RC 

Reading handout

China’s most successful Astroturf operation: grassroots football

1

Words to know

excruciating

ek-SKROO-shee-ay-ting

Quote from the article

“a goal review that took 11 excruciating minutes.”

Meaning:Excruciating describes something so painful or stressful that it is very hard to bear. It can be about pain in your body, or about waiting for something while you feel nervous. In the article, the fans had to wait 11 long minutes for a referee decision, and the waiting felt almost unbearable.

More examples

  • The last minute of the tied game was excruciating to watch.
  • Waiting for my test grade was excruciating.

languish

LANG-gwish

Quote from the article

“Languishing at the bottom of the table could reflect poorly on a city’s organisational abilities”

Meaning:To languish is to stay stuck in a bad or weak spot for a long time without getting better. In the article, a team that languishes at the bottom of the standings keeps losing and cannot climb up.

More examples

  • Our team languished in last place all season.
  • My science project languished in the corner of my room for weeks.

inept

in-EPT

Quote from the article

“China’s perennially inept national team.”

Meaning:Inept describes someone who is not skilled at something and keeps doing it badly. In the article, China’s national football team is called inept because it has not done well for many years.

More examples

  • I was inept at skateboarding on my first day, and I fell six times.
  • The inept goalie let every shot slip past him.
2

Concepts behind the story

Hukou

Quote from the article

“All players must have ties to their city, such as a hukou (household registration).”

Why can’t a great player from far away just join any team in these leagues? One reason is a paper called a hukou.

A hukou is a household registration. It is an official record in China that says which place a family belongs to. Each family’s hukou is tied to a city or village, a bit like being on the class list of one school and not another.

Imagine your school had a rule that only kids who live in your town could play on the town’s soccer team. The school would check your address before you could join. The Chinese leagues do something similar: a player needs a link to the city, such as a hukou there, to play for it.

So the takeaway: a hukou is a family’s official registration to one place, and it helps decide who counts as a true local.

Sponsor

Quote from the article

“sponsors now include Heineken, Coca-Cola and Adidas.”

Why would a company hand money to a football team? Because it wants to be a sponsor.

A sponsor is a business that pays money to support a team or an event. In return, the business gets its name or logo shown to fans, on shirts, signs and ads. Fans see the name again and again and may buy the company’s products.

Think of a school fair. A local pizza shop pays for the banner, and its name is printed in big letters at the top. Kids see it all day, and some of them ask their parents for pizza that night. The shop paid, and the fair got its banner.

So the takeaway: a sponsor pays to support a team, and in return gets its name in front of the fans.

In the article, one sponsor was a hometown maker of spicy dried fish, so even a small local business can be a sponsor.