and enormous upswing in the worlds most populated country. After 20 odd years of hardly any league matches, football clubs or televised games, there is currently a strong development in the Chinese sport industry, towards a more professional environment. This can be well seen by the fact, that meanwhile various foreign professional footballers are playing now in China, while on the other hand, many Chinese professional footballers Players, have found an engagement at professional European clubs. Furthermore, live-transmissions of Chinese and foreign league games are increasing strongly and on a continuous level.