Re: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread
China constantly failed to qualify to the World Cup since 2002, the news would be if they can qualify, not qualifying is the norm at this point. The problem with China is that they are very good with individual sports but the suck with team sports.
Chinese President Xi Jinping already has a program for the national team. As I remember, the program attempted to revamp the league to make it more prestigious by bringing several European players into the Chinese Super League. However, that hasn't improved the national team either. Xi also has a goal of hosting the World Cup.
However, the reason the Chinese national team’s performance has declined so drastically is due to several systemic issues. These include an underdeveloped football academy system, a lack of youth participation in pursuing football as a career, a domestic league recently shaken by scandals and the bankruptcy of many clubs, and the strong influence of politics, which makes players and coaches play too cautiously out of fear of being punished by their president. All of these factors combined are causing serious problems for the Chinese national team at the moment.
This still makes sense. If they don't have a good football academy to develop players, this could be the main reason why China failed to qualify for the World Cup. Indeed, of all Asian teams, Japan, and South Korea have better leagues and Saudi Arabia, most leagues in Asia like unprofessional league, especially in Indonesia, even PSSI looking for "import players" to go to World Cup so far
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