This is my last passion blog of this semester. In this blog, I will look into something about soccer of my home country, China.

It is ionic that, the fact is, China invented soccer. You may not believe it, I doubt it to some extent to. However, it is recorded that the original form of soccer, “Cu Ju (蹴鞠)” was created in Han Dynasty (202BC-220). At that time, it was a fashion to kick solid balls made of cloth or grass in the field. But the rule was quite different, it was like playing volleyball by feet, interesting, right? However, when it came to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), people’s interest in Cu Ju faded (I don’t know why). Unluckily, at the same time, somehow, the British invented modern soccer, the soccer today. With the invasion of westerner, Cu Ju disappeared in modern China, only preserved in the historical documents. So, the homeland of “modern soccer” is Britain, but the homeland of “soccer” is China. It sounds absurd, I know.

(from baidu.com)

Nowadays, soccer is a very popular sport in China. I have mentioned people’s passion for World Cup in my blog previously. China has its own soccer league, CSL (The Super Soccer League of China). In my opinion, CSL is the best soccer league I have ever seen apart from Premier League, La Lega, German Bundesliga, Serie A and French Side. My favorite CSL team is Guangzhou FC (广州恒大足球俱乐部). In my opinion, it is one of the best soccer team not only in China, but in Asia as well. Up to now, Guangzhou FC has achieved 6 CSL champions, and 2 AFC Champions (Asian Champion League). Guangzhou is near to my home city, Shenzhen (it only takes hours to go to Guangzhou from Shenzhen). So, I often go to the home court of Guangzhou FC to watch the games. That’s so good. Guangzhou FC has some wonderful players, such as Paulinho. On August this year, Paulinho transferred to FC Barcelona, and the transfer fee was up to 4 million Euro. It was the first time that world-class soccer team has bought players from CSL.

(from http://www.paixin.com/photocopyright/151229786)

Compared with CSL, Chinese National Soccer Team was not so attractive. Normally, speaking of the national team, we Chinese just sigh. Chinese team has only entered World Cup once (2002), and didn’t gain even one victory. What a shame! It is so strange that, now that we are so crazy about soccer, and we have so many people, why can’t we build a good national team? In my opinion, the problem is that, we do poor in the soccer youth education. Chinese parents are usually more willing to encourage their kids to be engineers, officers rather than soccer players, that is the point. What’s more, in CSL, teams rely so much on foreign players. Only one Chinese player was in the top 10 scorers list this season, who is Lei Wu, the only good forward in Chinese national team.

At the end, I can say nothing but to wish that Chinese soccer can become better in the future.

( The photo of the grade 10 soccer team of my high school, I’m the  player with the number 26 in the picture.)