Guangzhou Daily reporter Zhang Zhe (right) talks to Cao Yang
Abstract: Behind the success of Meizhou Hakka Chong Chao, what is the password? What positive significance does it mean for the current dilemma facing Professional Football in China?
In the past 13 years, Cao Yang has experienced three successful upgrades: in 2008, he led the Guangdong Rizhiquan team to rush from the middle B to the middle division; in 2015, he witnessed the Meizhou Hakka rush from the middle B to the middle division; this time, he personally helped the Meizhou Hakka rush from the middle division to the Chinese Super League.
In 2008, when Rizhiquan was successful in Chengdu, Cao Yang left a classic moment full of tears. This time, although the team only dramatically completed the rush at the last second, Cao Yang did not shed any more tears after the game.
Cao Yang shed tears after leading the Guangdong Rizhiquan team to a successful first division in 2008.
"To be able to rush overtake, the first most grateful is of course the investor Wei Jinping, although our investment in the past 9 years is not large, but there has never been a salary arrears, which allows the players to have a very stable development environment." Professional football is left stable and is destined to go far. Cao Yang said.
The development of Meizhou Hakka Football Club in the past 9 years can certainly not avoid their investor Wei Jinping.
Wei Jinping is a Wuhua local, and as the chairman of a real estate company, he loves football. At the end of 2012, when he first found Cao Yang, he proposed that his investment in professional football teams was not for fame and fortune, but hoped to contribute to the football cause in his hometown of Wuhua, in response to the call of Meizhou City to revitalize the "hometown of football". Wei Jinping also said that the club he invested in must be home to Wuhua, but not only represents a certain region or company, but represents the "Hakka family", so he hopes that the club will be named "Meizhou Hakka Football Club". Wei Jinping's decision was 8 years earlier than the Chinese Football Association's mandatory stipulation that the names of clubs should be neutralized! After deciding to form a Meizhou Hakka Club to participate in the Chinese Second Division, Wei Jinping invested in the construction of a football training base on the banks of the Qinjiang River in Hedong Town, Wuhua County, so that the club's first team could really take root in the local area and gradually establish its own youth training echelon.
Cao Yang was the general manager of Meizhou Hakka Football Club for 9 years.
As we all know, in the past many years, Chinese professional football has been wrapped up in the "golden yuan" under the leadership of real estate enterprises, and the Chinese Super League teams do not say that they are competing for the championship, and even if they are relegated, they have to invest 700 or 800 million yuan. After Meizhou Hakka Football Club rushed to the Middle League in 2016, the "Golden Yuanhua" of Chinese football at this time was in a climax period, and the Chinese League One team wanted to squeeze into the Chong Chao Group to invest hundreds of millions. Although Wei Jinping is also engaged in the real estate industry, he did not put the same pressure on Cao Yang and the club, and he did not put forward the slogan that he must surpass in a few years. He hopes that Cao Yang will still adopt a strategy of steady development, continuously tap potential internally, cultivate new talents in youth training, introduce cost-effective internal and external assistance, and hire foreign coaches suitable for his own style.
Taking this season as an example, the Meizhou Hakka team has registered 34 players this year, with an average age of 27 years old, and the overall age structure is a very reasonable team in the middle league.
In terms of foreign aid, Cao Yang introduces some extremely cost-effective people every year, such as Jepa, Sanko, John Mari, and Dumbia, who have all served as the Golden Boot of the Chinese League, and then resold or loaned to the Chinese Super League clubs to achieve the result of value-added. In terms of head coaches, Meizhou Hakka has used 5 domestic coaches and 5 foreign coaches in the past 9 years, all of which adhere to the cost-effective route. The Serbian foreign coach Ristic hired by the club this year is a young coach who is only 39 years old, but his coaching resume is very suitable for the team, and he is also very good at youth training and using young players. Cao Yang believes that after several years of exploration, the club has accumulated some experience in the use of foreign players and coaches, and will still stick to it after rushing to overtake.
Meizhou Hakka started in the Chinese Second Division in 2013 and rushed to the Chinese First Division in the 2015 season after three years of struggle. "2015 was the year of the promulgation of the "Overall Plan for the Reform and Development of Chinese Football", and we strengthened the team in that year, hired the old coach Qi Wusheng to live in the mountains, and finally rushed to the middle league, which was the first turning point in our development." Cao Yang, who has been the club's general manager for nine years, said, "After rushing to the middle division, we did not rush to overtake immediately, and only set the goal of stabilizing in the top eight to the top six of the central league. "From 2016 to 2019, Meizhou Hakka team hovered in the ninth to twelfth place in the Chinese League One.
Cao Yang is introducing the planning of Hengpi Football Town.
However, after the first four seasons of the Chinese League One, Meizhou Hakka has obviously driven the popularity of Wuhua, and also allowed the club to continuously improve in hardware and youth training. In 2019, the Wuhua County Government invested 1 billion yuan to build the Wuhua Olympic Sports Center, which has a Huitang football stadium that can accommodate more than 30,000 spectators, and provided Meizhou Hakka as the home of the Chinese League A this season. In 2017, the State General Administration of Sport announced the list of the first batch of pilot projects for sports and leisure towns in the country, and Wuhua Hengpi Football Town became the only selected project featuring football. Hengpi Football Town was also completed in 2019, Meizhou Hakka Club as a whole moved from the old base into the football town, the first team and echelon team live and train here, and also built the Meizhou Hakka Elite Football Academy.
With stable development conditions, Meizhou Hakka jumped to fifth place in the 2020 season in the Chinese League One, achieving the development goal of "striving for the top six" set in 2016. This season, the Chinese First Division has not been affected by the national team, and the entire schedule and format are more reasonable than those of the Chinese Super League, with 18 teams playing 34 rounds. In the four stages of the 34 rounds of the game, the Meizhou Hakka soldiers played steadily all the way and never fell out of the top two positions in the standings. Although the last three rounds of the game suffered two consecutive defeats, the last second of the last round staged a whistle-blowing scene, and finally a thrilling rush to succeed.
"I'm very confident this season, but at the beginning of the season I only set the goal of trying to be in the top four to the players. In terms of investment and strength, we are at a disadvantage comparing the three towns of Wuhan, Chengdu Rongcheng and Zhejiang that proposed to overtake. Especially in the second half of the season, we only had one foreign striker who could play the main force. But we never gave up, and finally being able to overtake at the last minute is also the best reward for our efforts. ”
In addition to being meticulous in terms of reinforcements, Meizhou Hakka Club has also made great efforts in youth training in recent years. They currently invest 10 million yuan in youth training every year and have a multi-level echelon from U13 to U19. The club has established a dragon with sports schools, football characteristic schools and Jiaying College in Meizhou from material selection to training and even sports and education integration. At this year's provincial championship, the Meizhou Hakka Club echelon won the championship in 2 categories. At next year's Provincial Games, Meizhou Hakka Club undertook the formation of four groups of the Meizhou Men's Football Project. At the end of 2020, Meizhou Hakka Football Club also signed a co-construction agreement with the Guangdong Football Association to jointly build the Guangdong Women's Football Team. In the 2021 season, Guangdong Meizhou Hakka Women's Football Team won the third place in the National Women's Football Championship and the fourth place in the National Women's Super League, which is also the best result created by Guangdong Adult Women's Football Since 2002.
Cao Yang in Meizhou Hakka Chong Chao I Battle.
In the past 9 years, the average annual investment of Meizhou Hakka Club has been only in the range of tens of millions. Even if it is overtaken this year, Meizhou Hakka Club has only invested in the first team, youth training and women's football team to only about 100 million yuan. The hardware construction of Hengpi Football Town is mainly invested by Wei Jinping, and it is currently operated by his operation company. In addition to supporting the office of Meizhou Hakka Club, the life and training of the first team and the youth training system, in the past two years, the town has undertaken various domestic and provincial key football events such as the China League One, the Chinese Champions League, the FA Cup, the Governor's Cup, and the Xiaojia A Challenge. Although the impact of the epidemic this year is serious, the revenue of the town to undertake the competition can still reach about 80 million yuan.
Cao Yang said: "The town has now started the second phase of construction, the completion is expected to be more than 4,000 acres, a hotel is under construction, the future will also build a series of supporting facilities such as resorts. Since the town has helped the club, the team and the echelon to take root here, guaranteeing the quality conditions of training, and at the same time solving some problems for the operation of the club, this is one of our most important successes at present. ”
From the former coaching of Guangdong Rizhiquan to the present, Cao Yang has long been committed to the cultivation and exploration of local players in Guangdong. In the past nine years, he has basically brought some capable Guangdong players from clubs inside and outside Guangdong Province to his command. In this year's registered lineup, there are 9 Guangdong local players, accounting for almost half of the main lineup of Chongchao. Lu Lin, Liu Sheng, Hou Yu, Shi Liang, Yang Bin, Ge Zhen and others all played in the Sun Springs team in that year, and they all played an important role in the Meizhou Hakka family's rush to overtake this year.
The 36-year-old veteran Lu Lin transferred to Meizhou Hakka from Guangzhou City this year and is the oldest player in the Meizhou Hakka squad. Lu Lin completed the chong overtake for Guangzhou twice in 2007 and 2010, becoming the Guangdong player who participated in the most times. After the success of the Meizhou Hakka super, Lu Lin couldn't help but burst into tears of excitement on the spot, he said that he had experienced several times of overtaking, and this time his feelings were the most complicated, because he was likely to retire next year.
Captain Shi Liang is a Hakka native player and a representative of the original Sun Spring in the 1989 and 1990 generations who still insisted on being in the professional arena. After starting to transfer to Guizhou Renhe in 2013, he has worked hard with the team in the Chinese Super League and the Chinese First Division over the years, and he feels that he can now represent meizhou Hakka to rush to the top. Hou Yu is the only player in the Meizhou Hakka Club squad who has experienced all 9 years. As the main goalkeeper of this year's team, Hou Yu said that he is very happy to realize his dream for many years.
The 26-year-old Liang Xueming has taken the first place in the list of local top scorers in the Chinese League one this season. He said that since his debut in 2014, he has always wanted to develop into the platform of the Chinese Super League, and has since traveled to Guizhou and Beiti University, but has always been rolling in the level of the Chinese First Division. "This year I am in good shape, my luck is good, I have scored more goals, which is related to the coach's tactical arrangement and the support of my teammates in the whole team. Now that I am in the year of playing, playing in the Chinese Super League at this time is very helpful for my future development. He said. Meizhou Hakka registered 7 U23 players this year, of which Chen Guokang, who has been playing the main role of U23 players on the field, is Chen Guokang, who was born in 1999. Chen Guokang's technical characteristics have maintained the delicacy of Guangdong players, and he and Guo Tianyu are the main players of the 1999 national youth team and are likely to participate in the Asian Games next year.
Cao Yang said: "The failure of Rizhiquan to rush to the final disband did affect the life trend of the generation of Guangdong players born in 1989 and 1990. So from the beginning of the establishment of Meizhou Hakka Club, I hope to use the team to create a platform for Guangdong professional players. Guangdong players have always been the main body in our team, with the same voice, and there are no big players. The success of this year's rush to surpass is very much related to the atmosphere of unity and mutual assistance created by this group of Guangdong players. With the exception of the older individual players, I hope they will be able to retain them next year and their abilities can adapt to the Chinese Super League. Of course, young Guangdong players should further improve their hardness in terms of game temperament. ”
After the success of Meizhou Hakka, the Meizhou Municipal Government will give the club a reward of 20 million yuan, and the Wuhua County Government will also give certain rewards. However, for the Chinese Super League, Cao Yang said that it is inevitable to increase investment in various positions to introduce reinforcements and strengthen strength, so there is still a lot of pressure on investors. "Our primary goal in the Shanghai Super League is to stand firm, and I hope that the next investors and the Meizhou city and Wuhua county governments can reach an agreement on the club's share reform plan as soon as possible and establish a benign development model." At present, we do not know the format of next year, if the home and away games are resumed, I will put half of the home stadium in Meizhou City and half in Wuhua, hoping to pull more commercial cooperation resources. At the same time, we also hope that through the platform of the Chinese Super League, more youth training resources in the province can be attracted to further strengthen our hematopoietic function. ”
Photo/Guangzhou Daily, Xinhuacheng Reporter: Zhang Zhe