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Success needs patience
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Yang Yunfei
SOCCER is China's number one spectator sport, so a berth at the World Cup finals has been a long-cherished dream of millions of Chinese soccer fans. Unfortunately, the past two decades has seen China mount seven campaigns in the World Cup qualifiers, only to suffer humiliating failure each time.
Having been disappointed by their national team so many times, even die-hard fans have been heard to groan:“Don't let me down again" in the run-up to China's campaign for the 2002 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by Japan and South Korea.
But according to Zhang Jilong, vice-president of the Chinese Football Association, soccer success takes patience. In other words, fans should be “right here waiting".
“You cannot expect China to be a soccer powerhouse overnight. The development of China's soccer is time-consuming and you need to be patient," Zhang said on Friday, a day after arriving in Shenzhen for a three-day conference starting on Saturday.
Zhang cited Japan as an example.
“The Japanese waited for 15 years before finally qualifying for the World Cup finals. "
Haste makes waste, noted Zhang, warning that impatience will do no good to the development of Chinese soccer.
“Instead, it will ruin Chinese soccer," he said.
Representatives of some of the world's soccer powerhouses have offered China the same advice.
When asked to give some advice to Chinese soccer organizers at the China Football 2000 conference held in Beijing in last July, Dettmar Cramer from Germany, who coached soccer legend Franz Beckenbauer, said: “You need patience. You can build a mansion overnight, but you can't develop a footballer overnight."
Bobby Charlton from England also warned that Chinese footballers and fans should be patient and “cannot expect a change overnight".
As arch-rivals Japan and South Korea are awarded automatic spots, many believe that China have their best-ever chance to qualify for the 2002 World Cup finals. But Zhang urged caution.
“We do not have overwhelming advantages over West Asian countries. We should take a matter-of-fact attitude toward the coming World Cup qualifiers and adopt dual tactics," he said, adding that more efforts should be made to train talented youth and develop the seven-year-old professional league.
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