On December 7, Beijing time, the 2021 NCAA Women's Football Final was held between Florida State University and Brigham Young University. After 120 minutes of fierce fighting, the two teams fought 0-0, and the match entered a penalty shootout. After four rounds, the two teams each scored three penalties, and in the fifth round, Brigham Young University missed a penalty, and Zhao Yujie, a Chinese player who appeared in the fifth round of Florida State University, stepped forward and helped the team win the final championship. The girl, who entered the List of Chinese Women's Football at the age of 16, is making great strides towards her dream.
In 1999, Sonorous Rose finished runners-up in the U.S. Women's World Cup and reached the pinnacle of Chinese women's football history. It was also this year that a little girl named Zhao Yujie was born in Shanghai, the hometown of Sun Wen, the leader of Chinese women's football at that time. Zhao Yujie grew up in an intellectual family, and her father, who worked at the university, always hoped that his daughter would study well and go to a good university like many girls. However, Zhao Yujie has formed an indissoluble fate with football. When Zhao Yujie was still in kindergarten, Qian Huilai, known as the "godmother of Shanghai women's football", picked up good seedlings at the kindergarten and fell in love with Zhao Yujie, a "false boy". After that, Zhao Yujie entered Jinshajiang Road Primary School and began to contact football. For Zhao Yujie to take the road of playing football, her parents have been in conflict. During elementary school, Zhao's father would ask Qian Hui every once in a while if the child wanted to continue to kick. After graduating from primary school, Zhao Yujie wanted to enter the municipal sports school to continue practicing football, and at first her parents were firmly opposed, but finally agreed to let her play for a year to try. A year later, Zhao Yujie still insisted on playing football, and her parents finally couldn't help her and agreed to let Zhao Yujie practice the ball steadily, and this decision finally made Zhao Yujie a supernova of the Chinese women's football team.
With the gradual burst of football talent, Zhao Yujie grew rapidly and quickly became the core figure of Shanghai Youth Women's Football. Since then, she has been selected for the Chinese women's football team of all ages, from U13 to U15, and she is the captain of the national team. At the beginning of 2016, Zhao Yujie, who was not yet 17 years old at the time, was selected for the training roster of the Chinese women's football team and became an international footballer.
It is worth mentioning that Zhao Yujie did not forget to learn while practicing. In the year of the middle school entrance examination, Zhao Yujie did not use sports extra points, and the "naked examination" broke through the high school score line. In 2018, after experiencing the high school graduation exam and the college single-stroke exam, Zhao Yujie initially aimed at domestic colleges and universities such as Beijing Normal University, Beijing Sports University and Shanghai University of Sport. At this time, she asked gao hong, the coach of her junior high school and former Chinese women's football goalkeeper. Gao Hong, who once stayed in the United States, pointed out a way for Zhao Yujie: Why not apply to a University in the United States? Playing in the American Collegiate League (NCAA) can improve the level of football and make achievements in school.
Image from the Florida State University website
After listening to Gao Hong's opinion, Zhao Yujie began to work in the direction of Liu Yang. She wrote application letters to four U.S. universities at the time. Florida State University has always maintained great interest in Zhao Yujie. The school's women's football coach Mark is a veteran coach who has coached the Philadelphia Stormtroopers, and Liu Ailing and Zhao Lihong, the golden generation of Chinese women's football, have both played under him. Mark is very interested in Zhao Yujie, who has a good level of playing and English. When introducing Zhao Yujie to Mark, Gao Hong described Zhao Yujie's playing style as more like Sun Wen when she was younger, with no advantage in body and speed, and winning by playing with her head. At the same time, Zhao Yujie also took advantage of the gap between competition and training to pass the ACT (American College Entrance Examination) and TOEFL exams.
In this way, Zhao Yujie came to Florida State University, and at the same time she also got a full scholarship, and her good English skills made her integration very smooth. In the 2018 season, Zhao Yujie helped the University of Florida win the NCAA championship, and she also became the best rookie of the season. This season, Florida State once again lifted the NCAA championship trophy, and Zhao Yujie, who contributed 5 goals and 9 assists this season, won the league's best offensive player award.
Zhao Yujie is only 22 years old this year, her future is full of infinite possibilities, and her growth path can also be regarded as one of the excellent cases of the development of young athletes in China. While practicing football in China, it is also necessary to lay a good foundation of cultural knowledge and foreign languages, so that you can come to the university of the developed countries at the women's football level by obtaining a scholarship, where you can study while playing football, so that staying in the west, I believe that for many young players, it is a choice that can "fish and bear paws".