Special correspondent Zuo Rui Yiliang reported that only by witnessing it with his own eyes can we understand how far football and mountain villages are, and can we understand that football has the same meaning in cities and villages. On March 1, 2022, there is no need to examine the evidence, this must be the first time in history that Zhushan Town, Yiliang County, Kunming City, Yunnan Province, has a direct connection with professional football. On this day, all 17 girls in the sixth grade of Zhulin Primary School became the first children in the school to touch the football with their feet.
They were also told that if they like to play football, they will have the opportunity to become a member of the Yunnan Jiashijing women's football echelon, go to the provincial city while studying and playing football, if they work hard enough and are lucky enough, they can also earn money by football to support their families when they grow up. At this moment, there was clearly a bright light in the eyes of many girls. This afternoon, they laughed and ran around, unleashing all their athletic talents.
The material selection test lasted for nearly an hour on the basketball court of Zhushan Primary School, accompanied by Principal Huang Xingguo. "Our dolls in the mountains are not afraid of hardship, their physical fitness is no problem, and they will not be tired after a full day of farm work at home." "I'm just worried that they've never played football before and it might be a bit stupid to do the moves," he said. Bai Wei on the side took over: "It's okay, technology can be practiced." ”
▲Girls from Zhulin Elementary School take the standing long jump test
Bai Wei, 45, has worked as a soldier and village chief, and is now mainly engaged in earthworks and is the only investor in yunnan Jiashijing women's football team. In 2019, he bought the Inner Mongolia women's football team facing dissolution, and Yunnan has since gained a place in the women's league. In the past three seasons, he is said to have paid a net of 5 million yuan a year for the team. In the past three years, he has invested more and more energy in the team, such as personally formulating strategies and personally participating in the selection of materials.
Facing mountain village schools, for the 2009 and 2010 age groups of zero-based students to select materials, almost no youth training institutions will do this, and the professional clubs aimed at elite training are unique, but Bai Wei has taken the first step. And this is not a decision made in the first place, but the result of his repeated thinking in the three years since he entered professional football.
In the first three seasons, the 10 detachments of the women's first division in 2019 participated, yunnan Jiashijing ranked 7th, successfully relegated, and in the past two years, the home and away games changed the conference system and the league canceled the relegation, the team ranked at the bottom for two consecutive years. Last year, the club's U18 echelon represented the Yunnan women's football team for the first time in the National Games, the preliminary round regretted out, the echelon was disbanded, and few players remained in the first team.
▲ Bai Wei firmly believes that the mountain village is a rich mine for football
On the one hand, under the reality of poor performance and lack of follow-up, Bai Wei must sort out his thinking and change his living method; on the other hand, on the 7 standard football fields equipped with the club's own base, Chang Worm Mountain Sports Park, over the years, professional teams, sports teams, junior sports schools, campus football teams, amateur clubs... Various youth training schools appeared in front of Bai Wei like a marquee, he has been thinking about their own advantages and disadvantages, and made a conclusion from the perspective of female A investors: "The training of professional teams is the most professional, the most scientific, the most effective, and there are also many places that need to be thought about and improved." ”
Bai Wei told Football that he has to introduce players from outside the province every year to replenish fresh blood, but repeatedly introducing semi-finished products has little effect, "Instead of making these almost ineffective investments, why don't I spend money on our children in Yunnan, why can't I do youth training according to my own ideas, why can't I jump out of the city to find good seedlings in the wider countryside?" ”
Since the establishment of the club, it has also cooperated with some schools in Kunming in youth training, but in Bai Wei's view, most of the children in the city play football only to satisfy hobbies, temper their will, exercise, and even lose weight. Rural children who are accustomed to climbing mountains and mountains and planting trees on the ground are obviously superior in physical fitness and will quality, "but no one has ever given them the opportunity to receive professional training." Out of self-confidence in engineering cost and cost control, he believes that his youth training construction is completely feasible, and "the error correction cost of the semi-finished product of youth training will be higher than that of zero basic training."
After unifying his thinking with the coaching staff, Bai Wei did not disclose his overall plan to the public or report it to the relevant departments, but only told some of his enthusiastic friends. Therefore, a comrade-in-arms in Yiliang County arranged the first stop of the action for him - Zhushan Town, and the club's semi-public welfare and semi-commercial non-governmental behavior won a positive response from the four local principals.
▲Lufeng Village, the seat of the People's Government of Zhushan Town
At the junction of the three prefectures in Zhushan Town, it is 126 kilometers away from Kunming and 60 kilometers away from the county seat of Yiliang, because halfway is a rugged and steep mountain road, which takes nearly three hours. Although the town is located at the junction of Kunming, Yuxi and Honghe prefectures, and borders huaning, Chengjiang, Mile and Shilin counties, it is the most remote mountainous area in Yiliang County.
In addition, of course, the natural conditions are relatively poor, most of the cultivated land is in the mountains, and some villages have not achieved poverty alleviation until the final sprint stage of poverty alleviation. Therefore, in this township with a total population of nearly 30,000, there are many migrant workers.
Since many parents bring their children to the city to work, the town's county Eleventh Middle School, Zhushan Central Primary School, Zhulin Primary School, Tuanshan Primary School, a total of 4 boarding schools, the total number of students in the school is nearly 1,000. The smallest number of zhulin primary schools has fewer than 200 students, but comes from 76 natural villages. According to Yang Yong, principal of Tuanshan Primary School, among the left-behind children of the school, because grandparents cannot drive transportation, the farthest one-way walk is 3 hours when picking up grandchildren from school on Friday.
Shen Minjin, principal of Zhushan Central School and Yiliang County No. 11 Middle School, is the overall docking person of the rural material selection action in Jiashijing, Yunnan, and after learning of his intentions from a friend's phone call, he immediately convened an extraordinary meeting of the principals of the three primary schools. On the other side of the meeting, in addition to Bai Wei, there were head coach Gao Fulin, youth training minister Yu Jianchuan, and active player Wang Chenchen.
The seven-a-side football stadium in the eleventh county was only built and put into use in 2019, and it is also the only football field in the entire town of Zhushan, where the first stop of the selection test is held. There are three test items: 30-meter sprint, standing long jump, and retracement around the pole.
▲30-meter running test on the sports field of Zhushan Central Elementary School.
Yu Jianchuan explained that for children with zero foundation, the ball test is completely meaningless, and the three tests in turn will test the speed, explosiveness and agility of the children, plus the observation record of the warm-up and the game session, and the club will make a comprehensive judgment on the reaction, mind and plasticity of the test takers.
Shen Minjin, 50, liked to play football when he was young, and in the first few years after graduation, he was assigned to work in Zhushan, and invited colleagues and township cadres to play futsal games on the basketball court, which also led to the participation of some students. Although he has not played football for many years, the fan principal has always paid attention to football, and often feels sorry for the performance of the national football team, and has always believed that only if the foundation is large enough and there are enough people playing football, "our national team can find excellent athletes." On behalf of the local school, he welcomed and thanked the visiting club representatives, and also hoped that such activities would be more in-depth and lasting. In this regard, Bai Wei's response was very painful: "Not only the coach, but all the first-line players must go to the countryside to rotate and lead the team from this year, each of which is at least one week!" ”
After the completion of the venue of County Eleven Middle School for a period of time, playing football is mainly the random and spontaneous behavior of students, but after being selected as a national campus football feature school in April last year, football here began to get on the right track, and the class team, grade team, and school team of the whole school took shape, and the games on campus were also carried out with great success. Physical education teacher Zhang Jianbin also reported a "five-year development plan for campus football", and President Shen was also encouraged after reading it. "Although our dolls only learned from the topsy-turvy ball and the bow pushing ball, it is much worse than the county eight middle school, but if we advance according to this plan, I believe that the students of our school can also form a team to go out to play in the future, and even represent Yiliang County to participate in the city and province competitions."
Unfortunately, the "Five-Year Plan" only ran for one semester and encountered setbacks, because the husband and wife had been separated for a long time and the children had reached the school age, Zhang Jianbin and another physical education teacher participated in the county teacher selection, and the new semester was transferred to the urban school. This time, the whole school does not say football coach, physical education teacher also has no one. To this end, President Shen tried his best to mobilize two non-football graduates of the Physical Education Department of Yunnan Normal University who came out of the county eleventh to return to their alma mater as external teachers, and also reflected to the county education and sports bureau to strive for the quota of some physical education teachers in the school in the coming year.
"Although our football started very late and we are currently encountering great difficulties in teaching staff, we will persevere," Shen Minjin said, "with the help of the club and the outside world, I believe it will get better and better in the future." ”
▲The sixth grade girls of Zhushan Central Elementary School prepare for the test.
The dilemma faced by Principal Shen is more prominent in other local schools. Of the three primary schools, only Liu Jianghong, the principal of Zhushan Central Primary School, is a physical education teacher, who also attends the physical education class of more than 200 students in the school alone.
President Liu graduated from the Department of Physical Education of Yunnan University for Nationalities in 2007 and spent 15 years in Zhushan. "Of course, I also want to go back to the county seat, where the living conditions are better, but I have more education responsibilities and more work experience in Zhushan." He was previously the director of political education at the county's Eleventh Middle School, and two years ago he was transferred to Zhushan Central Elementary School, "I have always talked to colleagues and students about the importance of sports, and I have always opposed the outdated concept of 'developed limbs and simple mind'." ”
He said that instead of being physically weak and only reading, a healthy physique and personality are more important. He, who specializes in basketball in the university, heard that the selection of materials for Yunnan Jiashijing will be carried out next year, and also has the idea of letting children play football according to local conditions, "If necessary, our school is less than two kilometers away from eleven, and I can take primary school students to walk to the middle school to play." ”
Liu Jianghong was also very happy to hear that the club had a high overall evaluation of the second test at Zhushan Central Primary School: "Even if you can choose one, it is a good thing, and for rural children, there will be one more way out in the future." ”
▲The three primary schools in Zhushan Town have only one physical education teacher, Liu Jianghong
The third stop of the test is Zhulin Primary School, which is also the closest school to Lufeng Village, the seat of the town government, and the school with the fewest students. If the county eleven middle school is in the Bajiang River Valley, and the Zhushan Central Primary School is on the opposite slope, then the Zhulin Primary School is on the top of the big mountain farther away.
Most of the mountains here are not so steep, as can be seen from the name of the village committee where Zhulin Elementary School is located, "Dapingtai", but the hard stone paving along the way is not only broken, but also has steep slopes and sharp turns. Pear blossoms and peach blossoms bloom on the side of the road, and the fields are mainly planted with flue-cured tobacco and peas – which are also the main cash crops of local farmers.
According to Bai Wei's Yiliang comrades-in-arms, if they only cultivate the land and rely on the sky to eat, life is still relatively difficult, but such an environment has also shaped the reputation of Zhushan people who bear hardships and stand hard work and work steadily. Since Yiliang County is transforming from a large agricultural county to a seedling industry, there are many local migrant workers who are engaged in the work of "raising trees" - that is, digging out a tree two or three meters high with roots and mud, and then packing the roots and loading them into trucks, and transporting them from the seedlings to other places.
This job is not only hard, but also a technical work, usually speaking, the unit price of "starting a tree" starts at a dozen yuan, but many Zhushan people can earn three or four hundred yuan every day with quality and quantity, and thus they get a house or buy a house in the county. Over time, when mentioning Zhushan people in the seedling industry, no one did not put up a big finger. "People who do things so hard and with such hard work will not play football worse than others!"
▲Teachers and students of Zhulin Elementary School work in the vegetable field
On the campus of Zhulin Primary School, there are two large vegetable fields, two signs are erected, "do it yourself" and "enough food and clothing", every labor skill class, there are teachers with children in watering and hoeing, the harvest naturally enters the school canteen, becoming the plate of teachers and students. "Dolls have to do farm work when they get home, at least you have to help the family pick peas." Principal Huang Xingguo said.
Since there is no physical education teacher in the school, physical education class has become a part of the activities of other subject teachers with their children. Faced with a visit to a professional club, the sixth-grade girls who were temporarily transferred to participate in "special extracurricular activities" were initially a little overwhelmed. When warming up, jogging and eagle catching chickens, they behaved relaxed and happy, but when they followed professional player Wang Chenchen to do kicking legs, arm-raising and other actions, it could be seen that many children were particularly nervous, because they had never tried.
After all, the school is a place where there is a competition, and the selection stimulates their competitive spirit, so in every part of the test, you can see every step, every jump, they do their best.
Although only a few girls learned from television about the Chinese women's recent Asian Cup victory in the coach's questions, the AFC professional coach and former national player Gao Fulin improvised the 12-part upside down ball, and the screams of joy were endless. After all, this was the first time someone had played football in front of them.
Before leaving, Bai Wei gave two footballs to the school, and Principal Huang said: "I have to think about it, who is most at ease to give them to keep?" In addition to the girls who participated in the selection, which other boy would particularly like it? ”
▲Two self-reserved plots of land on the campus of Zhulin Elementary School
On the way out of Zhulin Primary School, Bai Wei said that this time he did not think it through, and the football belt was less. "When I get to the next place, I have to find out beforehand, to know in advance what is missing there besides football?" "Maybe they'll like the new school bags, the new stationery," he said. ”
The last stop for the youth training in Zhushan Town was Tuanshan Village, and it was nearly dusk when it arrived. It was the free time for students after dinner and before the study class, so the material selection test once attracted the whole school before the evening study bell rang. Just doing some warm-up activities surprised the children and tried to follow suit.
There is also no physical education teacher here, basketball enthusiasts, over fifty years old principal Yang Yong had to give the third to sixth grade classes physical education class, the lower grades will be handed over to other teachers with "running, running and jumping". Principal Yang is a native of Zhushan, and has been teaching in his hometown for 32 years after graduating from normal school.
According to him, before the higher-level departments integrated educational resources, Zhushan Town had 19 village committees, 19 primary schools, and some schools had two or three teachers. Now the town's 3 primary schools and 1 junior high school, all implement the boarding system, and the state and local governments pay more and more attention to education, and the hardware conditions of the school are getting better and better, "Outsiders will come here and say, in each of your villages, the best buildings are schools." ”
Principal Yang said that Zhushan went to the county to buy a lot of houses, this is a fact, but these money are "bitter out, saved out", of course, there are also people who rely on the mind to get rich, but in general, the people who get rid of poverty mainly rely on hardships and stand hard work, "sports and football, the meaning of Zhushan children, may be the inspiration of vision and attitude." ”
▲ Yang Yong, the principal of Tuanshan Primary School who is more than 50 years old, also gives physical education classes to grades three to six
According to him, after the local children go to junior high school, there are only three ways out: go to the county to go to high school, go to vocational school in other places, and stop school and go out to work. So he agreed with the other principals that the club could give the children one more choice, even if the opportunities were limited, and they must fully support it.
Principal Shen of the eleventh county took the situation of the 2021 junior high school graduates as an example, 123 of the 240 students who graduated last year were admitted to high school, and the remaining more than ten people went out to work, most of them entered vocational schools.
Last year, another student from the county eleventh middle school was admitted to the famous kunyi middle school in the provincial city, which was once again rumored to be a good story in Zhushan; and a few years ago, a local junior high school graduate went out to work, engaged in a high-risk occupation of painting the exterior walls of high-rise buildings, and returned to Zhushan to rebuild a new house after earning money, which was also widely known in the local area.
Maybe in a few years, a girl in Zhushan graduated from primary school and went to the provincial city, and became a professional player a few years later, I don't know what kind of evaluation the village will have at that time?
It was dark, the playground of Tuanshan Elementary School was lit up, and the selection test was over not long after. A little girl named Ren Meiying attracted the attention of the coaching staff and Bai Wei, who agreed that the child had enough talent to play football well. So there is this simple conversation:
▲Children at Tuanshan Elementary School perform stretching exercises before the test.
"Do you like to play football?"
"Well, I like it." The girl nodded.
"Do you want to go to Kunming and play football while going to school?"
"Think, think, think." At this time, her eyes were full of expectation.
"Which village is your family?"
……
Another previous conversation had to do with "is it too late to start enlightenment training at age 13?" In this regard, Yu Jianchuan's view is: late is a little late, but it is completely too late; the view of the decision-maker Bai Wei is that smaller children are not easy to concentrate on training, and technical training is not all about football, as well as physical fitness, attitude, will quality, and team spirit.
On the way back to Kunming, Bai Wei took stock of the gains of the trip - there may be four or five children who will be included in his echelon, and continue to deliberate on the combination of teachers in his new model of youth training: cultural classes, physical trainers, psychological trainers... "This road may not necessarily succeed, but I must try, and I must see the results." "Although I am not a big entrepreneur, it is not the first time to give back to the society, this time, I want to give back to the more promising countryside of football." ”
After leaving Zhushan Town, Yiliang County, Bai Wei's friends, comrades-in-arms, and golfers were already waiting for him in mountain villages in Luchun County, Honghe Prefecture, Xuanwei County, Qujing City, and other places. According to the plan, he will run 15 to 20 rural schools and select 30 to 35 students for elite training.