For Red China it is a step forward

Hundreds of millions more will be glued to television sets from the Teeming Megalo poles of Beijing and Shanghai to the plateaux and deserts of Tibet and Xinjiang. For them, China’s World Cup appearance represents a giant step in the nation’s relentless quest for superpower status after decades of political instability and economic backwardness.

For the rest of the world, especially soccer clubs and multinational corporations, it gives a taste of the enormous talent pool and marketing potential for football in the world’s most populous nation.

It is an enormous burden to place on the shoulders of the nervous young squad who arrived in the city of Sogwipo on Sunday “looking tired” after their 2-0 defeat by Portugal in a warm-up match in Macau the night before, Chinese state media said. But China’s Serbian coach, Bora Milutinovic, sounded upbeat during a training session on Monday.

“As usual we are focusing on defence,” he said. “We are preparing for the first match and the conditions here and of the players is great. You can say that we are preparing for battle.” Captain Ma Mingyu put a positive spin on China’s lacklustre performances in a string of recent friendlies — they beat Thailand 3-1, drew 0-0 with South Korea but lost 2-0 to Uruguay and 1-0 to Dutch club PSV Eindhoven.

“We gained a lot from the friendly games,” said midfielder Ma. “We could recognise our weaknesses and start working on it to improve.” China tried to play down expectations last week by writing an open letter to the nation’s 80 million-odd soccer fans posted on the official website of the Chinese football association http://www.fa.org.cn.

“You cannot deny, we are a new team in the World Cup and a weak one,” the letter said. “Our lack of experience and ability have determined that we won’t be able to go far.” Some Chinese fans have praised the team for its pragmatic approach while others scorned its defeatist tone. (Reuters)