Observation: The humble did not dare to forget the country, Xu Genbao broke his heart for you, is there a suspicion of "offside"?
If Chinese football is compared to a person's body, Genbao Base can only be regarded as the tiniest cell. As the person in charge of the base, Xu Genbao has never been confined to the gains and losses of his own camp, one city and one pool, and he has always had the "family and country feelings" of Chinese football.
Even, he likes to take all the responsibilities that belong to the Chinese Football Association - every time the Chinese national team does not perform well, in the final analysis, it is a comprehensive reflection of the shortcomings in the construction of the football system, the imperfection of the system and mechanism, and the lack of deep football culture, but Xu Genbao always has to find the shortcomings from himself: "Can our base do better, and can we Chinese football people make more contributions to Chinese football?"
In the 2023 season, the harbor team won the Chinese Super League championship, and at the summary meeting afterward, Wu Lei and other disciples hung the gold medal around the teacher's neck to thank the base for training.
Every year on the second day of the Lunar New Year, it is Xu Genbao's birthday in the lunar calendar, and it is also the day that he regards as his official birthday. According to the custom, professional players who graduated from the Chongming base will visit their teachers and celebrate their birthdays on the island together. This warm gathering between master and apprentice not only ushered in the most lively and warm moment of the base every year, but also brought full of positive energy to Shanghai football and Chinese football.
In addition to the master-apprentice relationship, Xu Genbao and the former team members are more of a "family" of "relatives".
In this time and occasion full of Xu Genbao's personal color, Xu Genbao said the most was not his own achievements, not the gains of his disciples, but his calm thinking in the face of the difficulties of Chinese football. Many people feel that on the good day of the birthday of this football celebrity, they need to say something more festive and warmer, and tell some more perfect and beautiful stories. However, every time Xu Genbao is at this time, he will talk about a topic that has been complained about and even ridiculed by many people - Chinese football.
In fact, the person directly responsible and manager of Chinese football should be the General Administration of Sports of China and the Chinese Football Association. The poor performance of the Chinese men's national team in the Asian Cup requires the heads of the General Administration of Sports of China and the Chinese Football Association to think carefully, summarize in detail, and come up with practical and effective countermeasures.
After all, the country has always attached great importance to the development of football, and launched the "Chinese Football Reform Plan" in 2015.
Players of the Chinese team after the game on January 22. On the same day, in the group A match of the men's Asian Cup group stage held at the Harifa International Stadium in Doha, Qatar, the Chinese team lost 0-1 to the Qatar team. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jia Haocheng
Obviously, the problems encountered by Chinese football are a systemic issue, and they are also closely related to all walks of life such as culture, education, psychology, and society. Improving the level of Chinese football is sometimes not just a matter of football or even sports, and it takes all aspects to form a joint force in order to truly achieve a breakthrough. However, at every birthday symposium with his disciples, Genbao not only pays great attention to the performance of the Chinese national team, but also worries about the development of Chinese football, and even has the "suspicion" that one person takes all the responsibility.
In the author's opinion, Xu Genbao was heartbroken for the national football team, which seemed to be offside, but it was reasonable. Xu Genbao's strong national football complex may be related to his own personal experience as a player and coach. Xu Genbao, who was born in 1944, served as the captain of the Chinese men's football team when he was a player, but due to the special social environment, when he was a player, China's football diplomacy in 1958 encountered the problem of China's representation.
In the early 70s of the 20th century, although the Chinese men's football team in the Xu Genbao period had distinctive player characteristics and reached the top level in Asia, it did not have many opportunities to represent the national football team in the international official A-level competitions, lacked the experience of high-level events, and Xu Genbao did not have the opportunity to participate in high-level continental events such as the World Cup qualifiers and the Olympic Games.
In 2000, Xu Genbao gave up the opportunity to make a lot of money as a coach in the professional league and decided to go to Chongming Island to cultivate young talents.
At that time, Xu Genbao and his teammates had more opportunities to play, and they were all visiting foreign teams on behalf of the country and receiving visiting foreign teams in domestic arenas. It was during this period that Xu Genbao represented the national team many times to participate in overseas visits or reception visits, during which he was received by the national leaders at that time.
It was not until 1974 that the Chinese Football Association returned to the AFC, and in 1979, when the Chinese Football Association returned to FIFA, that Chinese football was integrated into the international football family. In 1974, Xu Genbao ushered in the first continental event of his national team career - the 7th Asian Games held in Tehran, Iran, which was also the first time in the history of Chinese football to participate in the Asian Games. This national football team has the oldest average age among all the participating teams in this Asian Games, but it has the least experience in the competition, and in the end, it won 1 win and 2 losses in the group stage and missed the group qualification. In 1975, the 31-year-old Xu Genbao officially retired after participating in the sixth Asian Cup qualifiers with the national team.
It is precisely because he failed to play a World Cup qualifier in his career that Xu Genbao, who has a lot of football skills, may feel that "there is no way to serve the country" in that era. In the coaching era, Xu Genbao served as the double coach of the national Olympic team and the national team, but because he coached the Chinese Olympic team and missed Barcelona, Xu Genbao had no choice but to leave the class after a day before taking office as the head coach of the national football team. From the perspective of logical reasoning, whether it is the era of players or coaches, Xu Genbao's regrets in the national team may make his national football complex and family and country feelings more and more intense. When he focused on youth training, Genbao obviously paid more direct and attention to the education of his disciples about the sense of national honor - he often said to his disciples: "You play in the professional team, especially become an international player, which is the best thank you to me and the base." ”
At the base, Xu Genbao has to give the team members a life education class and a technical and tactical class every week.
Everything is the best arrangement - every step of Xu Genbao's life seems to closely echo the development trajectory of the Chinese men's football team. In 1992, although he coached the national Olympic team and missed Barcelona, it also indirectly promoted the determination of the relevant parties to start professional reform; after coming down from the coach of the national Olympic team, Xu Genbao once assisted the first foreign coach Schlapner in the history of the national football team. In 1995, the "02 Club" was established by the Shanghai Football Association, Shanghai Cable TV and Xu Genbao, with the goal of cultivating football talents for the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. The emergence of talents such as Dewey, Yu Tao, Sun Ji, and Sun Xiang allowed Xu Genbao to accumulate youth training experience and lay the groundwork for a big job on Chongming Island in the future.
Xu Genbao's determination to cultivate Chongming Island also originated from the 2000 Asian Cup in Lebanon. At that time, although the Chinese team broke into the semi-finals, it was reversed by the Japanese team 3-2. Seeing the performance of the Japanese team, Xu Genbao couldn't help but sigh that the gap had slowly widened. In that year, the Genbao base was built on Chongming Island. In July of the same year, Genbao Base set up the first team, including Cao Yunding, Wang Shenchao, Lu Wenjun, Bai Jiajun and a number of players were among them, not long after, Zhang Linpeng was introduced to the team, Jiang Zhipeng was sent to Chongming Island by his parents. At the end of 2002, Xu Genbao received a letter from a former disciple of the National Olympic Games, in which he recommended a young player named Wu Lei...... Today, these youngsters have become veterans, but many are still the pillars of the national football team.
At the beginning, the Chongming Island base was relatively remote, which was a great test of whether the coaches could "endure loneliness". Nowadays, the traffic in Chongming has improved, but many young coaches are still unable to adapt to the slightly lonely training life.
Xu Genbao's strong national football complex may also be inseparable from the words and deeds of his mentor Nian Weisi. Nian Weisi, who has served as the head coach of the national football team and also served as the chairman of the Chinese Football Association, is the only person in the history of Chinese football who has worked as a manager in both business and administrative positions. In Beijing, many fans respectfully called Nian Weisi a Chinese football champion, and said to the old man: "What a champion, it's too stinky." Decades ago, I stepped down from the head coach position to become the deputy director of the training bureau, and the training bureau was full of slogans saying that you will train hard and win glory for the country. At that time, the conditions were simple, there was no bathing equipment in the dormitory, and they all went to the water room to fetch water, like the gymnastics team and the diving team, the little girls couldn't hook the faucet, but the Asian champions and world champions won one by one, and the honor roll was constantly updated. ”
However, the old man also said regretfully: "The conditions of Chinese football were too poor at that time, and in 1957, we went to Indonesia to play so hot that we couldn't sleep, and there was no air conditioning, so we put cold water in the bathtub and slept in it." In the 80s of the last century, we were too poor to play in a football powerhouse, and there was not even money to send the head coach to the AFC to participate in the group discussions of the World Cup qualifiers, and as a result, we were allowed to play all the games, and New Zealand and Saudi Arabia still had two rounds of matches, giving them plenty of time to cheat. ”
It is precisely because of the words and deeds of his old teacher that Xu Genbao, whether he is the coach of the club or the national football team, only has the evaluation standard of the national team in his heart. It is precisely this kind of national football complex and family and country feelings that also makes Xu Genbao evaluate himself only one standard: the achievements of the Chinese men's football team and the development of Chinese football.
As an international player of the Chinese national team, Xu Genbao was received by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1972.
In the author's opinion, such a practice is self-pressurized, a high standard and strict requirement, which can easily arouse doubts from the outside world and cause unnecessary troubles, but Xu Genbao has always adhered to such self-evaluation standards unswervingly.
For example, Xu Genbao is worthy of being the most successful local coach since the professionalization of Chinese football, but he has always said: "Success is not counted, I am just a coach who is working hard." Although Genbao Base has cultivated generations of international players, Xu Genbao still said: "Chinese football has not yet achieved its goal, although I have cultivated a few people here, but it is not a success." You're all just hard workers. ”
Now, the 80-year-old Xu Genbao chooses to start again, continuing the practice of recruiting Wu Lei, Yan Junling and other Chongming Island Phase I 24 years ago, forming a 2013-2014 age group echelon, and playing football for the rest of his life. Regardless of whether the Genbao base is the best "arsenal" in China, and whether the Genbao model can represent the current trend direction, at least the 80-year-old Xu Genbao is still fighting on the front line of youth training - a person, a lifetime, only one thing, Xu Genbao is a typical football craftsman, deeply cultivated football, and has cultivated batch after batch of international players.
Xu Genbao is still fighting on the front line of Chinese football youth training.
When Xu Genbao took over the baton of Nian Weisi and watched his generation after generation of disciples gradually grow up, it was a kind of happiness and beauty, and the inheritance spirit and faith strength of him and his disciples fighting for Chinese football were actually far more important than the results of the Chinese men's football team in the World Cup and Asian Cup. After all, it is not easy to achieve a spirit and value inheritance - firstly, the coach should be respected and recognized by the disciples, secondly, in addition to professional skills, the correct moral values should be passed on to the athletes, and the emotional bond between teachers and students should be established and maintained for a long time, and the final is that the coach's principles of life and problem-solving methods are imperceptibly passed on to the disciples to apply what they have learned, so that they can solve complex life problems with ease.
As a result, as a person who persistently works hard for Chinese football, and as a coach of many Chinese football players, Xu Genbao is more like a teacher who is kind and persuasive, but he is always concerned about the transmission of the correct values of Chinese football, which is worthy of everyone's respect.