Regarding the turning point of Chinese football, there are two theories in public opinion, one is that the failure that began in the top ten matches of the 2001 World Cup Asian qualifiers stemmed from Wang Xiaojun's own goal.

Another theory is that the turning point came in the 2005 game, when Zhao Kangming was sent off just 14 minutes into the game, which officially started the dark decade of Chinese football.

But even those who hold the second view must admit that the defeat of the top 10 in 2001 was a huge blow to Chinese football, and even if the Chinese team reached the final of the 2004 Asian Cup, it was just a form of reprisal.

Perhaps before the "Dark Decade", darkness had already struck, and the first dark shadows had emerged since the 2001 game.

In 2001, the Chinese team was strong and strong, gathering the most essential force of China's professional football reform at that time. At the same time, the World Cup was held in Asia, co-hosted by two countries, and the Asian region suddenly lost two of its strongest competitors.

At that time, the Chinese media and fans were optimistic, believing that this time the time and place were favorable, and it was the turn of the Chinese team to participate in the World Cup finals.

As a result, such a team, which was pinned on by the people of the whole country, failed the top ten again. Missed out on what could be the best chance to qualify for the World Cup finals.

Later, when people looked back at the beginning, many people felt that Chinese football was actually dead at that time, and the red card that Zhao Kangming ate in the 14th minute in 2005 was just the last nail in the coffin of Chinese football.

Subsequently, Chinese football entered a dark period that lasted for nearly ten years.

The Football Association is corrupt, officials are corrupt, they do not seek politics in their positions, and they will do whatever it takes to make money;

The referee in black is no longer the judge of the stadium, and the order is maintained, but has become a veritable "black whistle";

The selection of the national team has become an auction, and the highest bidder wins, rather than the capable one;

The head coach is just the dog of the Football Association, and the most important thing is not the level of coaching but the degree of obedience;

The club can't make ends meet, burning money is unsustainable, many companies have withdrawn from football, and those who stay can only struggle. There are teams that change places to be their home stadium every year, like duckweed without roots, living in no fixed place, and wandering around. China's soccer leagues have plummeted in both attendance and ratings, and in the end, even national television stations are no longer willing to broadcast their own leagues, and no sponsors are willing to provide title sponsorship for leagues that are constantly in negative news.

Media reporters left behind their professional festivals, the party is the same as the other, who gives more money to speak for whom, for the sake of naked interests, does not hesitate to spread rumors, and uses the pen in his hand to portray the person he is not accustomed to in the media into a heinous bastard and a sinner of Chinese football;

The public is impetuous, regards Chinese football as a spittoon to vent their negative emotions, and rushes to use spitting on Chinese football to gain attention, prove their wisdom, and further hit the image of Chinese football to the bottom;

……

Like countless pairs of hands, it has pushed Chinese football further into the abyss.

Under the avalanche, not a single snowflake is innocent.

This situation lasted until 2014, when the country finally couldn't bear the chaos of Chinese football, and the upper echelons heard the voice of the people, so they resorted to thunderous means to declare war on the black and ugly phenomena in Chinese football.

The leaders of the Football Association should be caught, and the judges should be judged, those black whistles and match-fixing black whistles, coaches, and even the club's management, the big names who used to appear glamorously in the TV cameras, are now all in prison, wearing prison uniforms, and confessing in front of the TV cameras with haggard faces.

After the anti-black storm at the top, the Football Association was almost overthrown.

A new team of football associations has been established, and at the national level, the barriers between various departments have been broken.

In the past, football seemed to be only the business of the General Administration and the Football Association, so although the Football Association had long put forward a plan to bring football into the campus and wanted to engage in campus football, it had little effect, because the Football Association could not control the education department.

In everyone's opinion, the education department can allow students to add an additional football selection item to the junior high school sports graduation examination, which is already very face-saving for the Football Association. After all, the Football Association is almost the department with the worst public image in China, and if the Football Association hits any nails and eats something, it will only attract everyone's ridicule and ridicule, and there will definitely be no sympathy for anyone, let alone anyone speaking for them.

But this time, the wall was broken.

Thanks to the joint efforts of the Football Association and the Ministry of Education, a new national football competition for secondary school students was organized.

In fact, there used to be a national football game for middle school students, but on the one hand, there were few participating schools, on the other hand, the influence was low, the popularity was not enough, almost no one knew, and it was more like a kind of self-entertainment in a small circle.

This kind of secondary school competition is definitely not what the new Football Association wants.

Through cooperation with the Ministry of Education, efforts are being made to promote the event. The provincial middle school football competitions that already exist in each province will be connected with the national competition, so that the provincial middle school football competitions will become the qualifiers for the national competition. In the qualifying stage, provinces and municipalities are allowed to formulate a competition system according to their own actual conditions, which can be a single elimination system, a league only, or a centralized competition system.

Finally, a place will be selected for the national competition in the spring of the following year.

At the same time, it also actively contacted various traditional media and online new media platforms to promote this new event.

Since the beginning of the fall semester of 2014, five national competitions have been successfully held, and today it is the sixth national competition.

It took five years to continuously promote and publicize, so that this event is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

The effect is quite outstanding, now in the group of middle school students, the attention to the national competition is very high, whether you like football or not, we know that our country will hold a national middle school football championship every spring to determine the strongest middle school football team in China. Many schools with a football tradition are proud to have won this national championship.

There are even people who compare China's national competition with Japan's national competition.

Although there is no comparison between the two so far, being able to be discussed together is a great improvement for the Chinese National Football Championship, which started later.

Some people analyze why the Football Association is so keen to hold this middle school football championship, and cultivating reserve talents for Chinese football is only one aspect, and the more important reason may be to reshape the image of Chinese football.

Because the previous image of Chinese football was really stinky, a lot of jokes about Chinese football were born during that time, ridiculing and ridiculing Chinese football.

Compared to professional football, which is more complicated and has a more negative image in the past, campus football is much simpler, especially in secondary school. Creating a sunny and positive campus football tournament will help improve the public's perception of Chinese football.

This is not an overnight project. This alone may not be enough to change the negative perception of Chinese football in today's society, but think about these students who have participated in the national competition and are in this national competition environment, when they gradually grow up, enter the society, and become the mainstream of this society, how will they recall the national middle school football championship that has become a part of their youth?

Will they say that those games where they shed tears and sweat are worthless garbage? Is it an ugly set of match-fixing black whistles?

No, they don't think so themselves, and they will never allow others to insult the event where they poured their youth into it.

So driven by these people, will the overall image of Chinese football improve?

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Hulay withdrew from his memory, and he had just carefully recalled in his mind some of the information he had learned about football in this country since he came into this world.

To a certain extent, Chinese football in this time and space has many similarities with Chinese football in the time and space where he came, so similar that even he has the illusion of "Actually, I haven't crossed over".

But obviously, there are still a lot of differences, and in those parts of déjà vu, the subsequent trends are not quite the same.

Let's not talk about the changes at the level of professional football, not to mention the different development paths of the league, let's talk about the changes in campus football.

Before crossing over, Hulai's goal was to join the varsity team, but he didn't join the varsity team to compete in any national tournament - he knew almost nothing about the national competition, and he didn't even think about it.

He just wanted to join the varsity team, and as for what would happen after joining the varsity team, he didn't think about it that much. I think it's just to play games with the surrounding schools from time to time, and it's good to be able to participate in the city's "Shizhang Cup".

But after coming to this plane, you can join the school team and participate in a national middle school football game, how attractive it is!

Now, in the fifth year of the promotion of this competition, 128 middle schools in Andong Province, where Dongchuan City is located, participated, and this is because the organizing committee of Andong Province deliberately controls the number of participants, otherwise there will be more participating schools, but too many will lead to the competition will be lengthened, and too long the competition will in turn weaken the enthusiasm of schools to participate.

After all, a school is not just a football team, and learning is the main business of the students. There has to be a balance between football and learning, not just how many teams are going to play, and not just the size of the game. If this problem is not considered, then the school will be forced by the pressure of the parents of the students to give up participating in the football game - if the parents of the students find that playing football will affect their children's academic performance, then they will not care about their children's youthful enthusiasm and football dreams, they will not hesitate to cut off their children's connection with football.

This is also a delicate balance formed after the past five competitions.

It can also be seen that the education department and the sports department can work together to make this event go further. Without the cooperation of the education department, the Football Association alone will not be able to push this behemoth at all.

In Andong province, because there are 128 schools participating, a single-game elimination system is adopted, and as for who plays at home and who plays away, it is decided by online draw.

Hu Lai's Dongchuan Middle School was lucky to draw the home lottery.

But in fact, the luck was better for the away team Fifty Middle School, who was lucky enough to draw an opponent from the city and did not have to participate in the competition across the city. Although the high-speed rail is now very developed, and it will not take more than two hours to take the high-speed rail from Dongchuan City to any city in Andong Province, the fatigue of the journey will still affect the team's combat effectiveness.

Because they were playing in the city, there was a small cheerleading squad of 30 people who came with the 50 Middle School football team, dressed in neat clothes and using uniform slogans and movements to cheer for the team.

Even though their team is now 3-0 down on the pitch, their shouts are still ringing non-stop.

Before the game, Hu Lai heard Mao Xiao say that Fifty Middle School is not a strong football school, and the strength of their school team is very average. The best result was only reaching the third round of the Andong Cup, which is also known as the national qualifiers.

But that doesn't stop them from participating in the event every year, even if it's for one round, and they'll come back the following year.

For the juniors on the team, maybe losing this game would mean losing three whole years of dreams and hopes, but they are still running tirelessly on the court. Everyone is taking this game seriously, even though it could be their last game of the year......

Wearing the number 14 shirt, Hulay sat on the bench on the sidelines, and although the game had little to do with him, like the game in sports class, he could only be a spectator from the sidelines, but he was very fascinated to watch.

In the past, he didn't know how much he envied the Japanese high school students, and envied their youth who sweated on the court, shed tears in the locker room, and shouted for their school team in the stands.

Even those heart-wrenching failures made him envious.

In contrast, the youth of Chinese students has been defined by those film and television dramas as the hysteria of boys and girls, and the nonsense of fighting and fighting.

He sat motionless, staring intently at the pitch, somewhat greedily taking in all the scenes on the pitch and in the stands, all of which dazzled and intoxicated him.

What a beautiful new world it is!

※※※

PS,It's not on the shelves yet.,No matter how much PS writes after the chapter, you don't have to worry about making everyone pay more.,I'll continue to use this opportunity to talk to you about my thoughts about this chapter.。

This chapter seems to be an introduction to the new world, similar to the canonical description, but I'm describing it all from Hulai's point of view.

I hope you don't feel watery.

Because what this chapter says is actually why I'm writing about an alternate football world:

After 17 years of writing football novels and being a Chinese fan for nearly 30 years, I actually have a lot to say about football, especially Chinese football, and I have also had some ideas that sound arrogant and unassuming.

I can post these words on Weibo, send them to my circle of friends, and even send them to my official account.

But as an online novel writer, I think writing these words into online novels is probably the most suitable way for me.

During the 2018 World Cup, I was invited by the publisher of "Heart of Champions" to write an article about the educational attributes of football and put it on my official account.

In "Green Glory", I expressed some of my thoughts through Zhao Ju - what about those who started to take the road of professional football since childhood, but did not come out in the end? Who is responsible for their deceased teens? Who is responsible for their future?

How many parents are willing to send their children to professional football and gamble on such a less clear future?

So can school football be a solution to parents' concerns?

Now I am married, and my son is seven and a half years old and is in elementary school. Last semester, my wife and I also went to a lot of places to learn about the football interest class for our children.

To be honest, my kid doesn't have much talent, and I didn't expect him to follow the path of professional football. But I still want to send him to learn to play football, just hoping to make him fall in love with football, and learn something from football, and at the very least, he can exercise his body and save him a little bit from the life of staying at home every day and reading and writing homework.

I'm sure many parents who send their children to various soccer interest classes have this idea - they don't necessarily want their children to become professional footballers in the future, but just want to find an opportunity for their children to play sports, and let their children enjoy football in this way.

This is still under the premise that we do not have a systematic unified campus football league.

So what if there is?

When my son was very young, I had a fantasy that when he went to school, he would join the school's soccer team and play with the team every week, and I would watch him play in the stands, cheer him on, praise him for playing well, and fight with him on the way home if he didn't play well. If he loses, I comfort him and encourage him.

Memories of football will be a very important part of his upbringing. The campus football league will become the common memory of their generation, that is, their youth.

And I am especially pleased that the youth I have not experienced can be realized in my children.

But unfortunately, the campus football environment in our country does not support my dream.

So I wrote it into the book, a world where I, as the author, have the final say, and I want to write about such a unified national competition, and I want to write about the football youth that such a group of teenagers share, and the experience of moving from school to professional.

Parents in this world don't have to worry about their children giving up their studies and going to the single-plank bridge of professional football. If their children are really talented, they will naturally attract the interest of professional teams through events such as national competitions. It is up to the children and parents to decide whether to go or not.

If they have average talent, or if they don't have ambitions, they can also enjoy football on campus, and they don't have to give up their studies, they will continue to go to school, they will take the college entrance examination, and finally be admitted to university, and embark on another path in life.

Or if you play in the same national collegiate soccer league in college, if you do well, you will have the same chance to enter professional football.

When they reach adulthood, they will be grateful for what they experienced on the high school football team, which taught them to deal with setbacks and work as a team. Fight alongside your teammates, celebrate your victories, and face your defeats.

This will become a precious treasure in their lives.

And only when the worries of students and parents are solved will football be revitalized in this populous country, and we will have a large football population.

With China's population, such a football population is very large, and it is terrifyingly huge.

This huge football population will become the cornerstone and soil of the superstructure of football – and this is true in any football powerhouse.

Without a football population, there is no great football atmosphere and level of football. Without a football population, there is no strong national team and no thriving professional league.

But most importantly, without the football population, there would be no football as a sport, and football would become a tree without a source of water.

For me, imagining such a campus football environment is also a small suggestion or assumption on how to improve the level of Chinese football.

I know this is a bit idealistic, but I'm just a football fiction writer, and I'm not the president of the Football Association, so it's not up to me to make my ideals come to fruition, and let me finish my dreams first.

As I exclaim from Hulay's point of view, what a beautiful new world it is.

I hope that one day in the future, we will have such a beautiful new world.

Thank you all for listening to me, and let's continue to look forward to Hulai's future in this new world!