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Why does China suck at team sports?

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  1. #31

    Join Date
    Apr 2020
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    8

    A guy I met in HK had a Football (soccer) Academy in China.

    He said Chinese teams don't go well because they are all one child families. The Chinese kids don't have elder/younger siblings to be roughed up by, or to play rough with, or against, when growing up.
    This factor also limits their teamwork approach.

    Coolboy likes this.

  2. #32

    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    Hong Kong
    Posts
    923

    I also wonder if the lack of sports idols is a factor as well as how sports are broadcasted. Growing up I begged my little league coach to be a pitcher because I idolized the likes of Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens. Same with Jerry Rice and Dan Marino for American football.

    With other team sports you've got kids that wanted to play football like Rooney or do the haka like the All Blacks.

    Now that the NBA is gathering popularity in the mainland I used to see loads of merch for individual players. I'm sure there's kids in China that look at Durant the same way I used to watch Frank Thomas slug it for the White Sox.

    One thing I don't agree with earlier posters is that team sports don't require individualism and creativity. More than 50% of our practice time was spent on perfecting plays and running drills - the outcome is that you engrain muscle memory to handle the basic stuff so that you can better utilize your skills and talent to address edge scenarios. Just my $.02


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