[영상] 4 biggest mysteries of the world? Why can’t China play football?

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Hwang Yoon-jeong = The opening match of the Qatar World Cup held on the 21st (Korea time). Ecuadorian striker Ener Valencia scored the first goal of the tournament from the penalty spot against hosts Qatar.

An advertisement for Hisense, a Chinese home appliance company, was placed on the billboard behind the goal post.

According to the Arab media reported by Al Jazeera on the 18th of this month, citing British Global Data, Chinese companies paid a whopping $1.395 billion (about 1.8711 trillion won) to sponsor the World Cup in Qatar. It has emerged as a major player in the World Cup, sponsoring more money than American companies (1.1 billion dollars, approximately 1.4752 trillion won).

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying, known as the ‘mouth of China’, posted a series of World Cup-related posts on Twitter on the 20th. Spokesperson Hua introduced that the Lusail Stadium, where the World Cup finals will be held, was built by China, and about 70% of World Cup-related products, such as soccer balls, were produced in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province , China.

Some say that everyone except the Chinese national football team went to the World Cup in China.

After Chinese President Xi Jinping, known as a ‘football fanatic’, took power, he poured his support into the national football team, saying he would build the best football team in the world by 2050, but the Chinese national football team was eliminated in the final stage of the Asian group and failed to advance to the World Cup in Qatar.

Lee Wook-yeon, a professor of Chinese culture at Sogang University, said, “People say that China’s inability to play football is so incomprehensible that it should be listed as one of the four wonders of the world.” There are people who say that they don’t even think about going international.”

Professor Lee also presented that China, a sports powerhouse, is strong in individual events, but tends to perform poorly in team events.

Professor Lee said that Chinese people have strong personal and self-centered tendencies. There are people who say I’m not good at this when the members cooperate and unite within it.”

Although we did not progress to the World Cup, the fever for the World Cup is hot in China. China’s public security authorities announced an intensive campaign on drink driving during the World Cup.

Professor Lee said that Chinese companies “advertising in the World Cup has the effect of introducing Chinese companies to the global audience, but also has the effect of advertising to Chinese people because the enthusiasm for the World Cup is high right in China.”

<제작 : 황윤정·서정인>

<영상 : 로이터·중국CCTV+·중국축구협회(CFA) 홈페이지>