On the afternoon of December 27th, Shandong Taishan U17s beat Chengdu Chengdu U17s 1-0 at Zhuhai Soka Base, defeating their main rivals Shanghai Shenhua U17s to win the 2023 Chinese Football Association Youth Championship Professional Clubs U17 Division (hereinafter referred to as the U17 League). So far, the first U17 League has been successfully concluded with a total time span of 7 months and 155 matches. The excellent quality of the competition and the good playing and training conditions have been widely praised by all parties, including all teams. However, apart from the joy, the problems revealed during the tournament cannot be ignored. Of the 48 Furniture Music Sections participating in the 2023 Tier 3 tournament, only 22 have registered for this season's U17 tournament. Can we notice the ladder and youth training mantra? This could also be something that professional clubs and youth soccer practitioners need to think deeply about after this season.
Before this round of matches, Taishan was leading the U17 League Championship Group standings by one point. In the final round of the U17 League Championship Group on the afternoon of the 27th, Taishan U17s faced Chengdu Chengdu U17s; Shanghai Shenhua U17s, who are temporarily in second place, met Liaoning Shenyang U17s. The suspense of the championship lasted until the last match day, which was enough to show the fierce competition in the first U17 league. In the end, Taishan beat their opponents by 1 goal, while Shenhua drew 2-2. In this way, Taishan U17 team finally locked up the championship with a 3-point advantage.
Including these two matches, the inaugural Club U17 League played 155 matches. Of these, the 16 teams that made it to the third stage of the final relegation and championship group competition played a maximum of 19 matches throughout the season. Such a volume of matches has been rare for teams in this age group, where match opportunities have been scarce in previous years. In fact, the reason why the CFA and the CFA preparatory team added the U17 and U15 divisions to the ladder sequence this season after rebuilding the club U21 league last year was actually to "reach out" in the initially tight schedule to give school-age players and their coaches a chance to gain actual fighting talent and find more employment. The first step in the process is to make sure that the players and their coaches have the opportunity to gain actual playing talent and find more employment. As one team coach put it, "Without this event, our coaching staff would have been fired or kept waiting, and players of this age group face the same problem. Therefore, we thank the organizers for providing such a competitive platform and cherish the opportunity to compete."
As we all know, due to the influence of the domestic soccer environment, both adult professional soccer and youth soccer work have faced different degrees of funding shortages in recent years. The preparatory teams of the CFA and the CFL encountered similar problems in the process of launching the three-tier ladder league for professional clubs in the new season. Because of this, tournament organizers have racked their brains to design the system and schedule. For example, the U17 Club League has three stages: knockout (qualifying), North and South Zone qualifying and the national final. The main reason for this is to allow teams to play close to each other, saving time and financial costs.
Official information shows that a total of 22 clubs have registered for this season's Club U17 League, including 13 from the Super League, 6 from the Chinese First Division League and 3 from the Chinese Second Division League. After the knockout rounds and the North-South qualifying rounds, a total of 16 clubs (10 from the Super League, 4 from the China A League and 2 from the China B League) entered the national final stage. In the first match of the final round of the Championship Group on the morning of the 27th, Shanghai Jiading Huilong U17s beat Beijing Guoan U17s 1-0, defeating their opponents to finish seventh in the group. It is easy to see that no matter which professional league the teams come from, they all have the opportunity to "beat the strong with the weak", and this kind of competition can naturally enhance the desire and enterprising spirit of the participating teams.
Not only the 570 players, but also the coaches committed to the club's youth training. For example, Zhou Haibin, the 38-year-old coach of the Taishan U17 team, was undisputedly elected as the best coach after leading his team to the championship. This time, he not only further enriched his coaching experience, but further laid a solid foundation for the next coaching phase. The high-quality matches actually created opportunities for most of the young referees active at the grassroots level to hone their skills. It is understood that apart from the three Chinese referees, most of the referees enforcing the U17 League are young referees enforcing the B or Champions League. They can also accumulate through the enforcement of this tournament for the next time they enter the enforcement stage of more advanced matches.
