Watching the World Cup in China has been interesting on a few levels:
The time difference puts the entire country on a disrupted sleep schedule. For the final match we (and everyone else in this time zone for that matter) stayed up until 5am on a Monday morning to finish watching the game as it extended into overtime. The following workday will undoubtedly be filled with hangovers, aspirins, and large mugs of coffee.
I happened to camp out at the Spanish team's supporters' (a group composed of a large number of Spanish students in Beijing) selected venue. Different teams' supporters rarely mingle at the same bars, and this experience revealed both the popularity of the Dutch team in China as well as the Dutch presence in Beijing. As we all crawled out of our respective bars into the morning light, I found myself amidst a small island of red surrounded by a sea of lanky, lumbering fans dressed in orange. In addition, many of the Chinese I have met are supporters of Holland. As if to compensate for their numbers, the Spanish were tireless- drinking, dancing, cheering and shouting endlessly at the screen for hours.
The biggest critic of Chinese soccer/football has been the Chinese people. Anywhere from TV, radio, in the fanciest bars and in the dirtiest alleys, Chinese have been merciless in attacking their nation's team and it's inability to qualify for the World Cup. I recall watching another Dutch game in the hutongs (alleyways) of Yonghegong, when an older Chinese man, shirtless to cope with the summer heat and slightly inebriated from the strong bottle of Chinese liqueur in his hand, said to me that God had cried in heaven because the Chinese team had failed to qualify. Others have been harsher, decrying the widespread corruption that plagues the China Football Association.
The Peking Duck recently discussed this question referring to the New York Times' discussion of the topic, which makes for interesting reading. Is it an institutional problem, in which the infrastructure for recruiting and training talent needs to be overhauled? Or is it simply a matter of corruption? A billion people sure would love to know the answer.
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