 David Korea and Japan are so good at soccer as you can see the World Cup. They're amazing, but China sucks Why is that and what else could it mean? Oh, man all week long? I've been seeing the anime Japan national team memes the Korea heartthrob memes I hope they win their games today against Croatia and Brazil, but I was kind of wondering I was like yo, man When am I gonna see China in a World Cup because they got a population of 1.4 billion They've invested billions of dollars in their national program and their youth development and they just cannot get good at soccer Or even decent to be honest. Hey, man Why are you so concerned with the Chinese team David? You should just be concerned with the US team because you're from the US you're American Hey, man, I have been following the US team shout out to them. They had a great run But I do think that my Japanese and Korean friends are also like very proud and following there I guess like motherland heritage teams, but I do think there's an element of like yeah But that's cuz Korea and Japan are good and China's bad So for you to even be wondering this it makes me question you Hey, it's not just us wondering this by the way guys if you Google why does China suck at soccer? There's literally a hundred threads in different articles and people asking this question And they're not all Asian like I think these are some just like soccer fans that are just like scratching the head being like Yeah, China should be better. Right. Why let me look into this right They want to see the game be more popular globally get more money get more like whatever whatever so yeah I mean, there's like so many breakdowns. So let's get into some of the mainstream reasons Andrew By the way, we know we are not some soccer experts, but let's get into what we learned Oh, and after we give the mainstream reasons, we're gonna give some deep-cut Implications We'll get to get through the soccer part I get it We don't know but we're gonna get to the part that we're good at later Andrew the truth is soccer Despite being sort of popular in China It's just like not there the systems the desire for the pro-level development It's there for basketball badminton table tennis regular tennis golf swimming But for soccer, it's just like way far behind and despite China injecting the money Andrew The system buildup just got jumbled and bungled. Well, you know actually the US men's soccer team wasn't always great either It was actually struggling for a long time despite a lot of kids in America Playing soccer on some level like when their kids they were on soccer teams But yeah, just the professional feeder systems It just didn't make great players for some reason and in India. We just don't care man We care more about cricket don't care about soccer Andrew There's also a gigantic difference in China's like youth development systems that are more I would say probably sort of based off Russia versus Japan and Korea there I believe their youth development systems for sports and this goes for all sports Not just soccer basketball baseball, whatever more mimic the US Canada and Western European countries Yeah, basically, it's like hey you have regular kids who if they have a passion for a sport They can go pursue it in China a lot of the people who are in these special athletic Academies they're kind of chosen from a young age and maybe they look at it as like a better life You know from their poor villager for example or whatever But if you do that for that reason that doesn't mean you love the game and soccer is a highly skilled sport So you do have to love the game and develop these skills over a long period of time So you kind of have to play the game since you're a young yeah I think soccer is particularly a game of love and passion and I think even basketball even though height is a big advantage And you can't teach height at some point when you get to a pro International level your lack of love or lack of passion for the game will show through also your lack of like conventional Intelligence if you've only been in the sports Academy only learning about sports and not about like Improving your math skills at some point they kind of cross over and you're gonna need the math skills to understand the complex Schematic play action reads that you're gonna need to make at a soccer or even just a basketball plays level All right And the last mainstream reason is that like although China pumps a lot of money into Soccer which they have in the past and it actually has failed the whole program It's because they just hired a bunch of expensive foreign coaches and foreign players to be on these teams But that doesn't actually help your domestic role players get any better because those foreign players can't be on your men's team in the future, you know to represent the country and Oftentimes they just get so much attention. It doesn't like breed like good teamwork. Yeah, and I heard that was driven by like pot Potentially even corruption like certain officials They had an incentive to boost the numbers the quickest way to boost the numbers is to get the washed up superstars from Europe and Latin America But obviously that's not the real work like at the grassroots to develop like fundamental building blocks All right, David Those were the mainstream reasons But we got a delve a little bit deeper into some theories on why China sucks so bad at soccer and what it But what's the implications are of it? All right? All right I think one of the implications that I heard and I read this theory from a Chinese person Andrew and it was an interesting Yeah, is that Chinese men in particular cannot have good teamwork together because Chinese women's sports whether it's in basketball or football or Baseball or whatever there they can perform quite well, but for some reason the Chinese men just cannot run a system together Nobody can make the right sacrifices. Nobody can put team first over self people are trying to do a bunch of fancy moves that have no practical application within that given scenario and Yeah, that often leads to things falling apart because Andrew you already know in a team of ten people You only need two three selfish guys and all of a sudden the whole system starts to implode guys and soccer Is very much a team sport, right? You don't score a lot like you might have a whole career depending on what position you play where you never score, right? And so it is a very selfless sport plus you're also running a lot But I will also say this case number two is that the Chinese men's basketball team Which basketball is like the favorite sport of China by the way So they love this sport and there is a lot of athletic Chinese men But for some reason that Chinese men's basketball team still underperforms. Yeah, they still lose an international competition more than they should Obviously, they're not like bottom of the barrel, but they're definitely not dominating considering like Yao Ming and stuff came from China Yeah, so I think at individual sports Chinese athletes can do really great right in the Olympics Talking about stacking sometimes the more obscure sports in the Olympics because you know at the end of the day under gold medals gold medal Hey, they got some track and field gold medals, too But I'm just saying I guess the implication is that Chinese men don't work well together And they somehow lack some unity or maybe maybe I don't know it seems like the women work better together guys You let me know in the comments down below. I mean some people were pointing out like whether that's unit culture Selfish culture Xiao Huang Di which is like little emperor, you know, you're the only child culture princeling culture There was like so many theories and I thought that's why this question was so interesting about Chinese soccer sucking because there's so many deeper Implications for society and the systems that govern it. All right, David. Here's another one. Here's another one guys To be really good at sports to be very skilled at sports You have to be very very passionate about it at a young age and you have to have fun with it It has to be organic and has to come from your passion That's where you get the drive to earn this to gain the skill and David Maybe growing up in China. It's not the most fun and passionate childhood maybe Probably not for the majority of people. Yeah, I'm not I could see Childhoods in much poorer less economically strong countries potentially being more free Filled with love and passionate because there's not necessarily a correlation between like shiny factories and stuff like that and the other thing I agree with that. Yeah, obviously guys I'm not saying that valuing sports is the number one most important thing that a country has to do Why are you saying like you're acting like because we're not good at soccer is like it's bad We like make all the technology. We have DJI drone make a robot Some of the other country. They don't make a robot. Just make a soccer. Yeah Dave Uruguay is very good at soccer But who cares about Uruguay? Just kidding guys Well, just we're just talking about in a macro. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but but I guess uh But sports as we know as Americans like we all we find sports very important, right? It builds teamwork And it and it also Transfers into the classroom and into the career. Yeah, I mean to be honest you could even say in America We may be value sports and entertainment like too much It's getting to a point where people need to come back to the STEM subject But yeah in china I could see it actually benefiting society to be more free and have like more sports and more love and more passion Uh, you know, every society just got a different balance at a different moment in its timeline All right, you guys, I mean we went through the reasons why I mean, I think They're pretty deep cut obviously on the surface level. They could be very basic level youth development infrastructure and Funding I guess like knowledge base issues. However, andrew. I just think that you know china It's just still behind when it comes to certain things, you know, like whether that's the entertainment Softpower soccer being related to soft power I think it's like maybe 10 20 30 years behind and it just takes time and it takes time in generations For people to like lay the foundation of like, what are the fundamental ingredients? You know, you always have your talent pool, which is your ingredients But then how do you just select who moves on to the next level out of that talent pool and then not only that andrew That's the that's the system. That's the chef There's the ingredients and then there's the chef and then there's the cooking tools in the kitchen and they all matter Guys, there are so many people and so much money That goes into creating great global professional athletes, you know, everything you're talking about kids program The coaches each coach got to be good because anywhere along the way one coach could really hurt And suppress a kid's ability to be really good at that sport. So I think like we're saying it's a whole system So you guys let us know in the comments down below what you think Uh on why china sucks at soccer. Yeah, I think that there's a lot of reasons and uh, hopefully you know It'll change in the future. But honestly Who cares? I mean if it doesn't, you know, I guess China just won't be in the world cup. I guess I I think the basketball one to me and by the way guys I heard about the basketball the basketball one is that one really bothers me because I'm like, dude You guys put in so much money. There's so many good Chinese individual players and as a team the teamwork is so bad Even when you just and I played with chinese college players in china before and They're they're much better than me andrew and they still like sometimes the teamwork The the reads the ball movement the spacing the movement off ball is so bad Yeah, man anecdotally speaking, you know, we play with a lot of international chinese students Uh, we play basketball with them and you know, they might have good skills or even really great athleticism But their teamwork overall is bad. Especially the passing man the passing and the spacing is crazy. Yeah Anyways guys, uh, let us know in the comments down below. That is our first video about soccer on this channel Hope you guys liked it. 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