China News Service Client, Beijing, July 2nd (Bian Liqun) "This is the place where farmers were worshipped before, and the soil is particularly good." Walking on the way to the training ground, the Beijing Xiannongtan Sports School women's football coach Gao Zheng was on the side. Introduction.

  This is truly fertile ground. Zhuang Zedong, Lang Ping, Zhang Yining, Malone, Ding Ning, Teng Haibin... The 64-year-old Xiannongtan Sports School has cultivated many well-known sports athletes. In addition to traditional advantages such as table tennis, track and field, gymnastics, women's football is also one of the signatures of this old sports school.

  However, in recent years they have faced a headache-the selection of women's football has become increasingly difficult.

Beijing Women's Cradle

  Walking in the Xiannongtan Sports School with rich historical atmosphere, you can really feel the weight of time accumulation. The sweating athletes in the training fields in the courtyard seem to have the shadow of their predecessors.

  The Xiannongtan Sports School, located next to the Temple of Heaven on the South Second Ring Road in Beijing, was established in 1956. It was the first base for training sports talents since the founding of New China. The Xiannongtan Stadium in the school was already in 1937. It was built and used to be the home of Beijing Guoan, a veteran of Chinese football, and is now the home of Beijing Beikong Women's. This football holy place among many Beijing fans has witnessed the changes of Beijing football.

  The Beijing Women’s Football Team was formed in 1985. After its establishment, it quickly became a powerhouse. They won the Sixth National Games in 1987 and won the National Women’s Football Championship for five consecutive years from 1988 to 1992. In 1999 and 2002, he twice reached the top in the Women's Super League.

Data Map: Beijing Women's Football Team in the 2019 season. Image source: OSports All Sports Pictures

  For more than 30 years, the Beijing Women’s Football Team has been in the same line and is one of the few veteran teams in the Women’s Super League.

  According to reports, the Xiannongtan Sports School has already sent more than 30 outstanding internationals to the Chinese women's football team. In the "Cheng Chong Rose", which won the runner-up in the 1996 Olympics, the Beijing team members are the backbone, and the then national team coach Ma Yuanan also came from here. Xiannongtan Sports School is not only the cradle of the Beijing Women's Football team, but also one of the important players for the women's national team.

  Xiannongtan Sports School now has a total of 3 women's football teams. In addition to the Beijing Women's First Team, there are U16 and U14 echelons, with a total of 87 female football players. Each team undertakes different tasks. The first team is preparing for the new season Women's Super League and next year's National Games. The U16 team is preparing for the age group's league and next year's National Games women's youth team. The U14 echelon is Beijing An important reserve force for women's football.

The U16 echelon of the women’s football team of Xiannongtan Sports School is in training. For image

"Choose 28 out of 42 children"

  However, even with a glorious history and heritage, Xiannongtan Sports School still needs to face the problem of narrowing the selection of materials. "We had a U18 team before, which was disbanded in May of this year. Some players were promoted to the first team, some entered the school and diverted." The principal of Xiannongtan Sports School Jing Jing introduced.

  This is a normal "metabolism" in the school's youth training system, but in recent years, this process has become more difficult.

Data map: Beijing Women's Football Team in the 2019 Women's Super League. Image source: Osports All Sports Pictures

  "Now the selection surface is too narrow." When the reporter throws the topic of selection, U16 team coach Gao Zheng came to the point and said difficulties. "We selected these 28 people from a total of 42 players from the three district sports schools in Daxing, Dongcheng and Chaoyang at that time. Maybe we will form a lower age echelon in the future, and we have no choice."

  In addition to narrowing the selection, the number of girls playing local football in Beijing has also shown a sharp decline. Beijing Women’s First Team coach Yu Yun once led the youth team. According to his recall, 80% of the team in 2003 were native Beijing children, but by 2013, only two of the youth team were Beijing children. The situation is exactly the opposite.

  "Women's football is not the same as men's football. The market for men's football is better. Players earn more. Perhaps parents are more supportive. But now most families have only one child. If they are daughters, parents may not be willing to let their children kick. Ball, bet this way." Yu Yun analyzed.

Data map: Gu Yasha in the 2019 French Women's World Cup. Image source: Osports All Sports Pictures

  Former women's football international Gu Yasha also held a similar view: "I chose to take football on the one hand, on the one hand, I liked it, on the other hand, the family conditions were not so good when I was a child, my family thinks this is a good way out. But now everyone's life If the conditions are good, many parents may be reluctant to let their children suffer from the sun and the hardships. And they may not be able to kick them out. In fact, it is still difficult to rely on one's preferences.

  And the selection of materials is not only in the Beijing women's football, looking at the whole country, this is a difficult problem. A month ago, the Chinese Football Association published a set of data on women’s football youth training. There are currently 2995 players in the national women’s football youth training system, which is not much, but compared with 1356 two years ago. There has been no small progress.

The number of young women football players has increased from 1,356 in 2018 to 2,995 today.

Is there really no way to kick women's football?

  Previously, the reporter visited several youth training institutions in Beijing. Some of them were girls who played football, and some children also showed a certain talent.

  When asked if they would like to send their children to professional football, most parents said they just wanted to use football as a child's hobby to develop, strengthen their physical fitness during play, develop their willpower and team spirit, but they were not willing to let them The child becomes a football player. There are several reasons for the narrow ascending channel, too hard work and not optimistic about the development of the football industry.

  Objectively speaking, whether it is studying or taking the road of sports, there will always be the survival of the fittest in the competition, but are girls really choosing professional football, as some people think it is so "no good"?

Data map: The U16 echelon of Xiannongtan Sports School is in the game. For image

  Cao Runzhi is the main defender of the Beijing Women's U16 team. Recalling the way to take the women’s football, she recalled: "The teacher asked who wanted to go to the football class. At that time, I didn't know what football was, so I thought about exercising and raised my hand. It felt good to play. I was selected by the coach of the sports school."

  Cao Runzhi said that her parents supported her on this path. Although she had also worried about the question of college entrance examination, she finally chose to support her. But now, the concern about college entrance examination does not seem to be as difficult as imagined at the time.

Data picture: Beijing Women's U16 Echelon is in the game. For image

  According to the coach Gao Zheng, although the Xiannongtan Sports School trains sports talents, it has always attached great importance to cultural education. The children he brought took cultural lessons every Monday and Thursday morning, Tuesday and Wednesday evening. During the training, Gao Zheng also often communicates with the players in English, encouraging them to go out to the class to learn English. If learning and training time conflict, Gao Zheng will let them learn first, and then choose another time to make up for the lack of training time.

  "This year our team has three main college entrance exams. They applied for the Beijing University of Sport. As a special admissions exam, football scores accounted for 70%. In fact, girls play football is a good choice. It’s better to enter the national team. If you don’t kick out, there are many options, you can be a coach, you can be a referee, you can also be a sports reporter after you have a college diploma, and so on.

The women’s U16 echelon of Xiannongtan is in training. For image

  Regarding the exclusion of some parents from sending their children on a professional path, Gao Zheng believes: "Sending children to play football may not be acceptable at first, and the psychological barriers are difficult to break down, but after the real entry, the road is still very wide. And girls playing football It’s a lot less than boys and it’s less competitive, so the female talent rate will be higher than that of men’s, and nearly half of my team can kick out.”

  According to the president of Xiannongtan Sports School, only four of the U18 echelons disbanded in May this year did not find a way out, and they will continue to take the college entrance examination next year. Most of the remaining players have already entered the first team or entered college.

The U16 echelon of the women’s football team of Xiannongtan Sports School is in training. For image

Player generation is not as good as one generation?

  In recent years, the performance of Chinese women's football has shown a certain downward trend. Compared with the clang rose that won the runner-up in the 1996 Olympic Games and the 1999 World Cup, the achievements of the women's football at this stage are even more incomparable, so the argument of "a generation is worse than a generation" also appeared in the women's football movement.

  But for this kind of view, neither the Beijing Women's First Team coach Yu Yun nor the echelon coach Gao Zheng expressed their disagreement.

  According to Yun Yun, the level of domestic female football players is definitely stronger than before. "World football is developing. The previous offensive and defensive concepts, rhythm and speed are not comparable to ours now. Our competitive level has improved, and our ideology has also changed and improved, but we may not be fast enough to catch up. The progress of the world."

  Gao Zheng said: "It must be a generation that is stronger than a generation. It is impossible to use the original people to play the current game. It is impossible now. The game is getting faster and faster. The speed of combining the ball and the game is very high. Previously Our women’s football is so powerful because other countries don’t value it, and we happen to have a good group of players. Later, when other countries value it, our advantage is not so obvious."

After four years of polishing, the U16 echelon of the women’s football team of Xiannongtan Sports School has already begun to bear fruit. Group photo by Bian Li

  However, the narrow selection of materials has indeed become a major factor restricting the development of women's football. In Gao Zheng's view, the selection of materials occupies 50% of a team's success. The narrow selection of materials is a natural shortcoming and can only narrow the gap as much as possible.

  Yu Yun believes that women's football also needs to change their minds. Like men's football, everyone needs to be involved. After everyone likes the sport, they can see who is suitable for the career. At the same time, they must also pave the way for ascent. "Now the connection in some aspects is not particularly smooth, we still have to'poverty alleviate' in policy, let the society pay more attention to women's football, give players more ways to survive in society, and encourage more girls to participate in the sport ."(Finish)