The Chinese TV media serve the best interest of the spectators. They present the Games and their analysis and discussions in a very knowledgeable and extremely dedicated manner， at the same time relaxed and humorous， so that in comparison， the German commentators on German games are like choir-boys. Chinese commentators are visibly competent and enjoying themselves. Spanish， Portuguese and Brazilian TV commentators commenting on Spanish， Portuguese， Brazilian goals or victories can hardly compete to the cheers of the Chinese TV commentators when commenting on games of Algeria vs. Slovenia. They are critical， committed， knowledgeable and just show their passion for football.
In the case of the 2010 World Cup， everything seems to me a little different at first. In preparing， China beats France in Réunion， France is already kicked out from the preliminary round. The Chinese comment： “Sure， if even China can beat France， how should it prevail against such strong countries like Uruguay， Mexico or South Africa？”
When Italy also does not survive the preliminary round， there is national mourning， at least on television. Immediately after the decisive game that Slovakia won 3-2， CCTV 5 is endlessly reading comments that viewers have sent shortly before to a website. Everyone is complaining volubly that the World Cup was now so empty， grey and no longer exciting. Until， to roars of laughter among the panellists on the dais， the moderator reads another posting： “I have been working several years in Slovakia and I have to wonder how much it is mourned that they eliminated Italy. Can you not even for a minute assess the performance of the Slovaks？” The moderator puts on a play straight face and drops a few sober words of assessment， laughter increases， then more grief for Italy follows， but with a lot of humour.
As the final representative of Asia who anyway is not regarded with much affection
– Japan – is as well eliminated， the mental support of the Chinese focuses preferably on Germany， more so because the young German team this time plays an entertaining brand of football. In the final that the Germans miss because of the defeat by Spain， Spain does receive the moral support of hundreds of millions of Chinese， as the Spaniards are to some extent regarded as semi-Italians， and their league is followed in China also with much interest.
One impressive feature are the 3-D-simulations that help in analysing game situations. The repetition of a game scene is stopped at a desired moment， the image is transformed into a model allowing the presenter to zoom in and out， illustrating from the perspective of the goalkeeper the position of the wall， the free kick taker or the flying ball， approaching by a shot from 25 metres distance. To me it is a mystery how they can convert the 2-D-image into such a 3-D simulation， very impressive.
This goes on all around the clock， you can switch on CCTV 5 at any time of day and night， and you are supplied with all current and less recent news， images， summaries， or even a complete game of the night before.
The quarter-final， Germany vs. Argentina， is watched by 52 million Chinese TV spectators， although it began at 10 o’clock in the evening (local time) and ended at midnight. China was the prime TV-spectators’ nation of this World Cup. The same game had been watched in Germany by nearly 26 million viewers.
I do not know whether there is any other country in the world that features so many (hundreds of millions！) football fans， while both the domestic professional football as the national team earn no interest， but only spitting sarcasm. Of course， the Chinese do in fact want to have a powerful national team， too， but they have – at least at present – given up hope that ever this should come to pass. Which does not diminish their enthusiasm for football！
And then the departure of the Italians， them who this time played unmistakably bad， now even Italy’s toughest hardcore fan from China cannot deny that this country as well does not have a good national team any more！ How depressing， you may need to reorient yourself？
But it is not like that. No one reorients， they go on taking part in everything the World Cup has to offer. On television and the internet everything is shown， analysed， annotated， and compared what may be shown， analysed， -compared and commented：
