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The story
A thread on 5ch’s live-discussion board lit up around the question, “Which countries would get strong if they seriously committed to soccer?” The thread starter named India and China, and posters spent the thread guessing at the third spot. Some pointed out that China poured national resources into the sport through the 2010s without much payoff, while others noted that Croatia, despite its small population, is a soccer powerhouse. The recurring theme across the thread was that population size and economic clout don’t necessarily translate into soccer strength.
What people said
The country just doesn't invest in athletics.
They've got cricket though
They've got a ton of players in Europe's top 5 leagues, plus some seriously promising young talent coming up.
It's India, Canada, and the US.
Europe and Latin America have it way too easy by comparison.
Aren't they mediocre at individual sports too?
They're just not built for team sports in general.
The only famous athlete they've got is Eileen Gu.
Even with talent getting siphoned off into other sports, they're still fairly strong.
No idea about India though.
Guess whenever they get together they just start dancing instead… (poking fun at the Bollywood group-dance stereotype)
They're strong in gymnastics and shooting.
Also table tennis.
Freak talents like Cape Verde just appear out of nowhere, so if the environment and economy came together they could churn out monsters nonstop.
People have been saying that since Cameroon and Nigeria broke out, and nothing's changed in 30 years.
If all the talent and money currently sunk into American football went into soccer instead, it'd be insane.
Even if it became Japan's most popular sport, winning a major contact sport like that would still be a pipe dream.
If the US ever got fully serious, no country could beat them.
Also keeping an eye on Indonesia — they're a bundle of potential too.
If they seriously went all in, nobody could stop them. It would finally shake the notion that soccer belongs to Europe.
Indonesia's passion for soccer is on a whole other level.
Russia, China, India, the US.
They were strong back in the Soviet era though.
It's not just Croatia — the whole former Yugoslavia region is absurdly strong at sports.
They've got world-class players in soccer, basketball, and tennis.
Building the world's largest stadium, seating 100,000
Guangzhou Evergrande FC broke ground on the 16th on a new stadium with a total construction cost of 12 billion yuan (roughly ¥181.9 billion).
Due for completion by the end of 2022, it will seat 100,000 — more than Camp Nou, home of Spanish La Liga club FC Barcelona.
It's expected to become the largest soccer-specific stadium in the world.
https://www.afpbb.com/articles/-/3279647
How come Japan doesn't have anything like this?
Background and key points of this discussion
China has a track record of pouring national investment into soccer development — in 2020, for instance, Guangzhou Evergrande broke ground on a dedicated 100,000-seat stadium costing roughly ¥181.9 billion. Even so, the national team’s results on the world stage have stagnated, and it’s often cited as a textbook example of how big facilities and budgets don’t automatically translate into strength. Many posters in the thread doubted any real correlation with population or economic size, contrasting China with Croatia and the former Yugoslav states — countries with populations in the low millions that have produced results in sports demanding individual skill. The shared takeaway across the thread was that a country’s size matters less than the quality of its athletic population, its development environment, and the depth of public passion for the sport.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Top 3 countries that would get strong if they seriously committed to soccer: “India,” “China”…“
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