Chengdu Football Development Review
In an exclusive interview with Red Star News on January 13, Beijing time, Chengdu Football Association President Koo Jianming fondly recalled the development of Chengdu's soccer history and made an in-depth analysis of the city value behind Chengdu Hibiscus City's success in the Super League.
Koo said he was particularly grateful to the Xingcheng Group for stepping up in the face of adversity and founding the Chengdu Rongcheng Club, which held up a banner for Chengdu soccer.
According to Koo, for Chengdu soccer, the significance of the Super League is that, as a pilot city for national soccer reform, Chengdu has a deep soccer culture and a huge fan base, and now has an international first-class professional soccer stadium at Phoenix Hill Sports Park and a top league team, which is complementary to Chengdu's status as a national central city.
Talking about head coach Xu Zhengyuan, Koo was full of praise: "Xu Zhengyuan has brought significant changes to the team in terms of management and training, and as a coach, he is extremely demanding. Getting close to the Chengdu Rongcheng players, you will find that they are all in the shape that professional soccer players should be in, which is the result of intense training, and almost all of them have gotten rid of their flab."
"In fact, before this, other Chinese Super League teams had offered Xu Zhengyuan a more favorable coaching treatment. However, he still chose Chengdu Rongcheng after understanding Chengdu's soccer heritage, the FA's ladder construction, Xingcheng Group's investment stability and the club's development plan. I believe that after a year of bonding, both he and the team will make more progress next season."
After entering the First Division, Chengdu Rongcheng has increased its efforts to bring in Chengdu and Sichuan local players. In the past two years, players trained by the Chengdu Football Association's Derry Football Training Center, such as Feng Zhuoyi, Li Jianbin, Zhang Yino, Xiang Baixu, Yang Ting, Min Junlin, Liu Chaoyang, Xing Yu, and others have returned to Chengdu, while Sichuan local player Liu Ruowan has also been given the opportunity to play for his hometown team for the first time.
Koo said that this was originally the stated goal when creating Chengdu Rongcheng FC, "The original plan was to use locally trained players as the base and then absorb the best talents from all over the country. In this season, including players such as Gan Rui and Hu Mingming who have previously played for Chengdu Football, the number of Chengdu Rongcheng players with the stamp of local soccer in the team has reached 2/3, which is very gratifying."
"Hopefully, when we get to the Super League, we can attract more good kids home, and that's a big part of Chengdu Rongcheng's success in the Super League!"
