In the early morning of March 24, Beijing time, Mr. Chen Chengda, former secretary general of the Chinese Football Association, executive committee member of the AFC, vice chairman of the AFC and director of the technical committee, and the youngest head coach in the history of Chinese men's football, died in Beijing at the age of 93. The departure of Elder Chen is undoubtedly a huge loss for Chinese football, and the football community has also expressed its grief in various ways.
Chen Chengda, whose original name was Zhigang, was born in Shanghai in 1929 and competed in 7-a-side football competitions at the age of 10. In 1945, he joined the Shanghai small club "United Stars" and the Shanghai A club "Jingwu" team. In 1949, Chen Chengda was admitted to the Department of Architecture of St. John's University in Shanghai and was a veritable "scholar". St. John's University held its first athletic meeting in 1890, setting a precedent for the Chinese School Games. In the sports atmosphere of the campus, Chen Chengda has been the captain of the school football team. In 1951, Chen Chengda represented the East China team in the first national football championship, and was selected for the national team as a midfielder with his outstanding performance.
After being selected for the national team, Chen Chengda went to Hungary with the national team in 1954 to study, and he was the first international football team in New China. In 1958, he was named one of the first football athletes in China. From 1957 he was coach of the national team until 1963. During these seven years, Chen Chengda was appointed as the head coach of the team in 1959, and he became the fourth national football coach at the age of 29, and also became the youngest head coach in the history of national football.
Chen Chengda (first from right)
Chen Chengda was the coach of the Hebei team from 1971 to 1973. In 1974, he returned to the Chinese Football Association as Secretary-General, and later to FIFA and AFC, where he served as Vice-President. After retiring, Chen Chengda hosted coaching classes many times and created and translated dozens of articles on football training. In 1991, the first Women's World Football Championship was successfully held in Guangzhou, China, with the facilitation of Chen Dada. In 1994, Chen Chengda was awarded the Fifaorderofmerit (FIFA Special Merit Award) Medal at the FIFA Congress in Chicago, USA. In 2017, the Chinese Football Association also specially awarded Chen Chengda the "Outstanding Contribution Award for Football". Elder Chen's life, hard work and blood for the cause of Chinese football, deserves everyone's respect.
During Chen Chengda's coaching as the head coach of Hebei team, he also formed an indissoluble relationship with Tianjin football. At that time, he installed the team's base camp in Tianjin, Liu Chunming, Duan Ju and other Famous Players in Tianjin Football were once chen Chengda's disciples, in addition to a number of Tianjin players who were selected by Chen to guide the team and started their football careers. For this veteran who dedicated his life to the cause of football, Tianjin footballers also expressed their condolences.
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Because the relationship with Chen Guidance is also relatively deep, so many years, from the beginning of playing football, into the team, has been with us, because he instilled some things with us, more importantly, from this aspect of being a person, how to grow, how to respect the old and love the young. He is a more orthodox man, so some of the things we learn from them have a great impact on us.
———— Tianjin football celebrity Liu Chunming
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I was very impressed by Coach Chen, who was very rigorous and very researched in the academics of football. Especially when I saw my first words, I said that our national team members, now they don't understand the rules, how can they study technology and tactics without understanding the rules. Therefore, if you are a referee, you must explain these details of the rules and how to combine them with techniques and tactics to the team. At that time, we went deep into the national team of the time several times to give lectures.
———— senior international referee Wang Xuezhi
Chen Chengda (first from left)
I was also particularly impressed by the 1992 East Asian Final Four, when we got up every morning with Coach Chen, and some officials of the AFC, and a few people came out for a run. It can be seen that his prestige in the AFC is very high, whether it is some of the old predecessors of FIFA, as well as some people in the AFC, they respect Chen's guidance. Chen guided the struggle in this life, which played a very important role in the legal status of Chinese football in the AFC and the position we are in.
Although Chen Chengda's coaching has passed away, his reflection on Chinese football is still worthy of vigilance at a time when football development has fallen into a trough. When the national football team once again impacted the World Cup failure, the words that Mr. Chen Chengda once said were still in his ears and deafening.
"Our biggest problem is to rush to make quick profits, which is absolutely impossible. We must first lay a good foundation and establish a sound youth training and competition system as soon as possible, so that outstanding reserve talents can be trained and grown up in actual combat, and only in time can we truly improve the level of Chinese football. ”