by Marzia De Giuli

ROME Cheap Sean Rodriguez Jersey , Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's attendance at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games highlights strengthening of Sino-Russian ties in a globalized world where China plays a growing role, Italian experts told Xinhua on Friday.

"Xi's presence in Sochi should be especially evaluated considering some evident absences," said Aldo Ferrari, director of the Caucasus and Central Asia Program at Milan-based Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI).

Ferrari noted that several heads of Western states were missing there while the Chinese president was attending the ceremony.

The visit of the Chinese president to Russia, his first foreign destination of a year for the second time and also the first attendance by a Chinese president at a major overseas sports event, underlined that Sino-Russian ties and reciprocal support were going through a "positive stage," Ferrari said.

Ferrari said the two countries shared some "common aspects" in their foreign policies, starting from "the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs."

He believed that cooperation between China and Russia, two global powers, "will continue in the next decades."

Lucio Caracciolo, director of Italian influential geopolitical magazine Limes, said the relations between China and Russia, though amid cultural differences, have strengthened over the past couple of years, "with the political intention to overcome ancient prejudices and stereotypes."

"At the global level, China needs Russia and Russia needs China," Caracciolo said.

The two countries especially share the same idea of "national sovereignty," or the supreme power by which an independent state is governed, Caracciolo added, agreeing with Ferrari that both the countries believe in the principle of "non-interference."

Valdo Ferretti, professor of East Asia History at Sapienza University of Rome, underlined that Sochi was an important occasion for China to improve its image as a pacific and fast developing country in the world.

He called Xi's presence in Sochi "a notable step" to reassure neighboring countries that China's economic development and friendly foreign policy are also for the goodness of other powers in the world.

"I believe that China can play a role to keep stability in East Asia and be a reference point for balance at the global level," Ferretti said.

While preserving its own economic interests, he added, "China can also help other countries in the world to improve their conditions and pursue common development and peace."

" The 2015 Asian Cup's official mascot Nutmeg the wombat poses at Wild Life Sydney Zoo on November 11 in Sydney. Photo: CFP

Football was once sneered at in Australia as a game played mainly by immigrants but it cemented its rise from a minority sport to an established pastime when the Asian Cup started this week.

In times past, lovers of football could find themselves insulted and attacked in a country where the rugby codes, Australian rules and cricket dominate the sporting landscape.

But international successes and a vastly improved domestic scene have been behind football's steady ascent in Australia, capped with the 16-nation Asian Cup starting on Friday.

Soccer is now more readily -associated with standout moments like Tim Cahill's sublime strike at last year's World Cup, or Western Sydney Wanderers winning the 2014 Asian Champions League.

Sheilas, wogs and poofters

Traditional attitudes to football are summed up by the title of influential ex-player and broadcaster Johnny -Warren's 2002 book Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters.

""Wogs"" is a racial insult applied to immigrants, mainly from southern European countries like Greece, who arrived in waves in the years following World War II.

""'Sheilas,' 'wogs' and 'poofters' were considered the second-class citizens of the day and if you played soccer, you were considered one of them,"" explained Warren, who died in 2004.

""That's how soccer was regarded back then and, to some extent, still is today.""

Debate remains lively over whether the sport should retain its formerly preferred name of ""soccer,"" to avoid clashing with rugby league and -Australian rules, both proudly known as ""football.""

Soccer in fact has deep roots in Australia, with reports of games as far back as the 1830s, and the first match played under the official Laws of the Game taking place in Sydney in 1880.

But rugby was then the game of choice in colonial power Britain, a preference which helped push football in Australia to the -margins, despite its early successes.

So while football flourished across the globe, there was little being played in Australia until the post-war migrants arrived from Europe and took root in the country.

""When I was at primary school in the 1970s, kids like myself - who decided to kick a soccer ball around their streets and in the schoolyard - were ridiculed, mocked and beaten up,"" wrote Nick -Giannopoulos, star of Australia's Wog Boy -comedies, in 2006.

""Not a week would go by when some kid would come up to us and tell us that if we were Aussies then we should be playing footy and not that 'wogball.'""

Improving Socceroos

Despite ambivalence toward the game, Australia reached their first World Cup in 1974, exiting at the group stage, but they would have to wait 32 years before making a triumphant return in 2006.

Goals from Cahill, John Aloisi, Craig Moore and Harry Kewell took the Socceroos into the quarterfinals in Germany, where they were undone by a controversial last-gasp penalty against eventual winners Italy.

Despite the cruel defeat, it was a campaign that ignited football interest in Australia, also spurred on by the resurrection of the domestic game by Football Federation Australia (FFA).

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