405 teams, 9,589 players, 1,443 matches, 5,356 goals. In addition, the broadcast volume of a single match on all major platforms ranges from hundreds of thousands of viewers to more than 3 million. All these figures have created the most in China's youth tournaments.
It is perhaps fair to say that the widest coverage and the largest number of participants have been fully realized, and that the highest level of competition and the greatest social impact have been initially demonstrated.
The winners of the seven age groups were, except for the Girls U except 19 division which buttresses the Women's B League:
Boys U Shandong Taishan 13 Group U13;
Boys U Shandong Taishan 15 Group U15;
Boys U17 Division - Zhejiang Professional Football Club U17A Team;
Men's U Shandong Taishan Group 19 U19;
Girls U13-Suzhou Sports School U13;
Girls U15-Shanghai Women's U15;
Girls U17 - Jinan Licheng No.2 Middle School.
The tournament lasted more than four months and had a big impact, but in terms of the huge framework of the Chinese Youth Football League, all of this is just the very beginning; in the future, the Primary School Division tournament will be formally included; the U13, U15 and U17 divisions will hold full-scale qualifiers; and the U19 division is expected to expand dramatically from its current 26-team base. It is certain that the second edition of the tournament in 2023 will be even bigger, with statistics such as districts, teams and number of matches increasing geometrically.
These highlights underscore the value of the event
Throughout the tournament, there was a tremendous amount of effort from the coaches and players to the team staff, from the tournament office to the local authorities, to all the tournament and security staff in the region.
After a fierce battle, Chinese youth soccer players have been comprehensively improved, Shandong Taishan U13 team group stage performance is not satisfactory satisfactory. The main problem was that the players lacked experience in the game and had a lot of mental fluctuations. However, four months later, they were firm and confident and finally won the championship. All parties, including head coach Wang Qiang, agreed that the team had changed. U17A team head coach Toshiki Nishitani said: "This tournament also gave us a high level of training, and the players learned a lot, whether it was the spirit, the rules, the education, the techniques and tactics, etc. We are very proud of the team's performance, and we will continue to work hard to improve the team's performance. This tournament was very, very good for our youth coaches."
The rules of the tournament are also set to do everything possible to improve the quality of the game, U13 and U15 groups of venues narrowed to 90 groups X 64 meters greatly improve the pace and intensity of the game; final group stage in two 90-minute sections after the addition of a third 25-minute section of the game, which makes the Chongqing Football Association technical director Fernando praised. He believes that this is a voluntary principle that should be made mandatory; the U19 group elevation system, where stronger teams play more matches against each other, is very intense with each of the 16 matches being very valuable, according to Han Peng, head coach of the Luneng Football School U19 team.
The relevant departments of the Football Association, through the CFA Youth Training Digital Platform, comprehensively carry out data analysis and statistics, establish a database of outstanding players, form a player growth file, and establish a long-term dynamic selection mechanism. Not only players, but also coaches.
As for the players, Yang Mingrui from Dalian, Lv Mengyang and Kuang Zhaolan from Tsinghua High School, Wu Qipeng and Wang Ziheng from Shanghai Shenhua, Huang Guoshen and Jiang Yihang from Zhejiang Greentown, Yang Yang Yang from Shandong Taishan, and Aibibulla Nur Aji from Chengdu Rongcheng have all shown strong soccer abilities. As for coaches, Shanghai Shenhua Tao Jin, Shandong Taishan Zhou Haibin, Han Peng, Dalian Li Yang also performed well.
The referee's performance was excellent and nearly 1,500 matches went smoothly without adverse reactions. What's more, the referees are certainly not perfect, but being so consistent fully demonstrates the love and responsibility of all coaches and players for soccer, who don't insist on winning or losing and focus on the pitch, which naturally has more tolerance.
The inaugural tournament was broadcasted in full, with several important matches using 8-camera TV-grade broadcasting standards, some matches using 5-6 camera lightweight broadcasting, and full-platform output on both TV and the Internet.For more than 4 months, the China Youth Football League has attracted widespread attention from fans, with a total of more than 70 million viewings.
These deficiencies need to be improved in the future
Finally, looking back at the journey, many shortcomings are worth summarizing. The first game was only a little over a month from landing to the game, with insufficient preparation time for most of the local qualifiers that should have taken place, and many local organizing committees had not yet been set up, which was the first problem of the second game; at the same time, due to the short, large and tight schedule of the game, the staff of the organizing committee were under tremendous pressure and inevitably missed out, but lessons learned will inevitably lead to improvements across the board in the new season.
The Chinese Youth Football League is facing tremendous financial pressure. the second tournament in 2023 will see qualifiers in full swing across the region. With the rapid expansion of the tournament, the issue of funding is imminent. China Youth Football League is also looking forward to the participation of more responsible and far-sighted enterprises like Mengniu, because China's youth soccer players have a huge base, which is not only the future of Chinese soccer, but also the future of the Chinese market.
