With two army-green mats spread tightly side by side on the concrete floor, 11-year-old Bi Huimei, soccer goalie gloves in hand, tries out a pouncing maneuver under the guidance of her coach. Her body seems hesitant to commit fully to the mats.
After all, below the mat is a hard concrete floor. "If you're afraid of the goalie, let alone the others." The coach encouraged her in an imperious tone.
Bi Huimei is performing a pouncing training. Photo credit: Screenshot of video material from the official blog of our women's soccer team.
Bi Huimei is the goalkeeper of the girls' soccer team at Weize Qinglian Hope Primary School in Changhu Town, Shilin County, Kunming, Yunnan Province. Her skin is slightly tanned from the sun, and her round face has naturally curly hair that flutters gently as she saves.
This is where the girls train - next to the concrete playground on campus, where the nets in the soccer goals are in tatters.
Poojun Joon Yoon, a defender on this team and also 11 years old, demonstrated the punt on the mat at the request of her teammates.
She rushed up without hesitation, her face expressionless. After the punt was completed, Pu Junjun covered her butt and laughed, "My butt hurts, it really hurts."
Pu Junjian performing a save demonstration. Photo credit: Screenshot of video material from the official blog of China's women's soccer team.
In 2017, the "National School Football Characteristic Demonstration County" settled in Shilin, and the girls' soccer team was born. Due to the lack of space, the girls can only train on the concrete floor every day for physical, technical and tactical training.
When Pu Junjun first joined the soccer team, her family didn't agree. "My mom said girls should dance and sing, and when I got kicked and hurt here, my mom would say I deserved it. What's the point of joining? You can't even kick a ball."
But Pu Junjun is a stubborn girl, and she is not convinced: "You say I can't kick a soccer ball well, I'll kick it to you. If I kick in the bottom one, I won't participate."
The walls of the girls' dormitory are covered with colorful bento stickers with everyone's dreams written on them. Pu Junjun wrote on the bento sticker, "Play to win against BYU, always play against others, and get first place. Grow up and join our women's soccer team and compete for our country."
Bento Stickers. Photo credit: Screenshot of video material from the official blog of our women's soccer team.
The "North" refers to the North Village Elementary School in Shiprock County. On April 12 this year, a friendly match was played between the two teams.
On the way to Beida Village, the girls sang in unison on the bus. When the bus arrived at the end of the journey, the girls looked through the window and saw "someone else's stadium" and marveled: this is obviously a joke! The field was so big!
But the girls' excitement is soon shattered as they lose the game by three goals. Bi Hye Mi sits on the sidelines angry, and Pu Joon Joon sheds a tear, and the bento stickers are a dream that didn't start off well.
On the way back, there was no more singing on the way in. Wong Ming-chu was a little dismayed: "They just got used to the grass because we've been playing on concrete for months and then we got used to it [the concrete]."
Huang Mingzhu (right). Photo credit: Screenshot of video material from the official blog of China's women's soccer team.
Huang Mingzhu is 11 years old and is the team's striker. As her name suggests, she is a pretty girl with big eyes and a lively and cheerful personality. She says, "I want to get out of the mountains, I want to play soccer on a bigger field."
Training on a concrete field and playing on a grass field really had a big impact on their play. Once they went out to play a match, the girls won only one of their four opponents in the group stage.
Coach Tigerweather said, "Lucky win because they didn't have a soccer field either. The others couldn't win a kick and had already trained a lot and it just dawned on them the importance of a soccer venue."
Losing a lot of matches hit Bihuimei's confidence a bit. "Goalkeepers train harder than the others, but what's the point? Teachers say friendship first and competition second, anyway, we are friendship first, competition third, competition fourth, competition fifth, competition sixth, no progress at all."
On April 13, China's women's soccer team reversed South Korea in the second round of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament play-offs, defeating the opponent with a total score of 4:3 and obtaining the ticket to the Tokyo Olympics. The match became the highest-rated program on CCTV at the same time, and hit the peak of the simultaneous ratings in the past two years.
After the match, our women's soccer team was a hot topic on social media for several days. But such heat is often fleeting, and the popularity of women's soccer competitions in the country is so low that many people don't actually understand how well women's soccer survives at the grassroots level.
The girls' soccer team from Vizier YAF Hope Primary School was also in front of the TV to watch the game. They felt sorry for every missed opportunity and couldn't help but cheer for the players on the field through the screen. Many of these girls dream of being part of our women's soccer team.
After that tournament, the coach told them that the country's first women's soccer-themed field would be located on their campus, and that these girls would no longer have to practice on concrete.
During the construction of the field, the girls stood side by side on the school building looking down, talking and laughing. Halfway through the repairs, Huang Mingzhu once went ahead and stomped on the grass with her teammates. "It felt cozy and was still soft." She said with a smile.
On April 28th, the day the stadium was officially completed, Sun Wen, Liu Ailing, and Wang Liping came to coach the girls at the new stadium, where in 1999 they represented China in the Women's World Cup, eventually finishing as runners-up. It was the most glorious moment in the history of Chinese soccer.
Twenty-two years later, China's women's soccer team is no longer a top international team, but every generation of women's soccer players has brought encouragement and emotion to the people of China on the field. At the side of this stadium, there are photos of generations of women's soccer players. Just like these big sisters, running with the little sister on the field.
On an ordinary evening, the kids on the girls' soccer team gathered to soak their feet and chattered and discussed again.
"Will the next generation of our women's soccer team be us?"
"There's no chance of that."
"Will it be one of us?"
There was no answer, and they ended the conversation with a good laugh.
But who's to say that it won't come true?
Every dream starts from this moment. (Author: Wang Hao)
