For many years, although our population is large, the soccer population is relatively small, however, an equally important issue that is often overlooked is the weakness of the youth soccer training system. There are few examples of senior soccer experts such as Gao Fengwen and Xu Genbao devoting themselves to youth training. With the divestment of the sports team's soccer program and the trend of marketization, excellent coaches have been flowing to professional soccer teams and adult teams, while those left behind at the grassroots level are often physical education teachers who have not been involved in the sport of soccer. Most of them are just amateurs with a limited understanding of soccer, yet they have to coach children to play soccer. When selecting talents, they only look at height and weight, as if short people like Lionel Messi can hardly even break through the goal, or let the children play while playing, and occasionally participate in low-level matches within the city, this so-called youth training, in fact, is more like a game.
Those coaches who are relatively serious and responsible adopt the training methods of adults to guide the children, and most of them quit under the harsh training. Only a very few can stand out, and even if they have some success, they still need to go through a lot of trials and tribulations to enter the professional team, which is even more difficult than getting into Tsinghua University. This directly leads to fewer and fewer children playing soccer, and the level of the national soccer team is deteriorating. In fact, our neighboring country Japan is the best example to learn from, their school soccer activities are more enthusiastic than the top European leagues, which is the cornerstone of the rise of Japanese soccer. Soccer should start from the children, not just slogans, must be put into practical action, in order to really see the results.
