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Poor play, profanities hurt the feelings of Chinese soccer fans

Friday, 12th November 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (1)

Wang Dalei's apology press conference
Wang Dalei's apology press conference
The Asian Games officially kick off with the opening ceremonies in Guangzhou tonight, but the football (soccer) action got off to an early start with preliminaries over the past week—and for hosts China, it's been a rough start, with poor performance and a star player insulting fans on the Internet.

China lost its first game to Japan by a score of 3-0 (do I even need to explain how serious that rivalry is?), and then, against Krygyzstan, missed a few great scoring opportunities and needed two late goals to win 2-1. Now China needs at least a draw in its third preliminary game in order to make it to the knockout round. They play Malaysia Saturday at 7:00 p.m. Beijing time at Tianhe Stadium in Guangzhou.

The football team also had a little off-field drama this week when goalkeeper Wang Dalei lashed out at fans on a microblogging site, and was suspended and compelled to issue a public apology. "It would be flattery to call you fans," Wang wrote "You're just a bunch of dogs. I never hold back what I want to say. It's because of you bunch of SB [Chinese curse word] that Chinese football can't make any progress."

Days later, Wang apologized and begged for "another chance": "I apologize sincerely to the media and supporters of the whole nation for my unpleasant words, which damaged the image of the football team, sports and China. "It's my fault. I hope you can forgive me and give me another chance." said Wang (watch his statement on Titan24.com.

Cai Jiadong, secretary-general of China's Asian Games delegation, brought out a favorite Chinese expression for the occasion, saying Wang had been "unsportsmanlike and irrational and hurt the feelings of Chinese soccer fans."

China women's team opens play Saturday against Jordan, 7:00 p.m. at University Town Main Stadium, with higher hopes than the men.

Wang Dalei image: CNR.cn

Tags: Asian Games, football, soccer, Tianhe Stadium, Wang Dalei

Asian Games' look shaping up

Tuesday, 19th May 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)

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The new pictograms for the 16th Asian Games, taking place in Guangzhou in November 2010, were unveiled today, along with logos for the games' culture, environment and volunteer programs. The pictograms--those little images used to represent each sport look fine to us, though not quite as cool as the ones for the Beijing Olympics (that link also contains images of the pictograms for 17 other summer Olympics).

There will be 42 sports in the Asian Games, 49 events total (ie, cycling counts as one sport, but there will be competitions in track, road, mountain and BMX cycling). The non-Olympic sports include: baseball (dropped from the Olympics for 2012), cricket, dragon boat racing, golf, karate, rugby, softball (like baseball, dropped for 2012) and squash. In the "That's a sport?" category, the Asian games will include cue sports (billiards, carom, pool and snooker), board games (chess, weiqi and xianqi), bowling and dance sport (making its Asian Games debut in 2010).
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The games also will have a healthy helping of martial arts--karate, judo, boxing, taekwondo and wushu are all on the schedule.

Finally, for the Asian games sport that we've never heard of and most want to see live, sepak takraw beats out kabbadi. Kabbadi sounds like a mix of playground favorites tag and capture the flag. Sepak takraw "combines elements of soccer, volleyball, baseball, badminton, gymnastics and the ancient sport of sepak raga," according to the Asian Games' Web site--sounds like the MMA of ball sports.

Tags: Asian Games, baseball, Guangzhou Asian Games, kabbadi, martial arts, sepak takraw, softball