Photo: Found on the web England vs Argentina.
The World Cup kicked off this week in South Africa, without China who failed to qualify. Despite this football is a hugely popular spectator sport in the country. In Beijing, many of the bars and restaurants have been packed with fans watching the games late into the night.
A recent survey in the city reported that 45% of people would put football ahead of work. Three-quarters of those interviewed intended to watch matches during the month long competition. A further 23.8% planned to take periods of leave and even 2.8% said they would quit their jobs.
Because of the time zone difference between South Africa and China, the games start in the evening here at 7.30pm. However, others don’t start until 10.00pm or even 2.30am in the morning. So employers are expecting the World Cup to have a negative effect on employee performance and attendance.
In a bar this week I was watching a game with my Chinese friend, Ozark, who made an obvious yet interesting observation.
“We have 1.5 billion people in China, yet we can’t find 11 people that can kick a bloody football”
He went on to add it was all down to China’s one child policy, (see previous post) which has created a country of Little Emperors. Individual competition and being the best is promoted at school and university over the idea of cooperation and teamwork.
This bar stool philosophy may have some relevance, especially when you look at the last Olympic games in Beijing. Yes, China did win 51 Gold Medals, the most for any country. However, on closer inspection it was for mainly individual sports. It would appear China does excel at gymnastics, diving, table tennis, badminton, shooting and other singular sports more team-based games.
Well that may explain China’s bad performance, but not sure how to explain England’s poor start. A terrible fumbling goalkeeping error cost us the game against the USA. Newspaper writers in the UK had a headline frenzy ‘Shock N Awe’ the ‘Hand of Clod’. The latter headline being a reference to the ‘Hand of God’. The goal that Diego Maradona scored with his hand to knock England out of the 1986 World Cup quarterfinals.
To cheer me up Ozark sent me a web link to these World Cup Beauties. 32 Chinese models wearing painted on football kits, one for each of the competing teams. Well China may not be among them, but there is no end of support for the World Cup competition in China.
So this weekend I will be back in the bars with Ozark and my Chinese friends cheering “Yingguo Jia You” (Come on England). Hoping 11 English men can not only kick a bloody football, but keep it out of our own goal.