Football is the undisputed world's first sport, but also the Chinese's most beloved sport, although the national football results are a mess, but the national football team has the best fans in the world, no matter how unsatisfactory the national football results, Chinese fans always support the national football team as always.
In fact, not only are there many people around us who are football fans, but Also Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, He Long, Chen Yi, Deng Xiaoping and other founding fathers are football fans.
Among these founding fathers, the most hardcore football fans are none other than Marshal He Long.
Mao Zedong Helong shook hands with the footballer
He Long was born into a martial arts family, his grandfather He Liangshi (Hengshan Gong) and father He Shidao were both martial arts masters.
He Long has been a teacher since he was a child, learning martial arts and strengthening his body.
Therefore, He Long has loved sports all his life, especially basketball and football.
As early as he established the revolutionary base area in western Hunan Province, he personally formed a "combat basketball team".
He Long played with the players as soon as he had time, and in order to improve the level of competition, He Long and the team members often held discussions.
After the outbreak of the All-Out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army.
The Red Second Front led by He Long was reorganized into the 120th Division, with He Long as the division commander and Xiao Ke as the deputy division commander.
In the mouths of the generals of the Eighth Route Army, there was a saying circulating, "General He loves to play ball and likes sports," and the 120th Division was praised by the whole army as a "three-good unit" that "fights well, plays well, and plays well."
The ball refers to basketball, and He Long formed a basketball team in the 120th Division.
He Long
This team does not leave the battle, and gives the fighters an exhibition game when the troops are resting, which can not only enhance the physical fitness of the fighters, but also have a healthy entertainment project
At that time, He Long was also considering forming a football team, but the requirements of football were much higher than those of basketball in terms of venue and time.
Coupled with the urgency of the war during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, He Long's idea of forming a football team did not become a reality.
It was not until after the founding of New China that He Long had the opportunity to form a football team.
In December 1949, He Long led the 18th Corps and other units from Shaanxi into Sichuan, and cooperated with the Second Field Army under the command of Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping to liberate the great southwest.
After the liberation of the southwestern provinces, He Long served as vice chairman of the Southwest Military and Political Committee, commander of the Southwest Military Region, and third secretary of the Southwest Bureau of the CPC.
After a period of purging the remnants of the Kuomintang troops and fighting to suppress bandits, the southwest region was basically stable, and the troops entered the stage of rest and training.
The situation settled down, and He Long immediately began to form a football team.
In September 1951, at the initiative of He Long, the Southwest District Sports Team was established, which was the earliest professional sports team established in the country, including the football team.
The team members are all cadres and fighters who have good physique, run fast, and have a certain sports foundation selected from the troops.
Frankly speaking, at that time, many players did not have a high level of football, but they just grabbed and kicked desperately, and there was not much technology and tactics.
Despite this, after the formation of the football team, many exhibition matches were played, which was very popular with the fighters.
He Long engaged in football is not a whim, on a whim, he is eager to improve the level of the football team.
How can it be improved?
Football is not just an exhibition game, but a competitive sport.
If you want to improve, you have to compete with a team.
Only when the two teams are evenly matched and the dragons and tigers compete, can we improve the level and play the exhibition game more excitingly.
To this end, He Long set up another football team in the southwest district.
Most of the members of this football team are made up of students who love sports in colleges and universities.
Many of them have some football training, so their tactical literacy is higher than that of the sports team.
The competition in each of their matches is quite fierce, attracting many spectators, so that football will soon become popular in the southwest region, and guizhou, Yunnan and other provinces, as well as major cities and universities have set up some non-professional football teams.
However, how to say it, they are students after all, not professional athletes, and the level is not high enough.
In today's parlance, it's all rookies pecking at each other.
He Long has a big vision, he is not satisfied with this, his goal is to make his team with the world's advanced level.
He Long realized that it was necessary to bring in professional and competent coaches with high tactical literacy to train the football team.
He Long thought of an excellent candidate.
He is China's "ball king" Li Huitang!
Li Huitang, a native of Wuhua County, Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, was born in Hong Kong on September 18, 1905.
Li Huitang liked football since childhood, and in 1921, he was admitted to Huangren College, where football was more popular, and received a more systematic football training.
In 1922, at the age of 17, Lee Wai Tong was selected as the most famous football powerhouse in Hong Kong, the South China Team, as the main striker of the team, leading the team to participate in the Hong Kong First Division Football League and starting his career.
In May 1923, Li Huitang represented the Chinese football team for the first time in the 6th Far East Games held in Osaka, Japan.
At just 18 years old, Li Huitang made his debut in four games and gained a great reputation, helping the Chinese team win the championship.
(Between 1923 and 1934, the Chinese football team won nine consecutive football championships at the Far East Games, becoming the ninth football champion of the Far East Games, of which Li Huitang helped the team win four championships).)
In 1925, Li Huitang came to Shanghai and served as the main striker of the Shanghai Lehua football team and the coach of the football team of Shanghai Fudan University.
In 1927, Li Huitang helped the team win the Western United League A League, the first Senior Cup and the Central League League A, and was crowned the Triple Crown, and Li Huitang became a well-known "generation of ball kings" in China.
So much so that at that time, there was a saying in China that "to watch a play, you must see Mei Lanfang, and when you watch a ball, you must see Li Huitang." "
Chinese ball king Li Huitang
In 1931, Lee Wai Tong returned to Hong Kong and joined the South China Football Team as captain.
On December 25, 1941, when Hong Kong fell, Li Huitang did not want to be a slave to the country, and after many hardships, he and his hometown people formed the Wuhua football team and began his "football war" career. In 1948, Li Huitang led the Chinese football team to participate in the 14th Olympic Football Tournament as a coach, and in the same year, he received the FIFA International Referee Certificate, becoming the first person in China to obtain international referee qualification.
Seventeen years later, Lee was also elected vice-president of FIFA, becoming the Chinese to FIFA's highest position.
Throughout his career, Lee Wai-tong scored 1,860 goals, and together with Pele, Ridenleck, Gueder muller and Romario, he is the world's top five superstar who has scored more than a thousand goals so far.
As a result, the Federal Republic of Germany Football Magazine later named Lee Hye-tong one of the world's top five ball kings.
Li Huitang is the first person in Chinese football and an international superstar, who not only has outstanding ball skills, but also has the ability to coach second to none.
Therefore, He Long immediately asked Li Huitang's friend Lin Shaozhou to write a letter to Li Huitang, in which He Long personally hired him to come to the Southwest Military Region as a coach for the football team.
In his letter, He Long also said that since the standard of living in Hong Kong is higher than that in the southwest region, in order not to reduce Mr. Li's living standard, the amount of salary given to him is reported by himself, and how much he wants to give.
Unfortunately, in the end, Li Huitang, after much consideration, declined He Long's invitation.
He Long had to re-select the candidate, and two years later hired the Coach of the Shanghai Youth Football Team, Fuzhen, as the coach.
Fuzhen is also a famous star in the history of Chinese football.
Fuzhen is a native of Heishan County, Liaoning Province, where he studied in the Physical Education Department of Feng Yong University and Northeastern University.
In 1936, after graduating, he served in the Tianjin Beining Railway and served as the center of the Bac Ninh football team.
When he led the team to participate in the first national league in Tianjin, he defeated all foreign teams such as Britain, Germany, Italy and Belarus, breaking the situation of foreign football teams dominating China for the first time.
Since then, almost every time they participate in international competitions, the Bac Ninh team has returned home from the cup and dominated for a while.
At the warm invitation of He Long, Fuzhen came to the Great Southwest as a coach, greatly improving the level of the football team.
He Long kicked off for the match
At 9:00 a.m. on May 4, 1952, the First People's Sports Conference of the Southwest District opened in Datianwan Square, Chongqing.
When the football game of the sports conference began, He Long, who was the commander of the Southwest Military Region, walked to the middle of the football field and kicked off the first football game.
On July 22 of the same year, under the strong advocacy of He Long, the first national football team of New China was established.
In November of that year, He Long became the director of the Central Sports Commission.
Under the personal presidency of He Long, basketball teams, table tennis teams, track and field teams, tennis teams, gymnastics teams, swimming teams, etc. have been set up.
China's table tennis level has gone up, badminton level has also gone up, and it has a certain reputation in the world.
However, at that time, the level of Chinese football was very different from that of the world's advanced countries.
He Long believes that football is the world's first sport, if the level of chinese football is not high, even if other sports are strong, they will be looked down upon.
Therefore, in order to turn over Chinese football, He Long paid more painstaking efforts and personally inquired about the formation, training and ideological construction of the national football team.
He Long put forward the principle of "starting from difficulty, strictness, and actual combat, and training with a large amount of exercise" and "three from one";
The "three not afraid" spirit of "not afraid of suffering, not afraid of difficulties, and not afraid of injury" and the "five excellent" slogans of "excellent thinking, strong body, excellent technology, excellent training, and excellent competition".
Greatly improved the mental outlook of the national team.
However, it is not enough to improve the spirit, we must improve the level of technology and tactics.
At that time, He Long advocated "going out" and advocated sending football players to study in foreign countries.
The country he wanted to go out was not the big brother of the Soviet Union, but hungary, the football power at that time.
Hungary was a European power at the time, winning the Olympics in 1952 and losing to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1954.
In 1953 and 1954, Hungary played England twice, winning big wins both times, 6–3 and one 7–1, the Bloodbath of the Three Lions, becoming the first foreign team in history to beat England away, shattering the myth of a ninety-year unbeaten home team (1863–1953).
Under the strong support of He Long, China sent a large number of players to learn from Hungary with an open mind.
At the same time, He Long also put forward the "please come in" point of view, asked Soviet coaches, coached the team.
Moreover, He Long firmly advocated that the head coach of the national team must be Chinese, because only Chinese coaches are familiar with the national conditions and can maximize the ability of national football players.
Under the impetus of He Long, the level of national football has improved rapidly, and it will soon become one of the top two football teams in Asia.
Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yi and He Long watched the football game
But He Long is not satisfied, his goal is to make the Chinese national football team dominate the world, he said:
"Our football team can't just 'fight the civil war', nor can it just play in Asia, but also compete with the world's strongest teams. ”
In 1957, the Chinese football team lost only one goal to the then world powerhouse Indonesia in the qualifiers of the World Football Championship. In 1958, Beijing and the "Bayi" team drew with the Olympic champion Soviet Union;
In 1959, the Chinese football team first defeated the Hungarian national second team, then the Swedish "Yugden" team, and then won the second place in the "China, Soviet Union and Hungary" trilateral confrontation; followed by the "China, North Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia" four-country football friendly match.
This is the fastest and most brilliant period of national football progress.
At that time, He Long, the national football team at that time was full of vigor and ambition.
Unfortunately, in the 1960s, the level of national football declined rapidly, losing to myanmar, Pakistan and Indonesia's weak medan team.
He Long was anxious, and on June 26, 1963, He Long said bitterly:
"We have our own good things, our own characteristics, our own strengths, we can't all learn from others, and we can't run after them all." The football team has been going downhill since 1960, and now we don't dare to send the team out, Confucius moved -- it's all books ( losing ) , how can we get out?"
In 1964, the Chinese football team lost 0-2 to the visiting Pakistani team in Beijing, and public opinion was in an uproar.
He Long was even more angry, and he immediately disbanded the national team in a huff, and urged the management department to get the football up as soon as possible.
At the mobilization meeting, He Long said with a serious look:
"I don't know if you're at ease?' Three big balls 'why can't they go up?' It has been 15 years since liberation, and if it can't be done again, will it take 50 years? You have to hurry up! I'm almost 70 years old and I hope to see the 'big three balls' turn around before I meet Max. ”
Then he said:
"We must reverse the backward situation of our country's sports, take off the hat of the 'sick man of East Asia', I can't see the 'three big balls' turn over, I can't die blind!"
Under he Long's drastic reform, in 1965, the national football team with young athletes was re-established, and the level of Chinese football ushered in a major recovery.
At the end of 1966, the Chinese national football team won the second place in the first Asian Emerging Forces Games.
After that, everyone must be very clear, the national football team once dominated Asia and is about to go to the world.
However, it immediately fell into a trough, and one year was not as good as a year.
Marshal He Long dress photo
It is worth mentioning that on October 10, 1987, Changsha Stadium was renamed "Helong Stadium".
It has become a blessed place for the Chinese football team, which played 9 games in the Helong Stadium and achieved 5 wins and 4 draws.
Maybe it is he Long's spirit in heaven, bless the national football team.