The China national football team (Chinese: 中国国家足球队; pinyin: Zhōngguó Guójiā Zúqiú Duì), recognized as China PR by FIFA, is the national association football team of the People's Republic of China and is governed by the Chinese Football Association. The team is colloquially referred to as "Team China" (中国队), the "National Team" (国家队) or "Guózú" (国足, short for 国家足球, which means "national football").
The team was founded in 1924 in the Republic of China and joined FIFA in 1931. Following the Chinese Civil War, the CFA was formed in the newly founded People's Republic of China. They remained affiliated with FIFA until 1958, when they withdrew, but they rejoined in 1979. After the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom in 1997, and Macau from Portugal in 1999, these two special administrative regions have continued to have their own teams, which play as "Hong Kong" and "Macau, China", respectively.
China has won the East Asian Cup twice in 2005 and 2010, they have been runners-up at the Asian Cup twice in 1984 and 2004. Although China failed to score a goal in their maiden FIFA World Cup appearance in 2002, losing all their matches, just qualifying for the tournament has been considered the greatest accomplishment in their football history.
Though modern football lacks a long history in China, there were over 250 million viewers for the 2004 AFC Asian Cup Final, the largest single-event sports audience in the country's history at that time.
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(Nanjing, China)