Supporters cite Aguilar’s long history of working on Indigenous rights, while critics say that more recently he’s helped push the governing party’s agenda, including former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s massive infrastructure projects, at the expense of Indigenous communities. Aguilar’s team said he would not comment until after official results were confirmed.
“What are we best at? Dogma,” Wang wrote in a blog last year. “But football cannot be dogmatic. What are we worst at? Inspiring ingenuity, and cultivating passion.”The latest chapter in China’s abysmal men’s soccer history was a 7-0 loss last year to geopolitical rival
“The fact that this defeat can happen and people aren’t that surprised — despite the historical animosity — just illustrates the problems facing football in China,” says Cameron Wilson, a Scot who has worked in China for 20 years and written extensively about the game there.China has qualified for only one men’s World Cup. That was 2002 when it went scoreless and lost all three matches. Soccer’s governing body FIFA places China at No. 94 in its rankings — behind war-torn Syria and ahead of No. 95 Benin.Japan’s Takumi Minamino and China’s Liu Yangyi compete for the ball during a World Cup and AFC Asian Qualifier between Japan and China at Saitama Stadium 2002 in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama, File)
Japan’s Takumi Minamino and China’s Liu Yangyi compete for the ball during a World Cup and AFC Asian Qualifier between Japan and China at Saitama Stadium 2002 in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama, File)is the smallest country to reach the World Cup. Its latest population estimate is almost 400,000.
The website Soccerway tracks global football and doesn’t show a single Chinese player in a top European league. The national team’s best player is forward Wu Lei, who played for three seasons in Spain’s La Liga for Espanyol. The club’s majority owner in Chinese.
will have a field of 48 teams, a big increase on the 32 in 2022, yet China still might not make it.A scroll of the Virgin Mary and Jesus once secretly worshipped hangs at a home in Ikitsuki Island in Hirado, southern Japan, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A scroll of the Virgin Mary and Jesus once secretly worshipped hangs at a home in Ikitsuki Island in Hirado, southern Japan, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)Now, though, the Hidden Christians are dying out, and there is growing certainty that their unique version of Christianity will die with them. Almost all are now elderly, and as the young move away to cities or turn their backs on the faith, those remaining are desperate to preserve evidence of this offshoot of Christianity — and convey to the world what its loss will mean.
“At this point, I’m afraid we are going to be the last ones,” said Masatsugu Tanimoto, 68, one of the few who can still recite the Latin chants that his ancestors learned 400 years ago. “It is sad to see this tradition end with our generation.”Christianity spread rapidly in 16th century Japan when Jesuit priests had spectacular success converting warlords and peasants alike, most especially on the southern main island of Kyushu, where the foreigners established trading ports in Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands, by some estimates, embraced the religion.