Sports Challenge: Asia Dominates Football

Now, I love reading all these alternate histories and have a much better knowledge of history than the average human, it seems I know nothing compared to you guys. So, as a 'noob' of Alternate History, I decided to challenge you guys on something I rarely see on this site: sports.

My challenge to you all is as the title says, make the Asian continent dominate Association Football, replacing South America IRL. Of course, that doesn't mean the South Americans can't be good either, but many Asian nations must be of better quality in football skill. 'Asia' does not mean only East Asian nations but what we refer to as the Asian continent. Also, this does not mean that all Asian nations are good in football, but merely that many Asian nations have good to top-class football teams. At least two Asian teams should have won the World Cup, and at least three should have hosted them.

Yes, yes, this challenge might have a POD before 1900, but I felt that most of the events taking afterwards would affect the world after 1900, since the POD at the earliest is probably in the 1880's. Besides, I saw 40 more people on here than on Before 1900 ;)

Extra points if you can change the famous quote to "The English invented it, but the Indonesians perfected it"

Oh, and have fun!
 
Considering Indonesia has spent a lot of time in recent years at the very bottom of Fifa rankings
 
easy.the examination board say's any
one playing footbal will get 10% increase in their result.as a result
u have a massive population playing footbal from a early age giving you a large pool of talent pool then
you need only
the management which can be brought from abroad till local talent has been developed.


p.s i am saying this for india only.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Well, I'm no expert, but as far as I see it you need three conditions to be a 'football superpower'.

1) Public health. A nation that experiences famines, or where a good proportion of the public are chronically under-nourished isn't going to provide many good sportsmen. And this has to reach all the way down, football at its best is a street game, and most legendary footballers come from that background, its not really a game for the élites.

2) Investment. This is the easiest, all you need is someone in power to decide that football is a priority worth investing in.

3) Luck. Great players are born a few into a generation, and its mostly luck where they happen to be born. If a certain country in Asia gets more than its fair share of one-in-a-million football geniuses, then it'd be on its way. But outside from making sure you get these geniuses into training early, there's not a lot you can do about this one.

So as I say, I'm no expert, but I don't think you'd need a really far back POD for this. Nations can drastically change their football fortunes over the course of a single generation.

(I had another thought, the possibility of the USSR and the PRC being World Cup finalists, that'd really put Americans off the sport :p)
 
As a football fan and aan avid fan of football manager games.
I can tell you its achievable to have a succesful asian team, but NO matter the population size it doesnt equate to talent.

India & China have HUGE populations and yet their teams arent brilliant, with the exception of a few players from China.
The best Indian born or Indian player born outsiode of the UK is Michael Chopra of Cardiff City and he's a geordie!

You would need a POD before 1900, not too far before though.

Along with S.Korea, Japan, Australia (Technically asian as part of AFC)

I can see Singapore becoming stronger due to historical ties with Britain and that being a huge factor, Malaysia & Indonesia too if they get the bandwagon rolling early on in the history of the nations.

But what the world really needs... Is A mongol Super League!

Oh and Uzbekistan seem to be the next nation within the AFC to spend stupid amounst of foreign players and managers and naturalize them
 
(I had another thought, the possibility of the USSR and the PRC being World Cup finalists, that'd really put Americans off the sport :p)


If anything that would make the Americans 10x more angry and try to be 'soccer kings'. If they can do it with Ice Hockey then Imsure football is the next logical step for them to conquer.
 
Well, I'm no expert, but as far as I see it you need three conditions to be a 'football superpower'.

1) Public health. A nation that experiences famines, or where a good proportion of the public are chronically under-nourished isn't going to provide many good sportsmen. And this has to reach all the way down, football at its best is a street game, and most legendary footballers come from that background, its not really a game for the élites.

2) Investment. This is the easiest, all you need is someone in power to decide that football is a priority worth investing in.

3) Luck. Great players are born a few into a generation, and its mostly luck where they happen to be born. If a certain country in Asia gets more than its fair share of one-in-a-million football geniuses, then it'd be on its way. But outside from making sure you get these geniuses into training early, there's not a lot you can do about this one.

So as I say, I'm no expert, but I don't think you'd need a really far back POD for this. Nations can drastically change their football fortunes over the course of a single generation.

(I had another thought, the possibility of the USSR and the PRC being World Cup finalists, that'd really put Americans off the sport :p)


You mean Moscow and Beijing in the Super Bowl, don't you? :p
 
Jape said:
Considering Indonesia has spent a lot of time in recent years at the very bottom of Fifa rankings

I chose Indoneisa, because the Dutch actually invested in it, and the Dutch East Indies national football team was the first Asian team to compete in the World Cup (They lost to Hungary and were disqualified; Hungary at the time was one of the best football teams). The Indonesian Super League is also very popular, and although Indoneisa sucks in football, the people still love the sport

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jorawar singh said:
easy.the examination board say's any
one playing footbal will get 10% increase in their result.as a result
u have a massive population playing footbal from a early age giving you a large pool of talent pool then
you need only
the management which can be brought from abroad till local talent has been developed.

p.s i am saying this for india only.

This is probably true for most nations with large populations. If i'm not mistaken India actually qualified for the World Cup in the 50's, but then backed out because they refused to play maches with shoes on (heh). I can't remember where I read that though, but I also read that Indonesia backed out because they wouldn't play in Israel. Taking out wacky, unimportant things like that and Asia could at least have a better reputation.

---------

nenebucks said:
Well, I'm no expert, but as far as I see it you need three conditions to be a 'football superpower'.

1) Public health. A nation that experiences famines, or where a good proportion of the public are chronically under-nourished isn't going to provide many good sportsmen. And this has to reach all the way down, football at its best is a street game, and most legendary footballers come from that background, its not really a game for the élites.

I was thinking the same thing, because the African nations that do have a large low-class society but not completely in civil war or economic crisis (Cameroon, Senegal, Ivory Coast) are pretty good in football. Indonesia certainly has a large low class population that is not in complete poverty, as does India and China and most Asian states, actually.

2) Investment. This is the easiest, all you need is someone in power to decide that football is a priority worth investing in.

As mentioned earlierthe Dutch invested in their colony's national team, and though the British didn't do as much with thier colonies if they did I could see Burma (without the Junta), India, Malaysia, and to a lesser extent Singapore (mainly because of a lack of a lower class - most Singaporean players today are not 'ethnic Singaporean'). I've always thought that rulers nations like Thailand and Iran would've wanted to invest in football.

3) Luck. Great players are born a few into a generation, and its mostly luck where they happen to be born. If a certain country in Asia gets more than its fair share of one-in-a-million football geniuses, then it'd be on its way. But outside from making sure you get these geniuses into training early, there's not a lot you can do about this one.
I woldn't say that luck is an issue. The 'great players that are born in a generation' probably were inspired by their own nation doing good internationaly as well as local clubs with fanbases. So, it really isn't luck but more like the wanting to become a football player, as well as training, which all goes under 'investment'.

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WorldWar Z said:
As a football fan and aan avid fan of football manager games.
I can tell you its achievable to have a succesful asian team, but NO matter the population size it doesnt equate to talent.

India & China have HUGE populations and yet their teams arent brilliant, with the exception of a few players from China.
The best Indian born or Indian player born outsiode of the UK is Michael Chopra of Cardiff City and he's a geordie!

You would need a POD before 1900, not too far before though.

Along with S.Korea, Japan, Australia (Technically asian as part of AFC)

I can see Singapore becoming stronger due to historical ties with Britain and that being a huge factor, Malaysia & Indonesia too if they get the bandwagon rolling early on in the history of the nations.

But what the world really needs... Is A mongol Super League!

Oh and Uzbekistan seem to be the next nation within the AFC to spend stupid amounst of foreign players and managers and naturalize them

For the big nations like China and India, what would be good is if what happened in Latin America happened in Asia. Brazil in particular, many English amateur clubs played friendly matches against the local clubs, and I think that's what sparked football mania and the will to invest with Brazil, and the rest of South America.

Mongol Super Leage,( :eek: )really cool but probably impossible :p. Ulan Bataar FC ftw!
 
If India had supported its footballers after 1956 where they became the first asian team to reach the semi finals in the olympics there would have been a slight chance of India becoming a tier two team. It is said that the Indian players were good players for 70 min after which they could not play as they were used to only 70 min (from Hockey). In thier first match they lost to France 2-1.
 
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