China’s men soccer team faces fan backlash after humiliating loss to arch-rivals Japan

Hong Kong CNN —

China’s men’s soccer team fell to a 7-0 loss to arch-rivals Japan on Thursday night, a startling new low for a soccer-obsessed nation where the game has been plagued by corruption scandals and ever-worsening performances.

Players in top European leagues led the way for Japan, with Liverpool’s Wataru Endo and Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma both scoring in the demolition at the Saitama Stadium, north of Tokyo, in 2026 World Cup final-round Asian qualifiers. Monaco’s Takumi Minamino also scored twice.

“This is humiliating,” one China fan wrote on social media platform Weibo, where the defeat has become a trending topic, garnering more than 460 million views by Friday morning.

That the defeat came at the hands of Japan adds to the agony for Chinese fans. Sporting rivalries between the two countries often bear the undertones of their historical relationship, strained by – among other sore points – Japan’s brutal occupation of China in the first half of the 20th century, and current disputes over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands, which China calls the Diaoyus.

“This is the most shameful day for Chinese football,” another fan wrote on Weibo after the defeat, calling it “a day that will always sting Chinese fans” and “a pain that can never be erased.”

Another angry fan called for the team to be dismissed, writing: “It’s hopeless… It should be abandoned!”

A group of disputed islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, is seen in the East China Sea on September 2012.

Over the past decade China’s soccer officials – as well as leader Xi Jinping – have voiced ambitions of breaking into the sport’s upper echelons, and the country’s domestic league became a magnet for big-name players.

But in recent