发信人: roy_young(風呂中男子)
整理人: roy_young(2002-08-08 12:27:04), 站内信件
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China win sympathy and respect
James Davis
http://worldcup.espnsoccernet.com
There's an amusing, if slightly cruel joke doing the rounds in Asia right now.
Milutinovic: Quits as China coach (Empics)
The story goes that the South Korean coach goes to see God and asks how long it will be before his team can win the World Cup. Maybe 50 years, God replies, and the Korean departs in tears.
The Japanese coach goes and asks the same question. Perhaps 100 years, God says, and the Japanese also departs tearfully.
The Chinese coach too puts the question - and God bursts into tears!
But China, coached by Bora Milutinovic, deserve better after a brief but welcome first sojourn onto the sport's greatest stage.
For a team making its World Cup debut, they have won sympathy and respect from the football world.
They have to admit they are a class below both Japan and South Korea, whose supporters have been celebrating their first World Cup victories with near hysteria while the disappointed Chinese moan about the team's embarrassing defeats and failure to score in three games.
However, the contrast is clear. While thousands of young and talented Japanese players are learning and playing the game in Brazil, there are only dozens of Chinese players who have been sponsored - bizarrely by a beverage company - to learn the game in Brazil in the past decade.
With few sponsors showing interest in Chinese youth teams and even fewer young players making the starting squads in the first and second division leagues every season, there is no sign Chinese soccer is on the way to success.
And that in itself is something that makes the success of coach Milutinovic in qualifying for the World Cup a massive achievement.
His record of steering a nation to the knockout stages of the past four World Cups might have gone, but the Yugoslav has worked wonders in giving the inexperienced national team their coherence - even if qualifying was made easier by the fact South Korea and Japan were ruled out as opponents after qualifying automatically as hosts.
China may have ended the tournament simply playing for pride, and they could certainly do with some Korean aggression, but the relatively inexperienced side will never forget winning praise from four-time champions Brazil after their 4-0 defeat.
Three billion Chinese watched the game and, cheered on by the biggest support, they created chances against a Brazilian defence which could be exposed later in the tournament.
Korea and Japan 2002 might be over for the Chinese, but in many ways their dream is just beginning.
Saying that, they will have to get used to the spotlight after a fortnight of intense scrutiny when the team has found the learning curve off the pitch almost as steep as on it.
In fact, the media hunt has become so obtrusive that at times it has caused complaints from Chinese players who feel they are receiving little or no privacy.
Armed to the teeth with cameras, microphones and notebooks, China's sporting paparazzi have travelled to South Korea to hound every detail about their team.
The gaggle of reporters, producers and camera crews in Korea is supposed to be 100.
However, for all those who have received the official accreditation which secures access to venues and press conferences, there are hundreds more hangers-on chasing every last morsel of a news story.
China's 44-year wait to debut at the World Cup is seen as the biggest thing to happen to football in the communist nation with a requirement to feed the insatiable appetite of a sports-mad public back home.
Teams are required by FIFA to allow media access twice a day, normally by allowing them to watch training as well as holding a press conference.
Yet the press pack is so bloated that everywhere Milutonivic and his players go, they follow - stalking hotels, training venues, and restaurants in desperation for a scoop, a soundbite or a picture to relay back home.
At times, the media catfight is so hot it is farcical with a player trying to speak to more than 100 people crammed around him, almost disappearing behind dozens of microphones and questions thrust in his face.
Earlier in the week, a Brazilian cameraman, shooting a story ahead of China's clash with the South Americans, squared off with a Chinese reporter after being repeatedly bumped during filming.
The dispute did not end with punches being traded, but it is a common scene for those following the fortunes of the Chinese footballers.
China have certainly made their mark on the world stage - but not quite as they had hoped!
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