When the 2017 Tianjin National Games football competition came to an end, Shanghai football once again stood at the peak of youth football and won gold medals in four categories of football, especially the U20 men's football team defeated the Zhejiang team led by Zhang Yuning through penalties, and won the U20 men's national games football championship for three consecutive years after 2009 and 2013.
Previously, in several major bases of Chinese football youth training, the representative of Shanghai Youth Training, which can be on a par with Luneng Football School, Greentown Football School and Evergrande Football School, has always been Xu Genbao's Chongming base. After the transfer of the Shanghai East Asia First Team and echelon to the SHANGHAI SIPG Group, the Chongming base only has 99 players left to represent Shanghai in the U18 competition, and this year's Shanghai U20 men's football team coached by Cheng Yaodong has 17 people from another big youth training family in Shanghai, Lucky Star Football Club, in the final, in addition to goalkeeper Chen Wei and Shanghai SIPG loaned to Henan Jianye forward Hu Jinghang, the remaining 9 players in the Shanghai U20 team are all from Lucky Star.
Speaking of Lucky Star, many fans who know its name are because of two people, Shen Si and Qi Hong. As the founders of this youth football club that insisted on taking the road of youth training in a low-key manner and took root in Shanghai, Shen Si and Qi Hong spent most of their time and efforts after retirement on the development of the club and the cultivation of young players, until the crime was imprisoned.
On April 3, 2017, Shen Si, who had just been released from prison two days after completing his sentence, appeared in the stands of the men's football qualifiers of the National Games with Qi Hong to see the performance of the young players they used to bring. Because they were banned from football activities by the Chinese Football Association for life, Qi Hong and Shen Si can now only sit in the stands and watch the game from a distance.
In 2006, Shen Si and Qi Hong retired, and the four directors of lucky star clubs at the time of its establishment were Yi Wenbing, Shen Si, Qi Hong and another former Shenhua player Daniel Zhang. In just a few years, Lucky Star started from the three echelons of 95/96, 96/97 and 97/98, and the scale became larger and larger, forming a complete echelon system. Later, the 95/96 echelon of Lucky Star was acquired by Shanghai Shenhua, and the 97/98, 99/00 and 01/02 echelons were acquired by Shanghai SIPG. These young players have now become an important reserve force in Shanghai football.
The reason why the youth training of lucky stars can be so successful is inseparable from their model.
Many experts have pointed out that the most lacking in China's football youth training system is not actually players, but coaches, and the lack of high-level youth coaches in line with modern football has led to the level of youth training not going up, and players cannot practice.
From the beginning, Lucky Star took retired players as the main coach, Qi Hong was the head coach of the Lucky Star 95/96 age group echelon, and later replaced by former Shenhua player Wu Bing; Daniel Zhang was the head coach of the Lucky Star 97/98 age group echelon, and later Xie Hui took office and became the new young marshal of this echelon. After the fame of the lucky star became more and more famous, Gao Zhongxun, an old international who once shouted at the TV camera that "Chinese football is no longer playing", sent his eldest son Gao Zhunyi to the lucky star for training, and then he sent his younger son Gao Mingyi to the lucky star.
In addition, there are many retired players such as Fan Yun and Shen Han who have served as coaches of different echelons in Lucky Star. Retired professional players engaged in the cultivation of youth football, the advantages are obvious, most of them have been under the guidance of foreign coaches and even world-class coaches for many years, thinking mode, tactical knowledge, more advanced and modern understanding of football, coupled with excellent personal skills, which can make young players stand on a higher platform in the basic stage and receive a more professional education.
In 2016, Lucky Star began to hire foreign coaches, and Japanese coach Koga Takuma officially joined. The cost of hiring foreign teachers by Lucky Star is by no means a small amount, and koga's salary and translation salary and housing, family visit tickets and other expenses cost about 800,000 yuan a year. But in order to allow the young players to receive guidance closer to the level of modern football, lucky stars have always dared to invest in all aspects.
The youth training, profit model and small player sources of domestic football have always been the most headaches for various football schools. Lucky Stars are no exception.
At first, the difficulty of lucky star enrollment can be imagined, and Shen Si and Qi Hong became movable type signs at that time. Parents initially thought that these football big names were just symbolically pointing out, a few times a week or a month, when they saw that Qi Hong really ate and lived with the young players every day, the parents began to be relieved.
However, as Shen Si and Qi Hong entered the prison stage, the sponsorship fee of lucky stars suddenly disappeared, and the parents became panicked. Yi Wenbing, Daniel Zhang and other shareholders paid out of their own pockets to solve all the worries of the young players such as eating, accommodation, and electricity, and personally interviewed all the parents of the players, and finally carried through the most difficult years.
In any youth training system, profitability is a long process that requires a waiting cycle. In recent years, on the one hand, the lucky star has become better and better, and indeed cultivated a group of talents, which have been included in the sequence of the National Games by the Shanghai Municipal Sports Bureau and the Football Association, and have been allocated every year to solve some of the financial pressure; on the other hand, the earliest 95/96, 97/98 age group players have begun to play in professional leagues, and the clubs have begun to enjoy the share of player transfers, ranging from about 5%-10%, and the best newcomers in the Chinese Super League in 2016, Li Xiaoming, the international footballer Gao Zhuanyi, who have received professional football training in lucky stars. And the young players who eventually appear on the stage of the Chinese Super League may become the pillars of the national football team in the future.
Lucky Stars may have to wait a few years for their best payback period, but it cannot be denied that they have become the pride of Shanghai football like Xu Genbao's Chongming base, and have also paved a long-term development path for all those in China who want to take root in youth football.
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