Has 2017 been the greatest year in Chinese football history? In February, the country was languishing in 86th place in Fifa’s world national team ranking. But as the year comes to an end, Team Dragon have flown up to 57th place. Not since 2004 has China been ranked so highly, when it reached 54th place in the world. Even so, the country is still someway short of its 1998 position, when the team hit the heady heights of 37th.
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But these are Fifa’s unfathomable rankings, China has yet to show the on-field style, skill and success of Brazil, and President Xi’s 2050 World Cup winning target is still more than 30 years away.
Indeed, a closer look at the Chinese national team’s performances this year reveals an underwhelming collection of narrow wins and inevitable defeats. More worryingly, two friendly match defeats at home in November (to Serbia and Colombia) were a salutary reminder of how far the country’s football journey still has left to go.
So, as we head into 2018 and towards the World Cup in Russia, China will again be missing from world football’s biggest tournament, having failed to qualify. This is surely a big blow to the country’s growing number of football fans. When the national team played a World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan earlier in the year, almost 52,000 people attended the game. The question now is, which national team will Chinese fans be supporting next summer?
Fans may choose who to support at next summer’s World Cup based on their club allegiances. Photo: Edward Wong
Given historic associations between them, reinforced by recent Super Cups being staged in Beijing, one would normally expect the Chinese to look towards Italy for their dose of BIRGing (Basking-In Reflected Glory). Italian football was the first European league to be broadcast live on Chinese state television, back in the 1980s, and its generational influence on fandom since has been such that many Chinese people remain positively predisposed towards Italian football.
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The problem is that Italy, too, have failed to qualify for the World Cup, which may at least enable Beijing and Rome to reaffirm and strengthen their bonds, albeit in unfortunate circumstances. Italy’s failure will have eliminated one option from Chinese fans’ possible consumption portfolio, no doubt shocking many. Indeed, in a previous study it was identified that a significant number of Chinese football fans actually support the Italian national team.
Both Inter Milan and AC Milan have established fan bases in China. Photo: EPA
