Why China Sucks At Footie

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/default.stm

BBC Sports Olympic homepage has a smug front page article today titled "Why can't China win at Football?"

Mind you China has 22 Golds so far and Great Britain has 2, one more than Mongolia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

The article, written by the BBC's Matt Slater goes on to discuss quite smugly why a country with 1.3 billion people sucks so bad at soccer. To add insult to injury Slater discusses one gracious Brit in particular, a quote - footie-mad Londoner who has lived in Beijing for almost 20 years and apparently has taken it upon himself, out of the grace of his heart to attempt to educate the locals and help them get better at soccer. Sounds like the perfect premise for a really bad Hollywood film. White man goes and teaches dumb natives [fill in the blank] and lifts their spirits and saves the country from it's horrid lack of [fill in the blank]. There could be a subplot about him falling in love with a cute local girl, a school teacher perhaps. The movie writes itself. Hugh Grant can play the lead.

On the plus side the article does mention that until recently "it was actually illegal to have a kick-about as unauthorised gatherings of more than 10 people were banned."

That might go a long way to explaining why China is bad at soccer.

National Anthems Part 1: China

To coincide with the duration of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, We Has Spoken presents to you the first in a series highlighting the national anthems of participating countries.

We begin with the host nation, China:


And here's an entertaining amateur rendition:

W at the Beijing Games!

George W. Bush is in China again and I'm preparing for another round of unintentional comedy. His Asian trips have been second in humor only behind his trips to Africa. All politics aside, I'm beginning to really miss this guy, as neither Barack Obama nor John McCain will be able to provide us with that perfect blend of overconfidence, awkwardness and occasional bitterness - the ultimate recipe for classic youtube clips.

This is an older highlight but amongst the thousands of other W follies, this one may have been lost in the mix. So, in honor of his trip to the Olympics, here it is again (and please note 30 seconds into the clip where he stands at attention for no reason, I think he's actually getting ready to bow, but realizes just how incorrect and possibly racist that may appear and just stops himself).