22 year old young man, played soccer at age 7, selected at age 9
China Super League (soccer league)
Club ladder, what are you going to do when you grow up? Just thought about playing soccer.
He didn't think much about joining the experiment about the youth training system. Without anticipating it, the new changes were going to be more consumable. He had to deal not only with training, but also with time, language, human interaction and an unpredictable fate.
"Can't kick ass, no way to compete." Lithgow gently brought over his
demobilize
Rationale.
Esprit is Wanda's "center
national soccer team
The fourth batch of young players to stay in the world under the "Stars of Hope" program happened to be in the batch that saw a change in the mode of training: in 2015, Wanda acquired a 20% stake in Atletico Madrid, and all the selected players were required to spend three years training at the club first. The three batches before him were dispersed to various clubs according to the original program, with some staying with host families and having exotic "family".
When he was notified of his selection, Sije excitedly searched for his name on various websites. His parents were ordinary workers, and he couldn't afford to go to Spain to train on his family's strength.
Parents are very careful about sending such young children to Europe and investigate carefully. The information learned is limited, but not so much that it's a deterrent. The clubs the program works with are Atletico Madrid, Villarreal, and Valencia, all of which are being
Chinese fan
Favorite or familiar team, the domestic responsible is Wanda, Wang Jianlin on CCTV to talk about the importance of soccer youth training training.
The turnaround comes at the end of the first contract. The length of the contract of the "Star of Hope" consists of 3+3 parts, at the end of the first three years, the player is evaluated and the next stage of the contract is signed. Sijet reached the second stage and was given the opportunity to join the Real Sociedad team.
Head north to San Sebastian. The small seaside town famous for its film festivals and Michelin restaurants has produced Alonso and also Griezmann. Photographic film and gooseneck barnacles can't fantasize about Sijet, but Alonso, who returned to his job as a youth coach at the Real Sociedad and met him once in a while, can.
The decentralized training model was restored. Sijie was given the opportunity to mix training with the local ladder team, his Spanish soared, and his kicking level was such that he became a representative of the Chinese youth training players.At the end of 2019, the second phase is almost over. He is about to come of age and can apply for a participation license to play in official matches. All the matches he played in the last six years were not actually Spanish
soccer league
The official tournament held, he was a foreign minor with a school visa and could not be registered as a player.
Real Sociedad gave him his first professional contract, with a salary of one or two thousand euros per month. It will come into effect when he turns 18, and his dad has booked a flight to Spain to sign as his guardian.
If the story stopped there, it would be a very "hopeful" story. Esprit will be watched constantly by fans at home, recording his stats every time he takes the field and wanting to hear that he's won again.
The new crown epidemic is here.
The league stopped, Wanda recalled the youth players scattered in three clubs to a hotel. Training dare not stop, the coach put buckets in the corridor, can not gather to meet, all take turns to go out to carry the bucket to do strength training. They had a lounge where the underage players studied in the morning, and in the afternoon the players wore masks and practiced their foot frequency inside. After a month or so, Spain's segregation policy was relaxed slightly and they were finally able to leave their rooms. On the tarmac road in front of the hotel, a string of them practiced long runs and sprints at a "healthy and safe" distance.
Physical fitness is at its peak in his recent years. On the other hand, he's gotten worse with the ball and has to go back to the Royal Society to catch up on his training.
He didn't receive news of a contract re-signing. The club's revenue has been drastically reduced by the epidemic, the partnership with Wanda expired, and there is no intention of taking up the non-EU player quota for the Chinese.
He's coming of age and his contract with Wanda is about to expire. Still wanting to play professionally, Sijie tried out for Dalian Ren, a club owned by Wanda, and after a month or so of training with the Dalian Ren team, he saw no hope of making the first team. After training with Dalian's ladder team for more than a month, he could not see any hope of entering the first team and wanted to go back to Spain. 2021 and 2022, due to visa problems, he had no matches to play and could only look for two Liga B teams to do some daily training to keep up his form.
Training while applying for a work-stay visa. The Spanish police department was extremely slow in processing visas for foreigners, and during the epidemic a huge amount of applications piled up, so that every step of the residency process had to be taken by luck to grab an appointment. By the time he finally got his papers, half a year had passed and he was completely out of shape, with injuries causing his level of play to slip.
demobilize
It was a choice that had to be made.
For the first three years of his training in Spain, Sije trained in the morning and went to school in the afternoon. Wanda had assigned them a class in business management, which he had taken for some reason when he was thirteen. To this day, it was still a subject he couldn't use.
A diamond-shaped highway, the M-30, circles Madrid, dividing the city's core from its periphery, like the five rings that distinguish the two "Beijings". Guernica, Don Quixote, the Royal Palace of Spain and the Bernabeu Stadium are all wrapped within the ring, linking and echoing each other to represent the Spain that is best known to all. Having spent three years in Madrid, Espírito remembers how he felt every time he set foot on the M-30, both because of the excitement and because of the scarcity of the trip - for the first three years he could hardly leave the Alcobedas area, where Atletico Madrid's base is located.
The dormitory building they live in is right next to the academic building. There is a ban on free access except for special circumstances. Teenagers, enclosed in an environment where they can't go out, hormones captive in two tiny buildings.
In addition to the "Star of Hope" players, there are also young people from other countries at the base. The school authorities do their best to avoid conflicts, and the overseas players are concentrated in three classrooms. But the culture clash and the gap cannot be eliminated. In the narrow corridors, some people deliberately provoked them with racist remarks. More than a hundred Chinese youth players hooted and hollered, relying on violence to solve the problem. By the time they were found by their teachers, the racist had a swollen nose, and representatives of the school, Atletico, Wanda, and parents, of all parties, were forced to sit down together.
Even in a group fight, you can't completely trust your teammates.
From the beginning of the draft, they have to compete. Guards and guards, forwards and strikers, people vying for the same position instinctively can't be best friends. Everyone wants to add a little more points to their mid-year evaluations, a little difference that might get them more attention in return.
Small groups emerge in a different way. People who have trained together, who come from the same place, who are the same age, unconsciously aggregate and group together. With teenagers as old as sixteen or seventeen and as young as ten, hazing and group fights are common.
Age is a privilege. Turning sixteen gave you the opportunity to apply for an outing and take younger players with you. In order to get away from school for once, treats and top-up games were the most common ways to curry favor. Life in the building is boring, the only things that can be called pastimes are pool, ping pong and table soccer, the only PS4 is a luxury, and older people have priority to play games.
Cell phones are prohibited and punished. Initially cell phones were banned after 10 p.m., then they were simply not allowed to be present. The school fixed a special locker for cell phones, and no locker with a star on it meant the phone was turned in. Many people prepared two cell phones, one dedicated to confiscation and one hidden in any corner of the dorm. A player's phone was confiscated, since then, he stood next to his friend with a cell phone every night, the other side to play King of Glory he commanded, the other side to brush the short video, brush to what he watched.
Another way to punish a group of adolescents is with a fine. Five euros for a dirty room, ten euros for stealing snacks, and in extreme cases, the fine would become fifty euros, close to four hundred dollars. No one knows where the fines, planned to be used to fund public events, end up.
There had been another TV in the two-person dorm room, which initially worked, but it stayed on the adult porn channel for too long. The next year, the TVs were all locked up.
Spaniard
Don't want to be so strict, the rules are not theirs to propose.
A player who participated in the "Star of Hope" project said that young, good-looking, fair-skinned boys were "harassed" by older players. The physical contact in the confined canned environment crosses boundaries and leaves the victim with psychological problems.
The dormitories were described as "prisons". The strict confinement of the dormitory made everyone's psychological condition worse. The psychiatrist sent by Atletico Madrid became a fixture, and in an environment where Chinese was spoken every day, the language level did not allow them to communicate with the doctor. Even those who express themselves better are afraid to go to the psychiatrist, which is tantamount to declaring weakness to the group.
Off-field conflicts inevitably carry over to the field. Failure to cooperate with a pass is the slightest form of retaliation; more dangerous is deliberate physical confrontation.
There are a lot of people who don't want to continue and not many who actually give up. Parents stop youth players who want to leave. It's the biggest, most professional program, how can you give up?
Players and parents mostly feel that overseas training is better. Domestic training methods are not scientific and advanced enough, the connection between the echelon and the first team is cut off, and the level of youth training coaches is mixed, while the youth training system of overseas clubs has been built over decades and has a complete and mature model, so these problems are rare.
Learning from places with a more developed level of soccer is a path that could conceivably be taken, with Japan and South Korea having profited from youth training to stay in the country.
Before the emergence of the "Star of Hope" program, Jianlibao also provided a bad precedent. Ten members of the Kenilworth youth team sent to Sao Paulo, Brazil, were selected for the program.
the national team
It's in there.
Li Jinyu (1905-1992), Chinese female revolutionary and martyr
Li Tie (1977-), footballer
The names, Li Wei Feng.
Even if they are unable to become professional players through the stay-abroad program, many benefit from staying abroad. They learn another language, see a more professional youth training system, and learn about soccer overseas. They give back to the Chinese
national soccer team
Ball, in the form of interpreters, coaches, and managers.
Investing 500 million dollars over 3 years in
national soccer team
Wang believes that youth training is the most important part of the program. 30 years ago, his Dalian Wanda had the benefit of local youth training - 55 undefeated matches to win the first A title, with half of the team coming from Dalian's youth training.
So the Wanda "center
national soccer team
The "Stars of Hope" program was launched, with Spain as its destination, and in 2008 and 2010, Spain won the "Star of the World" award.
European cup (e.g. soccer)
World Cup
. Pick the most powerful country and send the kids there.
The number of downloads of the enrollment form on Wanda's official website exceeded 13,000 at the start of the first registration period. Wanda Plaza in Chengdu, with parents coming from Yunnan to ask questions. All cities with a tradition of soccer youth training were on the list. Shanghai's Fan Zhiyi, Tianjin's Yu Genwei and Dalian's Zhang Enhua, players with deep ties to the cities, became ambassadors for the draft, and their presence added another layer of confidence for players and parents.
Shi Xueqing, the head of Wanda Football, explained why he chose Spain before the project began. The first clubs that cooperated with Wanda, Atletico Madrid, Villarreal, and Valencia, were the top three in the European league the year before; Spain's soccer is well developed; and the training in the European country is more systematic, so Brazil was not chosen.
Twelve years later, a concerned
China Super League (soccer league)
If you are a fan of the league, you may know that Wang Zhenao and Tao Qianglong are from the "Star of Hope" program. If he cares about substitutes and lower leagues, he may know that Huang Jiahui is now playing for Tianjin Jinmen Tigers, and that Lv Zhuoyi and Zhao Jianbo used to play for Dalian People and are now playing for Tianjin Jinmen Tigers.
soccer league
Team Kicks.
have an
China Super League (soccer league)
The player had trained with the "Star of Hope" players. He was a dozen years older than they were and was a few years away from
demobilize
Not for long. But the twenty-somethings left the team before he did. The team laid out new tactics and offered exorbitant salaries for players returning from overseas, with veterans like him making way for the newcomers. After a few rounds of games, the team underachieved and he had to come back, the team needed him.
A staff member familiar with the youth training of the Dalian People's Club told Off the Field that the players still playing in the "Star of Hope" program can be divided into three types. The first kind insists on staying in Europe after the end of his contract with Wanda, even in a lower league. The second type, after returning to their home country
transfer to another club (professional sports)
Access to other
China Super League (soccer league)
level clubs. The third, back in the youth training ladder of the Dalian people. After Dalian Man was disbanded, they bounced around the domestic leagues at all levels, the
soccer league
, C.B.,
be crowned
The teams have people on them.
A youth coach made a trip to Spain to observe these "hopeful" players. Some of them were regulars on the national junior team and, following their trajectory, might be promoted to the national youth team or, if things went well, to the national youth team.
the national team
. Six years later, he does not feel that the project of staying in the youth training is wrong, "just a wishful thinking way of training is not appropriate, we are hard to organize some children to go over there to train, the risk of becoming a talent will be greater", "selection of youth players in the past to get the recognition of the European clubs to be more meaningful ". It doesn't make sense to invest a lot of money and end up with only a small percentage of them becoming successful.
Returning players hear the same voice, "This group of kids is kind of wasted, they have the skills, but they can't play the game at all." Sije said, "We've done many mock exams, but we haven't really been on the field for the high school exams."
The players who stayed in the country with school visas, they played training matches, invitational matches, cups, Wanda tried to increase the number of matches they played, but the identity problem could not be solved, and they were never able to join the real Spanish youth league system.
As a representative of the success of the "Star of Hope" program, in 2018, Wang Zhen'ao and Wanda had a lawsuit. The Danish club Vaiale was ready to sign a professional contract with Wang Zhenao, and asked Beijing Wanda, to which Wang Zhenao belonged, to issue documents to register the player. Wanda found that Wang Zhenao was in breach of contract in terms of his ownership and demanded $20.2 million in damages.
"Star of Hope" trained players, professional resume of the first transfer out of the club are Beijing Wanda. At the time of selection, the two sides signed a training agreement, which stipulates that after the player reaches the age of 18, the registered ownership and disposal rights belong to the Wanda Club, and if necessary, the player will be transferred to the Wanda Club.
transfer to another club (professional sports)
This must be agreed by the club.
The parent team charges a very low development fee for the player, signs the contract, and through the player's adult
transfer to another club (professional sports)
Profiting from a post-split is the way European youth training systems work. Wanda using a lot of money to train for free is a fairly extreme case. China
national soccer team
球
transfer to another club (professional sports)
The market for "hopeful" players has made it difficult to generate enough value for Wanda to recoup its costs when they reach adulthood. The situation got worse when the bubble of gold dollar soccer deflated.
In June 2017, Beijing Wanda launched the professionalization of its youth players for the first time, with the first batch of players reaching the age of 18 about to sign professional contracts. According to Wanda's suit, Wang Zhenao and his son were out of contact from this point until an email from the Vaal club in November.
The players say the opposite. Wanda didn't contact him much, he didn't play for a long time and the Danish club was approached by him. He and his father have not received any notification from Wanda, the club has all their contact information and does not understand why they are said to be out of contact.
Wang Zhenao and his father signed their first contract in 2012 for three years, followed by yearly training contracts, with the last one signed in 2016 with a deadline until 2017. When the father signed, he signed only the first and last pages, and they did not notice the relevant clauses about registered ownership and disposal rights.
The huge, astronomical compensation of $22.2 million did not meet FIFA's standards for youth development compensation, but the club's ownership contract stuck the player signing. Until 2020, Wang Zhenao
transfer to another club (professional sports)
To the Dalian Club, the case finally disappeared.
This is not the first time the ownership conflict has arisen; it was the most sensitive issue at the start of the program, with some people giving up on training in Spain as a result. Most of the players who made the cut were in local
soccer league
Registration, local clubs develop them up to 10-12 years old and have invested money.
Shi Xueqing said that "the ownership of all players who have been elected to the country belongs to the Chinese government.
national soccer team
The ball, we do public service, three or five years later things have not thought about." Behind the beautiful response, is Wanda compensated the original club 50,000 yuan cultivation costs, commitment to the players after 18 years old if they can produce
transfer to another club (professional sports)
The former club will also be reimbursed $500,000 for its expenses.
500,000 is an early estimate of the player's value, Wanda believe that the "hopeful" players can bring returns, do not think that all the investment is money into the water.
Those familiar with the program have told off-court that not all of the "Stars of Hope" players who return to China at the age of 17-19 can't play professionally. Their contracts are held by Beijing Wanda, which determines their career trajectory.
in (some place)
transfer to another club (professional sports)
The players in the market realize the cost of a free program, and it comes after a few years of delays to show what it costs to get it.
In 2014, Wang went to Spain to see these kids, hoping that some of them would be the "stars of tomorrow" who would enter the world's top clubs. the March 24th news broadcast reported this news, with the headline "Wanda's model of sending elite players to overseas training solves the problem of cultivating youth soccer talent in China". Wanda's model of sending elite players to overseas training has solved China's youth soccer talent cultivation problem.
