Criticism, anger and sarcastic jokes on Chinese media vs Pride for the whole country and milestone for ASEAN in Vietnam

hina’s historical 1-3 defeat to Vietnam in the final round of World Cup qualifying match on February 1 instantly became the No.1 topic in both countries’ media, especially as it happened on the first day of the Lunar New Year, which was celebrated by both countries.

SARCASTISM FROM CHINA'S MEDIA

In China, official media coverage mostly focused on the humiliating defeat itself, the fact that China was officially eliminated from Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022, and worrying about the trend of China men’s football dropping even lower in the ranking in Asia. 

For example, People’s Daily’s sports comment said immediately after the match: “Chinese men’s football team lost a game that it should not lose, and could not (afford to) lose.” (人民日报体育：国足输了不该输也不能输的一场球) Beijing Youth Daily published a commentary with the headline: “Not knowing where China’s football should go is worse than defeat itself” (北京青年报：中国足球比输球更可怕的是不知道未来何去何从), challenging national team’s recent short-term decision to change head coach, mid-term “innovative approach” to include naturalized players in national team, to long-term development philosophy of China’s football talent pool.

On social media, however, it’s totally different story where former Chinese national football team captain Fan Zhiyi’s video interview went viral, again. 

In this 2013 video interview after China lost 1-5 to Thailand in a friendly in Hefei, the former Footballer of Asia (2001) and English Premier League Crystal Palace Player of the Year (2001) told a Shanghai Media Group reporter that: “(The team) has lost its face ... If this trend continues, we will lose to Vietnam, and then Myanmar, then we will run out of opponents to lose to!” The complete 90-second clip was played many times, and had even become a new social media MEME together with another famous angry football fan who was demanding refund after one China team loss.

More people were “thanking” Chinese football team to guard China’s national security, listing countries who had misfortunes after achieving great football successes: 

Iraq won Asian Cup, then it was invaded by US;
Italy won World Cup (2006), then its economy collapsed; 
Greece won Europe Cup (2004), then the country went bankrupt;
German won World Cup (2014), then it met a huge wave of refugee;
Northern Song Dynasty (960 A.D. —1127 A.D.) discovered a football (Cuju 蹴鞠) genius Gao Qiu (高俅), then its emperors were captured by the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234). 

Even China News Service (中新社), the other China national level news agency besides Xinhua New Agency, joined this trend by publishing a short WeChat article: “Master Wang, please support the China team which met temporary difficulty” (王老师，请支持暂时遇到困难的中国足球) which is a “copy paste” of a short dialogue between an editor and a sports reporter. The editor simply refused to publish the news about the defeat because “it’s the Chinese New Year period (no time for bad news)”.

All these sarcastic jokes aside, there were lots of serious reflections on the deep-rooted reason of China’s failure in men’s football. Most cited reasons include: Too few kids are playing football; parents don’t want to gamble their kids’ future in football; junior/high school/university football leagues don’t receive enough support; not enough football grounds in cities; widespread corruption and interest group fighting in all levels of national football team system; China Football Association’s management team spent too much energy, “creativity” and money in finding short-cuts instead of really getting the basics right. 

PRIDE FROM MEDIA IN VIETNAM

Vietnam’s official media reported the victory at the most prominent place it could possibly give. On the Vietnamese language homepage of state-owned Vietnam TV Station, there were four mentions of the match on the first screen, including:

* Vietnam team’s victory winning the hearts of fans;
* Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh came down to the field to congratulate players;
* Reaction from Chinese team coach Li Xiaopeng;
* Vietnam team received congratulations from other ASEAN football fans on social media

In the story about Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh came down to the pitch, there was also a video clip showing him talking to the South Korean coach through translator, as well as handing out red packets to coach and players.

The prime minister article received 1.4k Facebook Likes and ASEAN fans praising Vietnam team story received 4.7k Facebook Likes. 

Many ASEAN fans, such as from Malaysia and Indonesia, were congratulating Vietnam to become the first ASEAN team to win the final qualifying round of a World Cup.

On the Vietnamese home page of Vietnam’s top official newspaper Nhan Dan (人民报), Vietnam President Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s praise of the victory was the biggest story.

ON FACEBOOK

By searching “China vs Vietnam” on Facebook couldn’t find a lot of results. Among the results, two pages had very large number of “likes”. 

A Facebook post from AFC Asian Cup replaying the highlights of the match received 5.6k likes and more than 460 comments. The post praised: “the Golden Star Warriors wrote a new chapter of football history for their country and ASEAN!”

A Facebook post from ASEAN Football also received 6.4K likes and 781 comments as this is the first victory of an ASEAN representative to win in the final round of Asian World Cup qualifying matches. 

Apparently, this result has become a morale boost not only for Vietnam football, but also ASEAN football as well.