"The next generation of Chinese women's football, will it be us?"
Two army-green mats were laid next to each other on the cement floor, and 11-year-old Bi Huimei wore soccer goalkeeper gloves to practice making saves under the guidance of her coach. To throw her whole body on the mat, she looked a little hesitant.
Bi Huimei is practicing saves. Image source: Screenshot of the video material of the Chinese women's football official blog.
After all, underneath the mat is a hard cement floor. "You're afraid of goalkeepers, and everyone else is even more afraid." Coach Hu Wei inspired her in this way.
Bi Huimei is the goalkeeper of the women's soccer team at Wei ze Qinglian Hope Primary School in Changhu Town, Shilin County, Kunming City, Yunnan Province. Her skin was slightly tanned, her face was round, her hair was naturally curly, and after tying her ponytail, the broken hair on her forehead drifted with her rescue movements.
That's how the girls are training — by the school's cement playground, the nets in the soccer goal have rotted.
Pu Junyi is the defender of this team, like Bi Huimei, who is 11 years old, and she demonstrated a save on the mat at the request of her teammates.
She pounced on it with no expression and no hesitation. After standing up, Pu Junxuan covered his ass and smiled: "Ass hurts, it hurts." ”
Pu Jun-yi demonstrates the save. Image source: Screenshot of the video material of the Chinese women's football official blog
In 2017, the "National Campus Football Characteristic Demonstration County" was officially settled in Shilin, and this women's football team was also established. Because of the lack of space, every day the girls can only carry out physical, technical and tactical training on the cement floor.
When Pu Junyi had just joined the football team, his family did not agree. "My mom said the girls were going to dance and chorus, and I was kicked here, and my mom said she deserved it. What is the point of participating? I can't even kick a ball. ”
But Pu Junxuan is a stubborn girl, very unconvinced: "You said I didn't play well, I'll kick you." If I played first to last, I wouldn't participate. ”
On the walls of the girls' dormitories, there are post-it notes with flowers and greenery, on which everyone's dreams are written. Pu Junxuan wrote on the post-it note: "Kick to win Peking University, always play with others, all have to be the first." Grew up to participate in the Chinese women's football team and won glory for the country. ”
Post-it notes. Image source: Screenshot of the video material of the Chinese women's football official blog.
This "Peking University" refers to the Peking University Village Elementary School in Shilin County, and on April 12 this year, a friendly match was played between the two teams.
On the way to Beidacun, the girls sat in the big bar and sang in unison. When the bus reached the end, the girls saw "someone else's stadium" through the window and exclaimed: This is clearly a joke! So big!
But the girls' joy ended quickly, they scored three goals and lost the game. Bi Huimei sat on the sidelines sulking, Pu Junxuan also shed tears, the dream on the sticky note, the start was not smooth.
On the way back, there was no singing when I came. Huang Mingzhu was a little unconvinced: "They just adapted to the lawn because we played on the cement floor for many months, and then we got used to it. ”
Huang Mingzhu (right). Image source: Screenshot of the video material of the Chinese women's football official blog.
Huang Mingzhu is 11 years old and is the team's striker. As the name suggests, she is a beautiful girl with big eyes and a lively and cheerful personality. She said: "I want to get out of the mountains, I want to go to a bigger stadium and play. ”
Cement field training, lawn field competition, this really has a great impact on their performance. Once I went out to play a game, four opponents in the group stage, and the girls only won one.
Coach Hu Wei said: "Luckily won a game because they didn't have a football field either. The others couldn't play and couldn't win, they had trained a lot, and suddenly they realized the importance of the football field. ”
The game was lost more, and it hit Bi Huimei's confidence a little. "The training of goalkeepers is harder than others, but what's the use? The teacher said that friendship is the first competition second, anyway, we are friendship first, the competition is third, the competition is fourth, the competition is fifth, the competition is sixth, and there is no progress at all. ”
On April 13, the second leg of the China-Korea Women's Olympic Preliminary Tournament play-off was played in Suzhou. The Chinese women's soccer team, which led 2:1 in the first leg, completed the reversal after falling behind 0:2 in the second leg, and finally defeated the opponent by an aggregate score of 4:3 in extra time to win the Ticket to the Tokyo Olympic Games. The picture shows the scene of the competition. Image source: Visual China
On April 13, the Chinese women's football team reversed South Korea in the second leg of the Olympic Preliminary Round play-off, defeating the opponent 4:3 on aggregate and receiving tickets to the Tokyo Olympic Games. The game became the highest-rated program on CCTV in the same period and set a record for the same period in the past two years.
After the game, the Chinese women's football team became a hot topic on social media for several consecutive days. But such a heat is often a flash in the pan, the popularity of domestic women's football competitions is extremely low, many people actually do not understand, the survival of grass-roots women's football.
The female soccer players at the Hope Primary School also watched the game in front of the TV. They lamented every missed opportunity and couldn't help but look across the screen to help the players on the field. Many of these girls dream of becoming a member of the Chinese women's football team.
After that game, the coach told them that the country's first women's football theme stadium would be located in their school, and the girls would no longer have to train on the cement floor.
Girls watch the stadium construction in the school building. Image source: Screenshot of the video material of the Chinese women's football official blog.
During the construction of the stadium, the girls stood side by side on the teaching building and looked down, talking and laughing. Halfway through the repair, Huang Mingzhu once stepped on the lawn with his teammates in advance. "It feels comfortable and it's soft." She laughed.
On April 28, the day the stadium was officially inaugurated, Sun Wen, Liu Ailing and Wang Liping came to the scene to guide the girls to play football in the new stadium. In 1999, they represented China in the Women's World Cup, where they finished second. It was the most glorious moment in the history of Chinese football.
After 22 years, although the Chinese women's football team is no longer the world's top team, each generation of female footballers has brought inspiration and emotion to the Chinese people on the field. On the side of this stadium, there are pictures of women's football teams from generation to generation. It's like these big sisters, running with the little sisters on the pitch.
In the 1999 World Cup final, the Chinese women's football team appeared in the lineup. Image credit: Osports All Sports Photo Agency
One ordinary evening, the children of the women's soccer team got together to soak their feet, and the twittering and discussion began.
"Will the next generation of Chinese women's football be us?"
"It's impossible."
"Will it be one of us?"
On April 28, young players trained on the newly built football field. Photo by Li Jiaxian, a reporter from China News Service
Without an answer, they ended the topic with hearty laughter.
But who dares to say that all this will not come true?
Every dream begins from this moment.
♦
Source/ Sino-Singapore Sports (Wang Hao)
Editor/Chen Xiaobing
Review/Zhifei