On January 9, 2022, the eyes of all Chinese fans were focused on the Phoenix Mountain Stadium in Chengdu. In this FA Cup final, Shandong Taishan won the 2021 Chinese FOOTBALL Association Cup with Jia Desong's world wave goal win over Shanghai Harbor 1-0.
This is the second title that Taishan has won after the Chinese Super League this season, and it is also the third time in the history of Taishan to win the "double champion". Recall that the last time Tarzan won the "double", it was fifteen years ago.
Among the 17 local players who played in the first team of Shandong Taishan this season, 11 are from the Luneng youth training system, and the coaching team members Han Peng, Zhou Haibin, Jiao Zhe and others are also excellent talents of Luneng Football School. Looking at the entire Chinese football scene, this season, 121 Luneng youth players have signed up to participate in the Chinese Super League, Chinese First Division, and Chinese Second Division Professional League.
If a large part of Taishan's achievements this season are due to the team's stable investment, then the steady development of youth training has laid a solid foundation for this Taishan team. In the past few years, the Golden Dollar Football School has been popular, Taishan Team and Luneng Football School have not forgotten their original intentions, silently cultivated youth training, and the current achievements are also the best feedback for everything in the past.
Feeling nostalgic for the present day, we are seeking development in the beginning
01
Positioning is high
In 1999, Luneng Football School was officially established on the site of the former Weifang Fangzi Power Plant. At the beginning of the establishment of the school, there was only one football field in the whole school, which was also the original appearance of Luneng Football School.
"We want to run the best football school." When this sonorous and powerful slogan was shouted out at the beginning of the school, most people were not optimistic about the future development of the school. According to Kang Jianxing, then principal of Luneng Football School, "At that time, when we went out to study, many units felt that we were engaged in electricity and it was impossible to do a good job in football. "As a result, more than 20 years have passed, and Luneng Football School has long become the leader of Chinese football youth training.
At the end of 1999, on the recommendation of the then Taishan head coach Santraz, the former Yugoslav head coach Kokovic came to Luneng Football School as the head coach, which was also the first time that the domestic football school hired a foreign head coach.
Cocovic's initial situation in Shandong was not smooth, and his kind and relaxed coaching style was far from the concept of "strict teachers out of high apprentices" in everyone's mind, which also made him controversial. It wasn't until the summer of 2000, after Cocović led the U17 team to win the first championship since the founding of luneng football school, that people slowly accepted his coaching philosophy.
The arrival of Cocovic not only brought advanced football experience to the team, but also undertook the task of cultivating coaches for Luneng Football School, and provided advanced development concepts for Luneng Football School, which is also the case with the "Weifang Cup".
The biggest gap between China and Europe in youth training stems from the lack of high-level competition experience of domestic teams, which greatly limits the development of Chinese players. In order to alleviate this problem, in 2006, Luneng Football School borrowed from the "Toulon Cup" to create the "Weifang Cup", which was also the first international youth football competition held in China.
The original idea for creating the tournament came from a group of school leaders such as Kang Jianxing. At that time, after research, the school leaders believed that the players needed a high-quality competition stage, which not only allowed the players to experience the atmosphere of professional football earlier, but also allowed the players to get close to the youth training of advanced football countries. However, due to various objective factors of the school, the "Weifang Cup" has not been implemented until 2006, when the school was upgraded and had better conditions for running competitions and accommodation, and the "Weifang Cup" was finally formed.
So far, the "Weifang Cup" has been successfully held for thirteen times, including many giants such as Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Boca Youth.
02
Wide layout
In 2009, Luneng Football School decided to establish a nationwide football off-campus talent transfer base to find as many players as possible with football talent. At the end of that year, the school held a cooperation signing ceremony with The West Sixth Road Primary School in Zhangdian District, Zibo, and the West Sixth Road Primary School became the first off-campus talent transportation base established by Luneng Football School, which also kicked off the prelude to Luneng Football School's construction of its own material selection network.
Up to now, the number of talent transfer bases outside Luneng Youth Training has reached 38. Luneng Football School makes full use of its own advantages to provide a complete set of training equipment and training equipment for the football talent base. At the same time, Luneng Football School will also establish a regular communication mechanism with the contracted schools, and regularly organize and hold training courses for base coaches to create a communication platform between the two sides.
The establishment of the football off-campus talent transfer base not only broadens the selection channels of Luneng Youth Training, improves the level of campus football coaches, but also further fulfills the social responsibility of Luneng Youth Training, especially helps the development of football in old, young, border and poor areas, and provides great help for the popularization and development of youth football in the country.
Although there are many excellent players from Luneng Football School in the domestic league, being able to cultivate Chinese players who go global has always been the constant goal of Luneng's youth training. In order to achieve this goal, Luneng Football School has adhered to the path of international training in the past few years and established a deep cooperation model with developed football countries such as Brazil and Portugal.
In 2013, Luneng Youth Training launched a plan for young people to stay in Portugal for training, and Guo Tianyu, Liu Yang and others who have shined in the Chinese Super League this season are all members of this plan. In 2014, the construction plan of the Brazilian youth training base was launched, and in July, the unveiling ceremony of the Luneng Brazilian Sports Center was held in the city of Happy Harbor in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Luneng Brazil Sports Center is also the first overseas youth training base owned by Chinese football clubs with independent property rights and independent operation. In the following years, Luneng Football School sent its players to Brazil, Spain and other places for integrated training every year.
03
Professional
In the more than 20 years since its establishment, Luneng Football School has achieved leapfrog development from scratch and from existence to strength in school construction, which has also provided strong support for the professional, international and integrated development of Luneng Youth Training.
In terms of hardware, the school's stadium has changed from a sandy field in the early days of the school to 24 professional football fields today, including both natural grass courts and artificial grass courts certified by FIFA.
In training, players wear GPS smart devices, and coaches make targeted adjustments based on the feedback provided by smart devices. At the same time, the application of big data has also provided great help for the school in the selection of scouting materials, player evaluation, injury prevention and other aspects.
After a long period of attempts, Luneng Youth Training has been fully optimized in terms of material selection mechanism, and has gradually changed from relying on experience to professional, data-based and modeled, and the selection of materials is more scientific. At the same time, the scope of material selection is expanded, and the coverage of material selection can reach more than 30 regions in the country.
From the establishment of the school to the present, Luneng Football School has insisted on hiring coaches from developed countries in European and American football as head coaches or youth training directors, and strives to pass on the world's advanced football concept to the players. On June 1, 2021, Simon officially became the technical director of Luneng Youth Training, which is also the first technical director trained by Luneng Youth Training itself.
Everything for the sake of children is the policy of Luneng Football School. In order to allow the players to develop healthily, the school adheres to the concept of "going hand in hand with culture and sports" while paying close attention to training. The reason why Luneng Football School insists on educating players in cultural classes is because it always believes that students should not only have football in their hearts, but also have a life.
Benchmarking first-class explores the future in practice
The results achieved by the first team this season are the best illustration of the efforts that Luneng has made in the past. After entering a new development cycle, Luneng Football School will also face its own problems, optimize the idea of running a school, and strive to align itself with the world-class youth training institutions.
Optimize the construction of "two teams"
Optimize the construction of the coaching team, increase the personnel allocation of relevant positions, do a good job in the survival of the fittest of coaches, raise the entry threshold and selection criteria for coaches, continue to carry out tactical periodic coach training, and cultivate coaches who can truly implement the unified competition concept and style of Luneng youth training and implement Luneng youth training culture.
Optimize the structure of the player team, improve the psychological and physical quality of the players, strengthen the personal basic skills and personal abilities of the 9-12-year-old players, and make it a consensus to improve the basic technical level of the players in the young age group.
"Highly integrated" strategy
Strengthen the regular business communication and exchanges between football schools and clubs, form an integration in many aspects such as system, style and concept, and improve the level of Luneng youth training in an all-round way.
Optimize the material selection system
Optimize the selection network, expand the territory of material selection, in accordance with the principle of "on-demand introduction of talents, merit-based admission", highlight the introduction of missing position players, take the initiative to contact football project schools and excellent youth training institutions in all regions of the country, develop units with higher youth training levels to become off-campus talent bases, and actively invite outstanding teams to participate in the "Luneng Cup" National Children's Invitational Tournament to ensure the selection and introduction of high-quality seedling team members.
04
Enhance teaching work
Revise the multi-dimensional student evaluation plan, explore the psychological state of current physical education students, find the direction of management, and form a student training model with the characteristics of combining sports and education.
After fifteen years of double crowns, it has written a strong mark in the history of clubs and football schools. But we also know that in order to become a world-class youth training institution and cultivate its own top players, Luneng Youth Training still has a long way to go. Luneng Football School will continue to develop steadily under the leadership of Shandong Taishan Football Club, continue to send talents for Shandong football and Chinese football, and contribute to the construction of Shandong Taishan Centennial Club and Chinese football to the world.