LONDON -- After a successful Olympic summer in which their athletes brought home 40 gold medals, Chinese sports fans last week had to digest an evening of humiliation when the national soccer team lost 7-0 to Japan in 2026 World Cup qualification. Despite ambitions of one day winning the trophy, just making a second-ever appearance at the tournament could remain elusive.
"China has made a habit of plumbing new depths in recent years, but this does seem to be a new low," Mark Dreyer, author of "Sporting Superpower," a book about the nation's sports ambitions, told Nikkei Asia. "Both the scale of the defeat and that it was against its historical rival Japan makes this a particularly galling result."
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