The China PR national football team (Chinese: 中国国家足球队; pinyin: Zhōngguó Guójiā Zúqiú Duì; literally "Chinese National Soccer Team"), nicknamed The Dragon or The Great Wall is the national association football team of the People's Republic of China and is governed by the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is colloquially referred to as "Team China" (中国队), the "National Team" (国家队) or "Guózú" (国足, short for 国家足球, which means "national football").
The team was founded in 1924 in the Republic of China under the auspices of the China Football Association and joined FIFA in 1931. Following the Chinese Civil War, the CFA was formed in the newly founded People's Republic of China. They remained affiliated with FIFA until 1958, when they withdrew, but they rejoined in 1979. After the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom in 1997, and Macau from Portugal in 1999, these two special administrative regions have continued to have their own teams, which play as "Hong Kong, China" and "Macau, China", respectively.
China have won the East Asian Cup twice in 2005 and 2010, they have been runners-up at the Asian Cup twice in 1984 and 2004. Although China failed to score a goal in their maiden FIFA World Cup appearance in 2002, losing all their matches, just qualifying for the tournament has been considered the greatest accomplishment in their football history.
As football is widely followed in China, national team success is considered to be a source of national pride. Around 300 million people tuned in to broadcasts of China's 2002 World Cup matches with a staggering 170 million new television sets being bought by citizens in order to watch their nation's first World Cup appearance. There were over 250 million viewers for the 2004 AFC Asian Cup Final, the largest single-event sports audience in the country's history.
Read more about China PR National Football Team: Stadium, Kit, Coaching Staff, Recent and Forthcoming Fixtures, Honours
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—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
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—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievments must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“...I’m not money hungry.... People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
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—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)