Storm
On July 27, 2021, at the Yokohama International Arena in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, the last match of the Olympic women's F group F team Against the Netherlands began.
This stadium is a stadium with experience, 19 years ago, Brazil defeated the Germanic chariot here to win the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, and the Chinese women's football team also left an embarrassing record here - 2:8 defeat to the Netherlands, in the Olympic games without a goal and faint out. July 2021 is undoubtedly the darkest day of Chinese women's football.
In fact, throughout the Olympic cycle, the Chinese women's football team is not calm, the qualifiers have been delayed again and again due to the epidemic, the address has been changed again and again, the female footballers have even been forced to train in the narrow corridors of the isolated hotel for 9 days, and the play-offs against South Korea although the victory is not easy; the pre-Olympic roster has aroused questions from the outside world, a large number of inexperienced young players have applied for the game and many veterans have not been able to get to Tokyo.
The Chinese women's football team trains in the corridors of the hotel
Rumors of the women's soccer team using the Olympics to train troops for the National Games have been rife, adding a lot of tension to the young team. The party was like a trembling carriage in a storm, not knowing which new straw would be the last.
No one could have imagined that the Chinese women's football team would play so badly. In the last Olympic Games (Rio de Janeiro 2016), the Chinese women's football team lost only one game against Brazil (olympic fourth place), Sweden (Olympic silver medal) and South Africa, scoring 4 points, even in the knockout rounds, the 2016 champion, Germany, only lost one goal, in just five years, the Chinese women's football team fell to the bottom.
The Chinese women's football team lost to the champion team Germany in the Olympic knockout rounds
Overwhelming criticism and fierce questioning are pouring in, and the pressure is not only on the players of the Chinese Football Association and women's football team, but also on the next women's football manager who is still undecided.
On the afternoon of October 8, 2021, only three months before the Asian Cup, the Chinese Football Association issued a notice of the selection of the head coach of the women's national football team, the application time is until the 12th, and the interview is set for Beijing from the 15th to the 16th.
There were 6 people participating in the interview, namely: Liu Lin, coach of Wuhan Chedujiang University, Wang Jun, coach of the U20 women's national football team, Zhao Junzhe, former international footballer Zhao Junzhe, former coach of the U16 women's national football team Chen Wanting, former coach of women's football Zhang Haitao and Liu Huana, coach of Shaanxi women's football team.
However, when the letter of appointment of the Chinese Football Association was issued on November 18, the selection results shocked everyone, and the final winner was Shui Qingxia, an old women's football international who did not participate in the selection work at all.
Men's football star Zhao Junzhe was once considered a popular candidate for the new coach of women's football
A player of the Women's Football Witness
For fans familiar with Chinese women's football, the name "Shui Qingxia" is not unfamiliar, because she is a real witness to women's football that accompanies Chinese women's football from beginning to end.
Shui Qingxia did not start in the football industry, but focused on long jump and pentathlon, and at that time, The Chinese women's football team was just a local "spark", and had not yet formed a women's football system and competition.
However, the spark could ignite, and soon the women's football trend spread to all parts of the country, and in 1981, the first national women's football competition appeared.
When Shui Qingxia was a teenager, there was no "Chinese women's football team"
Since 1981, the national attack has swept up the wave of women's football, and Shui Qingxia was also transferred from the athletics team to the football team of the Shanghai Junior Sports School in 1983, where she officially started her football career.
In the quadruple dormitory of Shanghai Junior Sports School, Shui Qingxia lived for fifteen years.
In 1984, the Shanghai women's football team was established, and Shui Qingxia, who was only 18 years old, joined as the first batch of players, and has been the absolute main force of this team since then, of course, in the following decades, Shui Qingxia has also been one of the best female football players in China.
Sun Wen, a famous football player, is also the descendant of Shui Qingxia
In 1986, just two years after its establishment, the Chinese women's national football team participated in the Asian Cup for the first time (then also called the Asian Women's Football Championship), and Shui Qingxia participated with the team and won the Asian Cup in one fell swoop, which was Shui Qingxia's first championship Gold Cup and the first Gold Cup of Chinese women's football.
Later, in the 1989 Asian Cup and the 1991 Asian Cup, Shui Qingxia participated in the team and won three consecutive Asian Cups.
The Chinese women's football team set a record for consecutive championships in the Women's Asian Cup
In 1991, Shui Qingxia was no longer satisfied with the achievements she had made in China, and planned to stay abroad to see the football culture of foreign countries.
In 1992, Shui Qingxia, who had been running on the green field for 9 years, joined the Japanese Pulima football team and became one of the first female footballers in China to stay in the West, when she was only 26 years old.
Unfortunately, this time liuyang was not very successful, and in February 1993, during a match against the men's team, Shui Qingxia suffered a serious fracture and had to undergo a nail internal fixation, which made her temporarily bid farewell to the stadium.
After recuperating, Shui Qingxia returned to the mother team Shanghai Women's Football Team and returned to the collective dormitory of the juvenile sports school. In September of the same year, she made a comeback and represented Shanghai at the Beijing National Games.
Shui Qingxia, who had just recovered from injury, participated in the competition of the 7th National Games
In 1994, Shui Returned to the national team and competed in the 12th Asian Games in Hiroshima, Japan that same year, scoring two goals in five minutes in the first match against Chinese Taipei, showing her still strong dominance on the pitch after injury.
At this Asian Games, the Chinese women's football team won the gold medal. The following year, at the 1995 Asian Cup, Shui Qingxia helped the national football team win the championship. In the 1997 Asian Cup, Shui Qingxia once again helped the national football team win the championship, so far, the Chinese women's football team has participated in the Asian Cup in 1986, six consecutive times, all won the championship, without losing a hand, is the well-deserved first women's football team in Asia.
At that time, the Chinese women's football team was deservedly the first in Asia
In November 1998, Mizu Keikashi went to Japan again to stay in Japan and scored 11 goals in the Japan Women's Football League, ranking sixth in the top scorer list. However, her second trip to the West was also full of regrets, and the following year, Japan issued a ban on foreign aid in the women's football league, and she was once again forced to return to the Shanghai women's football team.
In Shui Qingxia's football life, the most surprising thing is her long sports lifespan, among the female football players who are generally younger in retirement age, Shui Qingxia has developed her physical functions to the limit.
At that time, Chinese football had the so-called "12-point run" assessment, and the 32-year-old Shui Qingxia could still achieve a good result of 2950 meters in the assessment, while the men's football players Cai Sheng, Gao Hongbo and others had lost the qualification for the A-League because the "12-point run" could not reach 2900 meters.
Gao Hongbo (first from the left), a famous player in the national football team, was unable to pass the "12-point run" assessment
Of course, football is not a simple long-distance running sport, and the "12-point running" system is not a scientific football player assessment system, but it can indeed be used as a symbol of an athlete's physical state.
In April 2000, Shui Qingxia was selected for the national team again, and at the age of 34, she became the oldest member of the National Team of Chinese Women's Football.
From 2000 to 2001, the Shanghai women's football team led by Shui Qingxia won four championships in the national league, championship, super league and super league, becoming the only "Grand Slam" team in the history of mainland women's football and winning the 2001 Guangdong National Games championship. At this time, Shui Qingxia had already won all the championships she could win, and her merit was complete, and she announced her retirement.
Throughout her playing career, Shui Qingxia is one of the best strikers in China
Coach of women's football witness
Shui Qingxia was born in Funing, Jiangsu Province, but Shanghai is also her hometown. In addition to two short trips to Japan to stay in the Ocean, Shui Qingxia's nearly two decades of football life have basically been spent in Shanghai.
After retiring from the army, she remained in Shanghai as the coach of the youth team in Shanghai.
Shui Qingxia spends most of her football time in Shanghai
In 2004, Shui Qingxia was appointed coach of the Chinese youth women's football team, a position she worked for five years, until the 2009 National Games, she returned to Shanghai as the young women's football coach, and in November 2011 led the team to win the U17 Women's Football Championship. This is the first championship won by coach Shui Qingxia.
Shui Qingxia is a very down-to-earth coach, since 2001 to the coaching position, she has been working in the national or local youth training department for 10 years, it should be said that she is very familiar with the youth training status, industry framework and atmosphere culture of the entire Chinese women's football team.
Since 2013, Shui Qingxia has served as the first team coach of Shanghai Women's Football Team, officially starting the peak of her coaching career:
Won the Women's Football Championship in December 2014, won the FA Cup in March 2015, won the Women's Super League in November...
Behind the dizzying championship trophy, Water Coach himself won the Best Coach of the Women's Super League in 2015 and 2016, and the Best Coach of the 2017 Women's Football Championship.
The success of the Shanghai women's football team is inseparable from Shui Qingxia
After more than ten years of dormant women's youth team and four years of coaching experience in the first team, Shui Qingxia has fully qualified to coach the national team.
Since 2017, Shui Qingxia has twice participated in the competition for the manager of women's football, but unfortunately lost to Icelandic foreign coach Sieg Eyolsson and Jia Xiuquan.
The two unsuccessful campaigns may be the reason behind Shui Qingxia's reluctance to participate in the manager competition again in 2021.
Shui Qingxia lost her first bid to Sieg Eyorsson
Shui Qingxia did write a miracle.
According to the world women's football rankings issued by FIFA, The Chinese women's football team ranks 19th in the world, and only ranks fifth in Asia, after North Korea, Australia, Japan, south Korea, even if it is a stable state of Chinese women's football, we dare not guarantee that it can win the championship, not to mention that this women's football team has just returned from the Olympic Games and is in an unprecedented depressed atmosphere.
However, Shui Qingxia was able to re-assemble this team in just over two months in the face of the storm of the competition and build it into a champion division.
The ranking of Chinese women's football is not optimistic
Shui Qingxia's employment is "informal" and "not looking at the origin", her team includes Tang Jiali, who plays at Tottenham Hotspur, and Wang Shanshan and Zhang Linyan, who play in the Chinese second-tier league, but such a team has a strong cohesion, and even Lou Jiahui, a right-back who started her coaching career in Henan women's football, quickly left her job and returned to the line of fire.
These people have become the key figures in winning the Asian Cup.
Shui Qingxia's many god substitutions in the final arena are amazing. In fact, behind the surface of all the "god substitutions" is a coach's clear insight into the situation on the field and the ultimate understanding of the characteristics of his players.
Without one of these two points, it is impossible for "God to change people." It should be said that Water Guidance proves the results of his two decades of coaching career.
Zhang Linyan, from the second division, is only 21 years old, but she has played an unusually important role
epilogue
Shui Qingxia is a legendary footballer whose football career is firmly tied to the Chinese women's football team.
She is a member of the first Asian Cup women's football team, witnessing the Chinese women's football team from inception to maturity, she is also the coach of the Chinese women's football team to regain the Asian championship, witnessing the misfortune of the Chinese women's football team from peak to decline and the hardships of its re-emergence.
Of course, we respect and praise water guidance. However, if the Chinese women's football team in this Asian Cup has a poor record (which is theoretically possible), how will we view this team and last year's "competition closed"? And will this become a whirlpool that will involve Chinese football in another vicious circle?
In this Asian Cup, The Chinese women's tenacious perseverance defeated the Japanese team and the South Korean team, but compared with Japanese football and Korean football, the mainland still has a long way to go.
I hope that Chinese football people, players, coaches, technicians, media personnel, fans and all other football participants can unite and move forward together in the new year.