Say you’re Lionel Messi, the best football player in the world. Sure, it’s a shame you lost the chance to win the World Cup for your home country of Argentina, but you know, there’s a far more vexing problem to solve.
On a recent trip to Argentina, President Xi Jinping was presented with a #10 football jersey by President of the Senate and House Speaker Budu Dominguez. Messi was also ther at the time, and had this to say to CCTV 5:
I hope with Chairman Xi’s visit to Argentina that football can serve as the middle ground between our two countries as an era of total cooperation opens up between us. Argentina football has no reason not to help China because the biggest aspiration of all our football players is to make football the greatest sport in the world. In order to fulfill this ambition, we need to have the participation of China.
If we’re talking about the kind of football that Messi himself plays, he may have to wait awhile for China’s participation, ambitions be damned.
China did not participate in this year’s World Cup. In fact, China has only ever qualified for the World Cup in 2002 when South Korea hosted the tournament and was given an automatic qualifying position, leaving a spot open for another Asian team.
And yet, qualifying for the 2002 World Cup has been considered the greatest accomplishment in Chinese football history despite not scoring any goals or winning any matches during competition.
Photo: Shenzhen Evening Report