"Poor Kids' Play": A Football Education Experiment at a Farm Elementary School

In Binchuan, Yunnan Province, a village primary school with only more than 220 students has frequently won championships in football competitions at all levels. For this group of children, football is not only a sport, but also a light shining into their destiny, and they have the opportunity to go to a better secondary school and a bigger world. (14:16)

In the evening, He Guocheng stood on the edge of the goal of the school's old stadium, clasping his arms with his hands and frowning.

The football team, made up of 5th and 6th graders, organized an unsuccessful attack that ended in a tackle by the central defender. "Press, press, press, what are you doing with so much space?" He Guocheng waved his hands and asked loudly to the attacking team members who did not plug in in time. The yelled player didn't speak, and stepped on the calf-high weeds in the corner kick area.

In the evening at the end of September, the daylight thins. Standing on this old stadium, you can see the silhouette of Cangshan Mountain, with dark purple sunset and orange clouds hovering over the top of the mountain. On the other side of the pitch is the main street of the farm, which has just been lit up, and most of the shops on the street are owned by the parents of the players on the field. Parents wait in the store for the end of the training and pick up their children home.

Sophomores practice their ball. Unless otherwise marked, the pictures in this article are all pictures of surging news reporters Liu Haonan and Huang Zhihan

The state-owned Binju Overseas Chinese Farm in Binchuan County, Dali Prefecture, Yunnan Province, where the course is located, is about 65 kilometers away from the ancient city of Dali and 20 kilometers away from Binchuan County. The farm produces guava and mandarin oranges, and few outsiders come here except for the surrounding villagers and fruit merchants who come to buy the fruits. At sunset, the farm's streets are quiet, and the school grounds are particularly lively.

He Guocheng, who was directing on the sidelines, is 43 years old this year, with dark skin and a serious expression. He is the principal of the state-run Binju Overseas Chinese Farm Primary School (referred to as "Binnong Wan Elementary School", a local school that covers grades 1 to 6 is called "Complete Primary School"), and he is also a frequent guest appearance as a trainer for the school's football team.

On the artificial turf pitch next to the old course, junior students are lining up to practice dribbling, while the school's Chinese and math teachers work hard to keep the team in order. He Guocheng introduced that the school in this "big mountain" is not manpowered, and they need their help to lead the training of the lower grades.

The audience is also a "cameo". There are more than a dozen parents and middle-aged and elderly villagers sitting around the stadium, sometimes they don't look at the stadium, they just sit cross-legged with water bottles and straw hats chatting and laughing, as if they just want to spend a cool evening after farm work in the sound of the whistle.

"I thought that a few more students would be able to go out and go to the county (junior high school) or anywhere. Ho said, turning his head to look farther on the pitch: "It's a poor man's game. ”

Parents watch their children practice outside the court.

Elementary school football team on the farm

He Guocheng was also one of the students running on this field, and as a goalkeeper, he saved a lot of balls on this gravel field when he was a teenager.

According to the "Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture Chronicle", in 1962, the state-owned Binchuan Machinery Farm was renamed the state-owned Binju Overseas Chinese Farm for the resettlement of returned overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. From 1962 to 1978, more than 2,000 overseas Chinese returned from Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and other places, and their descendants formed Binju Overseas Chinese Farm, which was administratively designated as a village-level unit.

Returned overseas Chinese brought the habit of street football in Southeast Asia to this remote farm. "At that time, not only the students, but also the surrounding villagers would come to play football, and the whole stadium was full of ordinary people," said Ho Kwok-shing, "Slowly, I fell in love with football." ”

Binnon finishes a small old photo.

In 1987, when Ho was still a student at the rural primary school, the school pitch was a dirt and gravel field, with weeds growing irregularly in some places and bare soil and rocks in others. Anyone who goes down to the ground to save the ball will inevitably be scratched by gravel.

Ho recalls that most people were barefoot at that time, and some wore a pair of sandals or slippers. The balls are homemade, made with wire in the tire shell and wound into balls, or inflated with pig urine bubbles and filled with straw. This rural school, which covers primary school to high school, has only two serious soccer balls, which are the "treasures" of the school, which are always occupied by middle and high school students, and only the sports day will be used by primary school students.

The sun in Dali is fierce, and when the sun is gone, the evening is the golden time for football. At that time, there was no pressure after school, He Guocheng and his partners stayed and played for more than an hour, and when they had fun, it was dark. In Ho's recollections, farm life was poor, football was happy, and the two experiences overlapped.

Binnon Elementary School is geographically marginal, but it is also within the local education system. "In the past, Binnon was a dispensable elementary school. Yang Zhijian, a graduate of Binnon Primary School and a football coach, said frankly when talking about his alma mater, "The teachers here may be excluded (eliminated) teachers in other primary schools, so they will be assigned to you here." ”

Today, the school's only school building is more than 40 years old, and Ho Kwok-shing calls it "the oldest building in the area", with peeling walls of stairs and corridors and pitted ceilings in classrooms.

At the end of the 70s, a school building was built with a donation from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

After graduating from the farm school, Ho Guocheng, like many motivated young people on the farm, was eager to succeed, and with a vague concept of "success", he packed his bags and left his hometown. He went to the state to study teacher training, and after graduation, he became a teacher step by step, and was sent to a neighboring county to become the principal of a rural primary school.

Before receiving the invitation to return to his hometown, He Guocheng had been the principal of a rural primary school for six years. He knows that outside of Binchuan County, there are many rural primary schools with similar conditions to his alma mater, or even worse, "The school before me kicked the ball (down the mountain) and had to walk for two hours to pick it up. At that time, he never thought that there could be any connection between football and rural education.

It was 2018, and the director in charge of sports affairs in Binchuan County, who was also an old classmate, called He Guocheng. The old classmate said on the phone that Binchuan has a football background, He Guocheng is a local, can play football, and has been the principal for several years, so he has some experience in school management. The bureau hopes that he will go back and give it the "campus football career" in Binchuan.

He Guocheng hung up the phone and thought about it all day.

"I feel like I can do something for my hometown and my alma mater. Secondly, I also like this thing (football). He Guocheng decided to take over the position of principal of Binnon Wan Elementary School, returned to the mountains he had struggled to walk out of, and returned to the farm.

Ho Kwok Shing is in the sixth grade.

Earlier to be lobbied by the "leader" was Yang Tao, a physical education teacher at Binnong Elementary School. Yang Tao, 57 years old this year, has been a physical education teacher at Binnong Primary School for 33 years.

Yang Tao, who graduated from the sports school, began teaching at this school in 1990. At that time, the teaching task of physical education class was light, and basic physical fitness such as pull-ups, sit-ups, and 50-meter runs were practiced every day. Yang Tao thinks it's very boring, sports should be more interesting and meaningful for children.

He began to take students to practice football in his spare time, and He Guocheng was a student at that time. In Yang Tao's physical education class, he learned basic football tactics. Since then, Binnon's elementary court is no longer only the students' own happy kicks, and there are some tactical cooperation.

Students come and go, Yang Tao doesn't expect a physical education teacher to have any great significance to a rural primary school - everyone loves football, plays and plays, sometimes good football seedlings emerge, watch them pop up, and then watch them graduate early and go out to work. Football teenagers and girls who have become adults have almost nothing to do with football after graduation.

At the end of 2016, the chairman of the Dali Prefecture Football Association found Yang Tao and talked about the national hot promotion of "campus football" and the inclusion of football in the height of school construction.

As early as 2015, the policy of "campus football" began to be promoted from top to bottom. In July 2015, the Ministry of Education, together with six departments, issued a red-headed document "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Youth Campus Football", which includes the overall promotion of the development of youth campus football, the improvement of the scientific level of campus football development, and the establishment of a campus football competition system. The "Implementation Opinions" mentioned that this policy is an important measure to promote the physical and mental health of young people, and is a basic project to consolidate the foundation of football talents, improve the level of football development and achieve the dream of Chinese football. According to the Implementation Opinions, by 2025, China will build 50,000 youth campus football schools, focusing on the construction of 200 high-level football teams in colleges and universities.

The "campus football" policy blew to primary and secondary schools across the country, and also into the old stadium at Binnon Elementary School.

Yang Tao hopes to make physical education class "interesting", and "school football" is an opportunity. However, what exactly does "policy support" mean? Where will the funds and materials for "campus football" come from? The state has not given a definite guarantee. After thinking about it for a week, Yang Tao decided to seize the opportunity first and agreed to talk about it.

Two weeks later, Dali Prefecture government staff hung a sign at the entrance of the school, which read "National Campus Football Characteristic School". Yang Tao selected more than a dozen children who love to play football and have resilience, and the first official football team of Binnon Wan Primary School was established.

Yang Tao is training with first-year students.

"What is the way out of football"

Now, Yang Tao has more than 600 parents' numbers stored in his mobile phone, and he calls from time to time to monitor and track students' practice. I recall that when the "school football" policy was first introduced, recruiting players was a problem. "I was begging them to come and train, we mobilized the kids [to come and practice], and I really ran too many houses. I ran to their house to beg the parents, begged the grandparents, and said that if you send the child, I will help you take care of it, and you can rest assured that you can study. When promoting "campus football" as a long-term project, Yang Tao found that things were not so simple.

According to the local primary school promotion system, Binnongwan primary school students are divided into districts, and can only be assigned to two junior high schools in the town. It is almost impossible for a child on the farm to go to a county junior high school, let alone a more developed area.

Yang Tao has many friends and a wide range of doors, and the news that the county's junior high schools and high schools are also going to engage in "campus football" reached him, which gave him a lot of touch. Yang Tao thinks that broadening the way to higher education may be a way to convince parents. He wants to be cheeky and run to a junior high school with good conditions in the state, maybe Xiaguan No. 4 Middle School and Xiaguan No. 1 Middle School also need good football seedlings?

In 2018, He Guocheng was transferred back to Binnong Elementary School as the principal, and in the next three or four years, he and Yang Tao ran to the surrounding junior high schools like salesmen, and recommended the fresh football students to the junior high schools with better conditions in Binchuan County and surrounding towns. "Some (junior high school principals) have ugly faces, and some people don't care at all, they don't even pour water, and they don't give you a treat. Yang Tao recalled a few cold noodles he encountered at that time, and he was still a little angry.

Parents' ideological work is also not easy to do. The temperature in Dali is as low as 5 degrees Celsius in winter, and He Guocheng found that every winter, most of the students who come to practice are less, including the main players in the team. Some students told He Guocheng that it was not that they didn't want to kick, but that their parents were distressed and didn't let them come. In addition, the sand and gravel on the court often cause the players to scratch their hands and feet, and the children always go home with injuries, and parents also feel that it is not worth it to play a ball. They don't want their children to take their energy away from schoolwork to a sports activity.

Before school starts, parents help weed the course. Photo courtesy of the interviewee

There is not much the coach can do, only to keep the players who can persevere. No matter how many people come, the five and a half football training sessions are not moving, and after the basic training, they play high-intensity confrontation games; the teachers and students of the whole school collectively dance a football recess exercise every other day to create a football atmosphere in the school, hoping to attract students who were not interested in football to "enter the pit"; let the players write slogans on the white wall of the stadium, and record the players' practice experience and wishes in crooked words, He Guocheng is very satisfied with these heartfelt slogans, and his favorite sentence is "Life is a football game".

Between classes, students practice soccer drills.

The slogan written on the white wall by the players is: Life is a football game, all you have to do is shoot hard.

Yang Tao kept talking on the phone every day, calling friends who were doing business all over the country one by one, asking them to do a favor to sponsor the team's training equipment, and negotiate the sponsorship of football, nets, and uniforms one by one. Hearing that the primary school football team was short of supplies, the local orchard owner was also happy to sell this face, so the name of the local fruit company was printed on the back of the students' colorful new uniforms.

In 2016, when the Binnon Elementary Football Team first started to participate in the official competition, the youngest team members were only in the third grade, some of them loved to cry, and some were used to the freedom of farm life, playing regardless of the occasion. Yang Tao feels that since it is an official team, it can't be "stocked" like in the past, and if the ball is to be played well, it has to "talk about the rules". Yang Tao thought about a lot of things to instill in children, tenacious spirit, thrifty habits, no swearing, and good grades. The punishment method is also very simple, "if you don't obey the rules, you won't be allowed to kick", and the results are remarkable.

During the training session, the small pitch was split in two. The players in grades 1 to 3 lined up on the south side of the pitch to do basic movement training, and the tallest player had only slightly higher knees than the football, and still struggled to swing his calves to dribble the "huge" football, running lap after lap. The fourth- to fifth-grade players did special training on the north side of the small court, and the movements were repetitive and boring, and the whistle of the leading coach Yang Zhijian was loud and serious, forcing the players to be highly committed to each action.

After 3 years, the youngest member of the team has also become a senior player, and the discipline has also been established. Whether it is the men's team or the women's team, whether they win or lose, they still love to cry, but it is an iron law in the team to cry after the game.

First-graders are practicing, and the obstacle pile is the abandoned traffic cone that Yang Tao is coming.

In 2019, the Binnong Wan small football team played from the town-level competition to the Dali prefecture-level, and then "killed" all the way to the provincial competition in Yunnan Province, and finally won the championship of the Yunnan Youth Campus Football Women's Group B Competition. "We kids fight on the field, that tenacity. The kids in the city are better tactically than we are, but they're afraid to run into us. Yang Zhijian summed up the experience of winning the championship.

This is big news in a small farm. After the team won the championship, the school gate was bustling, and the parents of the students came to offer flowers and set off firecrackers to welcome the champion teachers and students. The video of the warm celebration was filmed and swiped to the top of the local hot list on the short video platform, which became a local sensation.

The "counterattack" won the championship, which also gave Yang Tao and He Guocheng the confidence to face the junior high school principal. "I said that it is not okay for us children to study in the streets and in the state town (town) like this. As a result, Xiaguan No. 4 Middle School, a very good middle school, was willing to accept our children. Yang Tao recalled, "I was very happy in my heart, and there was a sensation in the whole scene, and our children were finally able to go to the state to study, and there were 16 of them at that time." ”

Yang Tao also received an invitation message from the High School Attached to Yunnan Normal University, the leader of the provincial key school in Kunming, who also wanted to meet the champion players of Binnong Elementary School. Yang Tao hurriedly told the parents the news and took interested students to Kunming, "I took my children to the High School Affiliated to Normal University, and later passed the exam." That kid is now the captain of the women's football team of the High School Affiliated to the National Normal University. "This is the first student from Binnong Wan Primary School to go out of the farm and enter the provincial key junior high school through the football specialty enrollment program.

The teacher's office is decorated with photos of coaches and outstanding players. In the picture on the left, He Guocheng (second from left) and Yang Tao (second from right).

"Seeing this child so desperate and tenacious gave the parents a great shock. Our children not only play football but also read well and abide by the rules, which gradually attracted the attention of our local parents. Yang Tao described the change in parents' mentality, "One of them is a little bit of (going to school) attraction, and parents are most willing to support it." ”

The door of the state key and provincial key junior high schools slowly opened a crack with some surprise, which the "sales duo" could not have imagined. Yang Tao now feels very fortunate that it was worthwhile to "pull down the old face" and run around in those years: "We are in a remote county, in a remote mountainous area, after all, the teaching resources are relatively poor. ”

The teacher's office has a wall of football team certificates of honor and medals.

Occasional coach

"Draw a flatbread, a flatbread that Brother Tao drew for me. 47-year-old Yang Zhijian lamented that a major life decision made in 2017 was a "flicker" from the old coach Yang Tao.

Yang Zhijian trained the two goalkeepers of the small B group.

More than 30 years ago, Yang Zhijian, a football teenager running on the old field, was the "seedling" mentioned by coach Yang Tao. In a year when football was hard to find, Yang Zhijian stood out from the farm primary school team and was selected by the sports school in Dali Prefecture as soon as he graduated.

With good physical fitness and technology, Yang Zhijian has been playing in Dali Prefecture Sports School until the third year of junior high school, and when he is about to graduate from junior high school, he begins to feel that it is not meaningful to continue playing, and his parents also feel that he should study hard and find a good way out. Yang Zhijian recalled: "I just happened to meet the physical education normal to start recruiting students and studied as a normal student. I think it's good to be a coach. ”

In 1995, Yang Zhijian graduated from the sports school, and the salary of the physical education teacher in the rural school was less than 300 yuan per month, which made it difficult for him, "At that time, I felt bored and didn't want to do it." Yang Zhijian "is going to the city."

From real estate to shopping mall management, Yang Zhijian has worked in several industries in Kunming. He realized that the fast-paced life in the city wasn't necessarily for him. In 2004, Yang Zhijian returned to Dali and started an orchard business, and also tried to open an inn with a friend. Football remains a less realistic aspect of Yeung's life. As long as the orchard work is not too busy, Yang Zhijian always goes to the teams in Xiaguan Town and Dali City to play amateur games. Yang Zhijian got an evaluation - "big addiction to ball".

Yang Zhijian can't remember how the wind of "campus football" was rolled up, he only remembers that since 2017, enlightenment coach Yang Tao has been posting videos of team training and games on social media more and more frequently, "I think this is very good, and the (farm) tradition has been stirred up again." “

In June 2017, Binnong finished elementary school to participate in a campus football match in Dali Prefecture, and there were many school affairs, Yang Tao asked Yang Zhijian to help lead the men's team to train, and at first said that it was "blind practice". Yang Zhijian found that he enjoyed spending time with the players. After serving as the interim coach this time, the football flame that was once suppressed in Yang Zhijian's heart was stirred up again.

"I was fooled again. Then the game was over, and I simply left the inn. Yang Zhi resolutely decided to return to the farm to concentrate on the orchard business, so that he could lead the team at Binnong.

Yang Zhijian thought that he would have some income after leading the team at Binnong, but his expectations for income were not high, "The teammates in the amateur team sometimes go to the school in Xiaguan Town to lead the team for training, and I heard from my teammates that the school treats them as substitute teachers and will give them some class fees."

After taking a training session for a while, Yang Zhijian realized that he was thinking too much. Binnon did not have the financial resources and payment procedures to cover the expenses of a soccer coach.

Getting along with the team members every day is somewhat counted as Yang Zhijian's "subsidy". "By half past five (training time), you've already formed a conditioned reflex. As soon as you enter the school, you put aside the worries and messes of your life. For two hours, I don't think about these things. Yang Zhijian said with a smile.

"It's too much to talk about dedication, and I feel a bit like shouting slogans. Yang Zhijian believes, "I have also had some emotional fluctuations in my thoughts before. But overall, I'm actually enjoying more of a pleasure, and that's what I've gotten. ”

Semi-free outside of the school management system can sometimes be beneficial. Yang Zhijian recalled that the happiest thing for the team members was that he quietly took them to the supermarket to buy snacks, "I can't bring them all yet, I have to take them in batches." I promised to bring these three today, and I promised to bring those three tomorrow. Yang Zhijian's tone was obviously cheerful.

The team members like to eat barbecue, Yang Zhijian felt that he couldn't eat it during the game, and if he got sick from the fire, it would affect his combat effectiveness, so he vetoed it several times. I really can't entangle the players, and after the last day of the game, Yang Zhijian didn't mention it to the players, and quietly went out to the supper stall to buy barbecue and bring it back to the dormitory. "It was so much fun. Yang Zhijian laughed out loud while reminiscing.

Three years ago, Yang Zhijian's daughter, Duoduo, also enrolled in Binnon Elementary School. As Yang Zhijian expected, his daughter quickly fell in love with football and became the core of the women's team. Yang Zhijian has another reason to volunteer to lead the training, "It means that she will definitely have to play the game." So from the perspective of your own selfish desires, by the way, cultivate your own children. ”

Yang Zhijian said that his parents, elder brother, and acquaintances did not support him in voluntary training, "saying that I am very stupid." He recalls that his relationship with Binnon was accidental: "I was on the farm, the school was on my doorstep, I had this hobby, I had a special feeling, and then I happened to have this qualification (coaching certificate)." This combination of many accidents changed his life and that of his children.

Flowers received by Yang Zhijian on Teacher's Day.

Something other than football

He Guocheng wants to gather the strength of all teachers and students in the school to implement "campus football", first of all, the resistance from the school is the cultural class teachers, their reason is that the students' energy is limited.

He Guocheng thought of a way to call the students who were "difficult to do homework", and the teachers and coaches watched him finish his homework and only allowed him to play football when he was done. "Whoever doesn't finish his homework, I will suspend him from training. You can't kick if you want to. Yang Tao's attitude is also very resolute.

Not being allowed to play football in the soccer atmosphere of the farm was a torturous "heavy punishment" for the students of Pennon Elementary School. In order to be able to play, students no longer have the courage to use practice as an excuse not to do homework, and the cultural teachers are naturally happy to join the ranks. The concerted efforts of the teachers also helped He Guocheng make up for the lack of manpower - the cultural class teachers joined the training to help the children in the lower grades.

He Guocheng recalled that there was often such a spectacle in the evening training session: the Chinese teacher wore high heels and walked quickly through the team, rectifying the team's discipline, such as "catching" naughty players and pulling them back into the queue and ordering them to stand up. Among the more than 220 students in the school, nearly 100 can practice every day, and with the help of the cultural teachers, the two coaches can free up their hands among the nearly 100 students to teach some professional knowledge and skills.

Mathematics teacher Xiao Yong (left) and Chinese teacher Wang Min (right) lead after-school training.

As a manager, Ho Kwok-shing is happy to see students running out of "electricity" on the field. He unexpectedly found that the students were tired enough to run on the court, and the classmates who loved to fight were too lazy to fight.

Yang Tao pays more attention to the physical fitness of students, and has heard parents say several times that after joining the football team, children have fewer colds and strong bodies, which makes Yang Tao feel professional satisfaction.

Students are running in the morning.

The discipline emphasized in football, the frustration of losing a game, and the sense of unity in winning also tempered this group of rural children. "It's all long-term training, subtle. Yang Taoluo listed a list of the characteristics of the group of football children in front of him, "Resolute and tenacious, disciplined, frustration-resistant, and polite." ”

Yang Zhijian, who has led the team with the most games, also feels the same way, "Football is the best frustration education, there are wins and losses in the game, and the little girl may have wrestled and cried at the beginning." She is not afraid of pain, and she is getting braver and braver. ”

Xiao Group B goalkeeper Shi Danyan is practicing.

After watching too many games, Yang Zhijian has a detailed observation. The players in the city school have a better technical foundation, and they are not afraid of the opponent playing tactics during the game, but they are most afraid of encountering a rural primary school like Binnon Wan Elementary School - the pressing is fierce, and the first goal can be recovered.

When Binnon meets a rural primary school in a more backward area, the role is reversed. Watching Binnon's young players being blinded by the familiar "hard work", Yang Zhijian sighed very much.

Football itself is pure, and so are children. In the video of Binnon's final game, the players cry when they win and cry when they lose. Yang Zhijian also wanted to be pure, and didn't want to think about competition results and class time subsidies. Even if the goal of "school football" cannot be achieved, "football makes children happy, and these six years will be full of memories for them." "This is something that Yang Zhijian wants to hold here.

"Think again"

According to the "Implementation Opinions" issued by the Ministry of Education in 2015, 50,000 youth campus football characteristic schools will be built across the country by 2025. According to the "Notice on Announcing the List of National Youth Campus Football Characteristic Schools, Pilot Counties (Districts), "Mantianxing" Training Camps, Reform Pilot Zones and National Football Characteristic Kindergartens in 2021 issued by the Ministry of Education in August 2022, the Ministry of Education has identified and named only 2,038 national youth campus football characteristic schools.

There are still two years left before the planning time of the "Implementation Opinions", and the gap between the number of "50,000" and "2038" is still huge. The concept of "school football" has rarely been mentioned by the public after eight years of policy winds.

Binnon's football education experiment is also in its seventh year, and the principal, Ho Kwok-shing, is unclear about the long-term future. The two resident coaches are not "resident" forever, and after Yang Zhijian's daughter Duoduo graduated from Binnong Primary School, he may no longer "volunteer to lead the team". Who will fill his shortcomings? He Guocheng still doesn't know.

Each teacher wears multiple jobs, and He Guocheng is often exhausted as a principal, a social science teacher, and a team coach at the same time. The shortage of teachers is a long-term problem for the school, and he hopes that more students can get out of the farm, become talents, and live a more exciting life in the outside world. Sometimes he hopes that some students will come back, "There are so many students, maybe a few are willing to come back." ”

In He Guocheng's view, regional differences and economic differences lead to an imbalance in educational resources, which is more difficult to shake than the Cangshan Mountain behind the stadium, and it is not something that a rural school principal can worry about. The only thing that the principals of rural primary schools can do is to "think of a way" under this premise. "I can close the gap (in educational resources) within the scope of my ability. When He Guocheng spoke, his eyes were still chasing the players who were fighting on the field.

In the past three years, in the first half of each year, the main players of the sixth grade have been "booked" by the junior high school in the county or state, and after graduation, they will be admitted to a better junior high school through the football special recruitment channel. There are 33 students in the sixth grade this year, and about 10 have been specially recruited, a number that encourages Ho Kwok-shing. He hoped that number would have been higher.

At the end of the evening session, the players were able to get their phones from their parents and gather to watch games and football-related videos. The players like to watch the recording of the matches between Real Madrid and Barcelona in La Liga, and some players mentioned that they have seen the civic football stadiums in Beijing and Shanghai in the short video, and they are curious about whether the headlights on the sidelines are so bright or not, and why the stadiums in the city start to be lively at night.

"When you were a child, didn't you play football in school?" the team members were full of curiosity about reporters from other places, and in their understanding, every elementary school played football every day. Football has become their daily routine, some players said that they were originally very inferior, had no friends, relied on practice to play the main force, and also played with self-confidence; some players have their first ideal career because of football - to become a football coach.

In between watching the football video, two players of the men's team and one member of the women's team said shyly that they wanted to join Real Madrid and Barcelona, and it would be good to go to Manchester City in the Premier League.

The slogan written by the children on the wall: Run forward, don't look back.

Is it possible for rural primary schools to become the most basic training ground for professional football? He Guocheng shook his head resolutely, "This (the 'campus football' of rural primary schools) is a game for the poor. I don't rule out that there are particularly good seedlings going to professional clubs, but that's too few. ”

In the past two years, some Internet platforms and public welfare organizations have paid attention to the story of Binnon's completion of elementary school and talked about in-depth cooperation with the school. Since the first half of this year, a new batch of football training equipment has been shipped to the school, partially replacing the fragile homemade training equipment. What is more precious is the teachers, some educational public welfare organizations have sent four teachers to Binnon Elementary School, and the cultural classes and football training have temporarily increased some manpower guarantees, and Binnong Elementary School has the first English teacher since the establishment of the school.

The equipment warehouse "became rich", Yang Tao, who was in charge of the equipment, was very happy, and he had new worries in his heart. The sunlight in Dali is too strong, and every afternoon, the sunlight softens the rubber floor of the small stadium and can stick to the soles of people's shoes. "In this way, within a year, the stadium (floor) broke again. Yang Tao was very distressed, always thinking about whether he could raise money to repair the roof of the small stadium, and whether he would go out to "sell" again.