Chapter 70 Sino-Japanese Football Grudges

Putting aside the issue of Olympic team players entering the national team, the football feud between China and Japan is actually very interesting.

More than 20 years ago, there was a popular saying among Chinese football fans, a joke about the Three Kingdoms Football Romance in East Asia: China could not beat South Korea, South Korea could not defeat Japan, and Japan could not defeat China, forming a A perfect endless loop.

Now it seems that this is simply ridiculous-will the Japanese team not be able to beat the Chinese team?

But in the distant 1980s, this was really the case. The most famous football showdown between China and Japan in everyone's mind occurred in the 1988 Seoul Olympics qualifiers. At that time, there was no FIFA restriction on the age of players participating in the Olympics, so those participating in the Olympics were all qualified national first teams, not the Olympic team or the second national team.

The Chinese team entered the Olympic finals for the first time in history and defeated the Japanese team in that game.

The Chinese team's invincibility against the South Korean team started in 1978. Later, the media exaggerated the "Korean phobia", but why haven't we heard of "Japanese phobia"?

Even before entering the 1990s, Chinese football was an important force that could not be ignored in Asia. It was a well-known powerhouse in the East Asian circle. However, they had nothing to do when they encountered the Korean team, which was better at running and had more tenacious willpower. But when facing the Japanese team, they had the upper hand.

At that time, Japanese football was still uncivilized. In 1964, the Japanese team participated in the Olympic Games for the first time, which was the Tokyo Olympics held in the country, and reached the top eight. Four years later at the Mexico City Olympics, they achieved a historic third place, which was also their best result in Olympic history before the London Olympics. However, although the Japanese team performed well at that time, it could not last long because Japanese football at that time adopted an elite training program. To put it bluntly, it was to train football, a grassroots sport, as an elite sport. But there was also a historical reason at that time, because there were too few people playing football in Japan, and this was the only way to achieve results. Thirty or forty people were selected from all over the country. These people usually do nothing and do not need to work part-time. They just conduct professional training every day.

This is a bit like a national system with Japanese characteristics.

With this kind of training method, the players' level will of course improve very quickly, but it cannot last long, because the country cannot always keep so many dozens of people in captivity for training and competition. If this is the case, football, a grassroots football, will not be able to Survive in Japan.

So after experiencing a brief period of glory, Japanese football fell into a trough again.

After losing to China and missing the 1988 Seoul Olympics finals, the Japan Football Association welcomed a key figure. He was former Japan national team international Saburo Kawabuchi. He began planning to promote professional football leagues in Japan.

This is not only for Japan, but also for many other Asian countries. Professional leagues are a new thing. At that time, baseball was the number one sport in Japan, and football was a minor player. But with the efforts of Saburo Kawabuchi, Japan's professional league was born in 1993.

However, Japanese football, which had just established a professional league, suffered a heavy blow at the beginning of its development-in the last game of the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup in the United States, as long as the Japanese team defeated Iraq, they would be able to break into the league for the first time in history. World Cup finals. Unfortunately, the Japanese team was tied by Iraq before the end of the game. The score of 2:2 prevented them from qualifying for the World Cup in the United States.

This failure gave Japanese football a great shock. Three years later, in 1996, Saburo Kawabuchi launched an ambitious plan, which was the famous "Japanese Football Centenary Plan".

Since then, Japanese football has entered a rapid development of morale, and finally reached the World Cup finals for the first time in 1998.

In 2005, the Japan Football Association issued another "2005 Declaration" - to create sports culture through football and create a healthy society. By popularizing football, integrating sports into people's lives and creating a good living environment for everyone; increasing efforts to strengthen football, allowing the Japanese national team to perform well in world competitions, giving people courage, hope and emotion; Maintain the spirit of fair play, maintain good relations with other countries, and contribute to the stability and peace of the international community.

The specific goals are: by 2015, the Japanese national team will be ranked among the top ten in the world, and the football population will increase to five million; before 2050, the football population will increase to 10 million, Japan will host the World Cup again, and the Japanese national team will win the World Cup championship. .

These goals sound fantastical, and even attracted ridicule and ridicule when they were first released.

But now it seems that the goals of Japanese football are being achieved one by one. For example, winning the World Cup has already been achieved by the Japanese women's national football team - not to mention that the Japanese women's national football team is not a national team. There is no limit to Japan's century-old goal. It can only be achieved when the Japanese men's national football team wins the World Cup. It counts.

In fact, if China wants to improve their football level, they don't need to learn from Brazil, Spain, or Germany. They have a very good person to learn from, and that is Japan.

From the construction of the national team to the maintenance of the league and the most important foundation of campus football, Japan has a complete set of mature experiences to learn from.

Japanese football once ignored the rules of football and forced its way up. Although it got third place in the Olympics, it still fell into the deep end. Any behavior that does not follow the rules of football to develop football will not have good results, no matter how much money, manpower and material resources are spent.

When the Japanese begin to develop their country's football in a down-to-earth manner according to the laws of football, with everyone working together and the whole society participating, the achievements of Japanese football will come naturally and naturally.

When the Japanese team began to seriously engage in football construction, the balance of power between Chinese and Japanese football was reversed. Since the 1990s, when the Chinese team met the Japanese team, they lost more and won less.

As of this World Cup qualifier, the last time the Chinese team defeated the Japanese team dates back to the East Asian semi-finals in 1998. At that time, Li Bin scored twice to help the Chinese team coached by Horton defeat Oka 2:0. The Japanese team led by Takeshi Tadashi.

After that game, the Chinese team has never been able to defeat the Japanese team in FIFA's A-level competition. The embarrassing record of "unbeating Japan" has lasted for fourteen years.

Originally, at the Asian Cup at the beginning of last year, the Chinese team had hopes of wrestling with the Japanese team, and maybe it could end the embarrassing fourteen-year record of not beating Japan.

However, Zhou Yi was suspended for accumulating yellow cards in the semi-finals and missed the Asian Cup final against Japan.

In the final, the Japanese team defeated the Chinese team and won the championship.

This is also a new grudge between Chinese and Japanese football at the national team level. Now this World Cup qualifying match is considered by the Chinese media to be a revenge battle for the national team.

Some people say that the Olympic team defeated the Japanese team. Yes, the Olympic team did defeat the Japanese team, but that was an Olympic game. The Olympic Games are not included in FIFA's A-level events, and their status is not high. Messi has won the Olympic gold medal in football, but his national team honors are still blank, because the Olympic gold medal is not a recognized national team honor.

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Many stories will be told in every confrontation between China and Japan, and the preliminaries of the 1988 Seoul Olympics are one of them.

At that time, the Chinese team led by Gao Fengwen unexpectedly lost 0:1 to Japan at home in the qualifiers. This forced the Chinese team into a desperate situation. The away game was a last-ditch battle and there was no room for failure. In the misty autumn rain in Tokyo, the Chinese team wearing red jerseys challenged the Japanese team wearing white jerseys. The Chinese team presented the best game in twenty years, and the Japanese team was unable to fight back. Only in the first half did China The team had fifteen shots. In the end, with the goals of Liu Haiguang and Tang Yaodong, the Chinese team defeated Japan 2:0 and marched on Japan's corpse into Seoul.

The significance of this game to Chinese football is that it broke out of Asia and entered the world for the first time, and the significance to Japanese football may be even greater, because this failure directly gave birth to the Japanese Football Association's subsequent efforts to reform and reform, and this is how it came about. Today's glorious and powerful Japanese football.

A match between the Chinese team and the Japanese team in the 1996 Asian Cup group stage was a representative example of darkness and ugliness. At that time, the Chinese team lost to Uzbekistan 0:2 in the first game and regained its confidence by defeating Syria 3:0 in the second game. In the third group match, they faced the Japanese team, which had previously won all the games and was willing to let the Chinese team go. As long as the two sides drew, they could squeeze out the third-place South Korean team in the other group. Under this circumstance, the Chinese team and the Japanese team played in a tacit understanding. In the 90-minute game, they spent more than half of the time in the backcourt. When everyone thought the game would end with a score of 0:0, Japanese defender Naoki Soma volleyed a shot from the upper left corner of the penalty area, and the football flew into the Chinese team's goal. At that time, not only the Chinese were stupid, but the Japanese were also stupid. In the end, the Chinese team relied on the results of the matches between Syria and Uzbekistan and looked at other people's faces and even got the right to qualify in the group.

That was the first time in history that China and Japan had a tacit understanding of the ball, and it was also the last time. Later, the gap between Chinese and Japanese football became wider and wider, and the football between the two countries was no longer on the same level.

The 2004 Asian Cup was held in China. As the host, the Chinese team advanced all the way to the finals and met its old rival, the Japanese team. In that game, the Chinese team scored first, but then the Chinese team tenaciously equalized the score. The game was originally evenly balanced, but Koji Nakata of the Japanese team hit the ball into the Chinese team's goal with his hand during the corner kick. The referee and the linesman turned a blind eye to this and ruled that the goal was valid. This conceded goal greatly affected the emotions of the Chinese players. In the end, the Chinese team lost to the Japanese team 1:3 at home, allowing the Japanese team to successfully defend the title and losing the opportunity to win the Asian Cup for the first time.

In fact, even though the Asian Cup was held in China, the Japanese team received more preferential treatment from referees than the Chinese team. For example, the first time in history that the goal was changed in the middle of a penalty shootout happened to Japan. At that time, the Japanese team missed consecutive penalty kicks, so they protested, believing that there was a problem with the venue for the penalty kicks, and applied to change it. Opposite half. What is incredible is that this completely unreasonable request was recognized by the referee team! After changing the venue, the Japanese team finally eliminated Jordan with a penalty kick... In addition, the ridiculous penalty of a throw-in being considered offside also appeared on the Japanese team's opponents.

So when it comes to that Asian Cup, there must be many fans who have only experienced it.

In 2011, it was the Asian Cup again. The Chinese team made it all the way to the finals without being favored. However, core player Zhou Yi was suspended due to accumulation of yellow cards and missed the peak showdown with the Japanese team. Without Zhou Yi, the strength of the Chinese team was greatly reduced. In the end, the Chinese team lost to Japan and missed the Asian Cup championship again.

This Asian Cup may make Chinese fans even more unconvinced. Everyone can't help but speculate - if Zhou Yi had not been suspended, if he had been in the finals, would the Chinese team have really been able to beat Japan, ending the Chinese team's embarrassing record of losing to Japan in international A-level events? ?

Fortunately, this time, Zhou Yi was not absent again in the World Cup qualifiers.

He will lead the Chinese national team to challenge Japan, China's old enemy, away from home.

An enthusiastic netizen on Weibo drew a picture. In the picture, the Chinese national team players are all wearing the uniforms of the Eighth Route Army. The most obvious leader is Zhou Yi. He waved a big sword and shouted: "Comrades, charge with me." !”

Obviously this was based on the success of Zhou Yi's "anti-Japanese campaign".

This picture caused some controversy after it came out, but the controversy had nothing to do with football, but rather with the history of the Anti-Japanese War. Some people accused the painter of distorting history by asking the players to pass on the Eighth Route Army uniforms, because the main force in the Anti-Japanese War was *** *, if you want to wear it, you should also wear **** military uniform.

Such remarks attracted condemnation from other people. The two sides fought together, which also affected Chiyu, making it impossible for fans to cheer for the Chinese team.

Under such circumstances, Zhou Yi’s real-name authentication Weibo suddenly forwarded this picture on Weibo.

And wrote: "Thank you, I will work hard and fulfill our mission!"

Some debates continue, but more people can focus on football. (To be continued.)