We had duck’s head, duck’s eyes, chicken feet and a lot of bats,” Gascoigne said in the book “Gazza: My Story”. It fitted a Western stereotype of life in China – strange food, strange language, and strange environment. But China – and Chinese football – has come a long way since the early 2000s on the back of a booming economy, now the world’s second-largest after the United States. Well-known foreign players enjoy a pampered life in China, with plush homes and interpreters to help on and off the pitch. “You have to be really open-minded and really understanding and patient,” he said, “if you want to have any chance of surviving.”

Source: Pakistan Today February 10, 2018 10:30 UTC