China lost again, in Asian Cup, when we assembled the best players to this competition, neglected by Korean & Japanese, whose core players are still enjoying their holidays.

The difference is that they have got into the next round with palm-reversing ease, but China is eliminated by Uzbekistan, constantly picking up the ball from the goal for 3 times.

Compared with the other teams in this Cup, China had an clear appetite to enter semi-final round, which was concerned by the CFA(Chinese Football Association) and the coach Zhu Guanghu. They took a long way to prepare for this. Sadly the result is humiliating, for the Iraq team, suffering from continuous war and lacking of systematic training, defeated powerful Australian and gets into the next round, with the first rank of group A.

Chinese football fans have got used to sighing again and again when they see the failure of football team. For more than 10 years since Chinese Career League began, but the status of Chinese football is even lowing, not only the Men football team but the Women team as well. During this time our competitors have made a remarkable progress, so lacking of outstanding players and basis is no longer an excuse. It is apparent that only one cause ceases Chinese football’s development, the bureaucratic management of Chinese Football Association.

The responsible officials in CFA are just politicians, who tend to focus on the recent achievement of Chinese football and neglect the future of Chinese football.

 At first Yan Shiduo disassembled the League for preparing the World Cup, which did seriously harm to Chinese players and the whole football environment. However, the victory in 2001 trivialized the problem when Yan won flowers and applauses, ultimately bringing disaster to Chinese football. In 2004 he reformed the league as he promised, but it was just a new brand with old nature. He had no courage to run the total market-driven football league, which was beyond enough conditions indeed. It proves that he just gave an empty promise to the public when he announced to “reform”. When he was transferred for Chinese team failed to go to the 2006 World Cup, his successor, Xie Yalong, have succeeded Yan’s bureaucratic style but done nothing positively to improve.

The working way of CFA exerted a fatal influence to the football team, as they control the ultimate authority of decision in Chinese football affairs. Through that way the best coach will not be invited to teach the team but the tractable one would. So would the football players. Chinese football team, in a word, is not running for the purpose that how to make our quality stronger, but how to satisfy the officials and their expectations. The vital thing of Chinese football is the willing of the “leaders”, and only under their permission can the coaches and players do what they want and play as they want. The leaders, however, are not professional football experts, but professional traditional Chinese bureaucrats.

So the failure of Chinese football is not the failure for the football, but a humiliation of Chinese bureaucracy. In the future, this defect will assail the whole Chinese sports system except when the institution is changed.  

On the Christmas day of 1942, Nazi sent the last wish to the German troops in Stalingrad. The misery was still hidden from the relations of the 6^th group army, though they had already felt pessimistic. German soldiers began to experience starving. The officials required their staffs to rob the Russian residents.

There were about 10,000 citizens remained in the city, most of which were children & the aged. The survivors came up with that unforgettable period nowadays, described Germans as “some handsome polite men just like our people” at the beginning, with chocolates and toys to the Russian children. They were even casual with children playing their guns. But from the end of 1942, German gentlemen became robbers. The lack of clothes and food drove them broke into residents’ wooden houses. Still, Russians found that the two hostile nations possessed some same values. Love is the origin of human nature, no matter what hostility two ideologies holds. At the bitterly cold night in the January, German robbers were missing their families as the Russians did, which shocked the residents so well.

But the hunger and desperation wore Germans’ human nature away. Every day each soldier could only get 50g bread, and they began to eat dead horse, even dead men. 40,000 injured soldiers lying in the basement of the huge industrial city, without any care, only waiting for death. The only way to escape, the road to the Stalingrad airport, was stacked with German bodies after the Red Army bombed the airport, destroying 70 aircrafts, making the air supply nearly impossible.

On the January 8^th, 1943, Soviet asked German’s commander, Paulus, to give in. Paulus sent this request to Berlin at once but was refused by his leader, who was willing to send 200,000 soldiers to hell rather than accepted failure to his rival Staling.

Two days later Soviet decided to tighten their surrounding. T34 tanks, roaring down into the city, crushed as many Germans as they could. At 14^th January, another messenger was sent to Berlin to beg Hitler to give up his stubborn. The messenger saw the light of hope at first for his leader paid unprecedented patient, listening to his description quietly for 3 hours, but it turned out to be a waste of time. Until 26th, January, when Paulus sent his surrender request to Hitler again, the hysteria man still clang to his craziness, commanded his elite groups to fight until the last soldier died.

The battle proved a signal for failure to the devil. Not only had Hitler sent his outstanding boys to the hell, with only 6,000 men surviving back from the Soviet, but he lost one of his most powerful army. This is all because his abnormal thought to the victory, & his greedy to the world.

On the 31st January, Friedrich Paulus decided to surrender to the Soviet.

Nazi & Soviet, two states of absolutism, held the well-known battle in Stalingrad from the summer of 1942 to the early 1943, sacrificing millions of lives, leveling the heavy industrial city mostly, as well as the 6^th group army of Nazi Germany, Hitler’s one of the elite troops.

German army, with swift tanks and powerful air force, had ever taken possession the most areas of the city, but the patriotism and the loyalty to communism supported the Red Army remaining inexorable. The battle left a gridlock when Germans reached 150m away from the Volga River. Soviet soldiers and workers hid in every corner of Stalingrad, giving Germans agnostic deaths.

When the horrible winter descended, German mechanic weapons turned dysfunctional again as they did in Moscow. The equilibrium of two forces was being broken. Commander Zhukov ordered Soviet army groups to cut off the channel of Germans’ supply, in order to accomplish the surrounding. Then 300, 000 Germans were suffering the formidable cold weather and the isolation of the supply troops. The atmosphere of distemper, as well as the woe of desperation, spread around the army, and the tenor of victory was towards Russians. Once upon Hitler sent another 3 armored divisions to Stalingrad, tended to rescue his elites. But he disappointed his soldiers again when they were ready to leave, even burning up their supplies for the escaping. The over-confident Austrian commanded his fellows remaining in the city, which meant their miserable ruin by Soviet Red Army in the early 1943.

The Stalingrad battle was unprecedented in World War2, ruined the 3^rd Empire’s ambition and strengthened the state of Soviet. It was one of the triumphs of alliance, the same as the landing on Normandy, 1944.

The battle showed disparity between 2 despotisms. Despite their bravery and strong fighting spirits, which are nearly the same from the ideological control, Russians evidently possessed the advantage of their acquaintance for their hometown. And their powerful war industry was able to gather their resources successfully due to the institution of Soviet socialism. Endless tanks, aircrafts, and qualified soldiers, were kept sending to the battlefield. Losing the supply of their rear army, Germans were digging the grave for themselves when they remained in the city, consuming their bullets and energy day by day.

Yap~~after 3 days totally spent in the graceful room in hospital, I'm back now sitting in the dormitory again. Friends are in the military campus, suffering. Elder schoolmates kept busy in their final exams. But it's a good news that I will go back HOME tormorrow. That's pretty cool for me to look forward to the Cantonese food...

And my logic to the last article has broken, completely. I don't know what I planned to write so I ended it. Recently my insperation to writing is somehow limited, without a reason. Maybe it's because I get in crush on sth I didn't expect to before and disturbed by my high feeling. But just leave them alone. Now I want to make a plan in this summer: studying, partying &, well, travelling if possible.

So good luck.