（转贴）纽约时报评论中国足球（很有文学色彩）
China Loves Its Soccer. Its Team? Don’t Ask.QINHUANGDAO, China — The kick in the groin was the low point of theOlympic Games for hundreds of millions of Chinese sports fans.
Follow the schedules of your favorite sports, day by day and event by event.
Times journalists and special contributors explore the Olympics inBeijing and on the Web from every angle — the politics, the culture andthe competition.
It came 52 minutes into the China-Belgium men’s soccermatch Sunday when a Chinese player, Tan Wangsong, having just missedthe ball, swung his foot straight into the private parts of a Belgianplayer, Sébastien Pocognoli, leaving him writhing in pain on the field.The kick resulted in the game’s first red card and automatic ejection.The second, 12 minutes later, was charged to the Chinese team captain,Zheng Zhi, for elbowing an opposing player.
As usual, jokesabout the Chinese team fanned across the Internet: [color=Red][size=6][b]“The Chinese team just won two red medals.” “Our soccer team won the gold medal inmartial arts.” “China has had a weird year, with a freak snowstorm, theTibetan riots and an earthquake, but the performance of our soccer teamshows that some things never change.”[/b][/size][/color]
In its quest for sportssupremacy, China is placing its hopes for winning the medal count on apanoply of athletes honed to near perfection in sports like gymnastics, diving, rowing, table tennisand hurdling. It has shown its athletic prowess by climbing atop themedals table in the opening days of competition. The nation, though,demands much less of its men’s soccer team.
After a 3-0 loss toBrazil in this coastal city, the team exited the Summer Games withexactly what its legions of exhausted fans expected — no victories inthree games.
Soccer may be the sport the Chinese care aboutabove all else, but it is also the one that most frustrates anddisappoints them. The men's national and Olympic teams are the objectsof scorn, shame and much hand-wringing.
For Chinese men proud of international sports stars like Yao Ming in basketball and the hurdler Liu Xiang,[color=Red][size=6][b]the soccer team endures as the ultimate symbol of humiliation. [/b][/size][/color]Afterthe Chinese women’s soccer team beat Argentina, 2-0, on Tuesday, itscoach, [color=Red][size=6][b]Shang Ruihua, said, “Our strikers did such a great job that Ieven told them they should start playing for our men’s team now.” [/b][/size][/color]
After the men lost to Brazil, angry fans outside the stadium held a miniprotest that broke up when the riot police arrived.
[color=Red][size=6][b]“We play soccer like the Brazilians play Ping-Pong,” Li Weifeng, 30, thenew team captain, said with a deflated voice afterward.[/b][/size][/color]
Many Chinese would say that is an insult to Brazilian table tennis players.
[color=Red][size=6][b]“It’sso beyond an embarrassment that it almost seems like a comedy,” apopular soccer columnist, Li Chengpeng, said in an interview before thematch. “We’ve cried our tears dry, and now it’s time for us to enjoythe big show, because you never know how our team is going to lose thistime.” [/b][/size][/color]
Soccer presents the biggest conundrum for the Chinesesports machine — the country has the money, the population and the fanbase to put together a world-class team, yet has not succeeded. Themen’s national team has been to the World Cup only once, when Japan andSouth Korea were the hosts in 2002, but it failed to score a goal inthree games. In 2004, Chinese fans nearly rioted in Beijing when Chinalost the Asian Cup final to Japan, 3-1. The latest embarrassment camein June, when the team lost to Iraq in a World Cup qualifying match,2-1. China was later eliminated from qualifying for the 2010 World Cupin South Africa.
Chinese leaders generally try to silencewidespread criticism of national symbols, but with men’s soccer, thegovernment allows people to vent.
Everyone piles on, includingstate news media like CCTV and Xinhua, celebrity sports bloggers, evenother athletes and coaches. Fans also openly deride the head of thegovernment-run Chinese Football Association, Xie Yalong, a formersenior official from Shaanxi Province. [color=Red][size=6][b]“Xie Yalong must resign!” [/b][/size][/color][color=Blue][size=6][b]becamea loud chant at the last two Olympic matches, and Xie was seen leavingthe Belgium match early. [/b][/size][/color]
Many Chinese sports analysts andscholars point to endemic corruption within the association as onecause of the sport’s ills. The association started the current leaguesystem in 1994, and soccer became the first sport to achieve commercialsuccess in China, with sponsors pouring in millions of dollars.
XuGuoqi, a professor of East Asian history at Kalamazoo College and theauthor of a new book on China and the Olympics, said Chinese soccerwould improve only after the rule of law is established in China. Hesaid disappointment with soccer could lead to the next “majorrevolution” in China. And he was not joking.
[[i] 本帖最后由 天津宝贝 于 2008-8-21 05:21 编辑 [/i]] 泥了搜累给翻译翻译 :time: :time:
回复 2# 香格里拉blue 的帖子
其实差不多就是我们听到那些什么李玮峰侮辱巴西乒乓，还有谢亚龙下课那些
只不过写得是英文的而已呀 就是那个笑话，美国人把它写到纽约时报上去了——
中国今年很不正常，男足告诉世人，中国足球还是正常的。 :L
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