Super fun fact not many people know. China lost a game to the vatican city national team

Short Answer : Their team sucks.
Long answer : Their team really sucks.

中国队进入世界杯只需5步：
步骤 1. 让国际足联分配给南极洲一个名额；
步骤 2.中国男足被分到南极洲赛区；
步骤3.中国男足和企鹅争夺出线权；
步骤4.客场和企鹅打成平局；
步骤5. 主场安排在三亚，热死企鹅后中国男足直接出线。
按目前实际来看，这五步计划的唯一难点在4。

58% of households =/= 58% of the population

I was just thinking about how weird China is never at the world cup or hosting then this video appears

Even india with a big national league doesn't win qualifiers

"China will collapse in 2 weeks" son vs "21st century is the Chinese century" daughter?

Curucao is in the world cup while china isnt lol

Short answer: China copied the Japanese football program to create competitve players for wc and failed short due to corruption and incompetent

I found out about Chinese soccer corruption back in 2024 when Japan beat China 7-0.

IShowSpeed's world cup song in the background is killing me 😂

Bro’s trying to figure out an issue that even Chinese people can’t properly explain.💀

Real reason is that XI isn't into balls

Fun fact : North Korea (totally authoritarian country) have more presence in World Cup than China

During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver - I was volunteering as a driver and drove a IHF (hockey federation) official, and he mentioned that the Chinese generally don’t do as well in team sports (at least for the men - the women’s teams fare much better), and that parents don’t encourage their children to play team sports since it affects their child’s “personal achievements” …so there’s not a lot of Chinese teams that make it to qualifiers…

The recent head coach of the China U-17 national team holds an advanced qualification—possessed by fewer than 20 people even in Japan—that authorizes them to train professional-level managers. Utilizing youth development and coaching methodologies that Japan has built up over many years, he led the team to a runner-up finish in the U-17 Asian Cup.
However, because Japan ultimately won the championship, the coach faced severe backlash on Chinese social media. Critics slammed him, claiming that the team only lost because the manager was incompetent, despite having an excellent squad of players.
Incidentally, the China U-16 team is also currently led by a different Japanese manager.

The biggest countries in the world like India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Ethiopia are absolutely abysmal at football. It’s really strange.

gdp and population really means nothing for soccer. There's a number of large countries with developed infrastructure like Russia, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia that always underperform, and none of the tournament hosts of Canada, USA, or Mexico have a great track record either. The difference in Europe is that the league pyramid is old and large, this allows for tens of thousands of kids to go through football academies instead of normal education while having a decent chance of a career even if they aren't that good. They basically have footballer factories that takes in children from poor families with otherwise bad economic prospects. That's why if you look at the family background of most pros, the ones who aren't the children of pro athletes are children from deindustrialised parts of Europe, poor immigrant families, or both

Most villages with 500+ people have a football pitch here in Switzerland. I don't see many in China and they often fit a village of people in a couple highrises.

This lowers your social credit score.