Even though they have been improving, the Asian football still has a lot of lapses. They are lagging, even behind the African football. This may be as a result of their lack of effort to be immensely competitive in football. They have been working towards bringing football back into school like in China. Korea intends to help boys from the ages of 6-8 aquire football skills.
For continent and countries where football is family and culture, most of the best players that emerged from such places were unguided, instead, they learnt to play on the streets and Africa is a typical example of such places. To be more realistic, it is appalling that a country like China could be competitive in a lot of things but can hardly produce good footballers or at least top footballers. The culture of football in Asia is insufficient, however, they are getting stronger as the years go by, and Asian football is gradually rising in level. They are improving, and are now approaching the point where they may be able to mix thing up a little bit with Europe.
The AFC
Asian football confederation (AFC) is the body that governs the Asian football. It consists of 47 countries including Australia who joined the confederation in 2006. It excludes countries who have territories in both Europe and Asia which are Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. Popular competitions in the AFC include; the AFC champions league, AFC Asian Cup and the AFC women’s Asian Cup. The AFC Asian Cup was first held in 1956, 12 countries participated and South Korea won the inaugural title.
Asian football Icons
- Bambang Pamungkas (Indonesia)
- Harry Kewell (Australia)
- Majed Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)
- Hidetoshi Nakata (Japan)
- Shinji Kagawa (Japan)
- Server Djeparov (Uzbekistan)
- Hao Haidong (China)
- Younis Mahmoud (Iraq)
- Adnan Al Talyani (United Arab Emirates)