At the beginning of 2024, Sun Jihai announced on social media platforms that he would formally launch a soccer selection program called "Haixuan Future" with the goal of producing international players who will be ranked in the top five leagues.
And this year, coinciding with Xu Genbao into the eighties and nineties. On the second day of the first month, many Chongming disciples gathered on the island, as if it were a lifetime ago, people realized that Xu Genbao's influence on Chinese soccer has spanned twenty years.
From Qatar to North America Mexico, Xu Genbao hidden in the national team behind the scenes, become "invisible head coach". In the two World Cup cycle, Chongming players occupy the national team starting half.
Sun Jihai recent situation is slightly mysterious. In an interview, he did not hide his longing for Xinjiang youth training: "I think Xinjiang soccer has unlimited potential, perhaps my soccer dreams can be realized there."
Along with the popular and slightly politically correct concept of "Xinjiang Youth Training", Sun Jihai is still on the Olympic team and serves as vice president of the Xinjiang Football Association.
In August 2019, Gao Hongbo became the vice-chairman of the Football Association, and Sun Jihai then submitted his resignation, bidding farewell to the Olympics. Hao Wei took over and the team's chaos was put to rest.
national Olympic maze
Speaking of Sun Jihai's journey with Hiddink before he traveled to the Great Northwest, it is worth mentioning.
In September 2019, the Chinese Olympics and the North Korean Olympics met at the Yellowstone Four-Nation Invitational. When the camera panned to the coaches' box, the coach directing the Olympics was not Hiddink, but Sun Jihai.
Three days later, Hiddink faced a two-goal defeat against the Vietnamese national Olympic team coached by his assistant, Park Hang-su, and the CFA's crisis of confidence in Hiddink worsened.
In the Olympic training games, Abdukhemi's performance impressed the fans, and may be one of the driving forces behind Sun Jihai's commitment to Xinjiang's youth training.
At the time, Hiddink paid little attention to the Chinese Super League and Chinese League One, and did not examine the players' status, mostly staying at home in the Netherlands. Nearly half of the Olympic players selected by Hiddink's assistant, Hinkelhlavern, came from the Starlight and Sheng agency.
After the fiasco, it became clear that the selection of the national Olympic team was manipulated by agents during Hiddink's tenure.
Brokerage firms work with lower-level Portuguese clubs to send young domestic players overseas, complete their overseas gold-plating, select national brands for the next round of packaging, and then sell them to domestic clubs at a premium price.
Duan Liuyu and other Luneng players have been rejected by Hiddink and Sun Jihai for a long time, until Hao Wei took over and the situation improved. However, the ending did not change.
There is much more to the Olympic maze than that, including but not limited to why no one has been held accountable for using the national team for personal gain. Was Hiddink forced or motivated to relinquish command? What role did Sun Jihai play in the Olympics?
Business Opportunities in Xinjiang
Xinjiang youth training, is it really as sacred as people think?
If one were to explore the details of Sun Jihai's youth training in Xinjiang, one would find a pattern that mirrors that of Li Ming's Xinghui Hesheng.
In the Xinjiang youth training program, Sun Jihai pushed the actual manipulator, is hi ball technology CEO Bong Yu Mang.
Sun Jihai's real identity, on the other hand, is the chairman of Hi-Ball Technology, a company that is rumored to bring in $20 million a year for Sun Jihai.
Xinjiang youth training is special, in the context of football reform, Xinjiang Football Association formally separated from the autonomous region Sports Bureau Football Management Center, Xinjiang Daming Mining Group for the first time as an entrepreneur, Chairman Xu Ming as chairman of the Football Association.
In this context, the autonomy of youth training in Xinjiang is extremely high, but it may also be closed as a result. No one can give an answer as to whether the will of superiors affects the rules.
The director of the Xinjiang Football Administration Center is looking forward to local youth training, and his reasoning is quite succinct.
"Currently, dozens of Xinjiang players play in leagues at all levels across the country. Authoritative studies also say that Xinjiang players are generally better than other regions in indicators such as blood testosterone and red blood cell levels, which means they have better stamina and more endurance."
However, the harsh reality is that it wasn't until Baitijiang was selected for the Xinjiang national team that there was the first truly international player.
At the end of 2018, Sun Jihai, together with Beijing Hi Ball Technology and Xinjiang Daming Mining Group, co-funded the establishment of Xinjiang Snow Future, which operates commercially as an entity to develop soccer in Xinjiang.
"Youth training is not a business," Sun Jihai said firmly. "If it were pure business, I would not choose to do youth training. The input and output are disproportionate and the payback period is too long."
It is difficult to discern the truth in the words, Chen Xuyuan still shouted "conscience is dead", Li Tie at first seemed more pure than Sun Jihai, the savior of Chinese soccer in the moment of crisis to be properly dealt with.
Most interestingly, Sun Jihai's Xinjiang Youth Training has undertaken fundraising and crowdfunding.
Youth training leeks
There has been an inexplicable groundswell of public opinion thanking Sun Jihai, from the National Youth League's victory over Saudi Arabia, to the draw with Kyrgyzstan, nine years after breaking through the Asian Youth League group.
Efirdin came to Shaanxi Old City Roots from Kashgar in 2014. Baihramu and Buyurang both entered the Luneng soccer academy around 2016. Only Mutalifu and Sun Jihai went to Chengdu together at a similar time.
The current young well-known Xinjiang players basically left Xinjiang before Sun Jihai went there to do youth training. Sun Jihai himself never worked for this national youth team. The national youth team outing has nothing to do with him.
From this point of view, Chinese soccer "leek" is really too much, not cut sorry for themselves.
In fact, Sun Jihai painted a grand blueprint for Chinese soccer back in 2016. "Golf live audience of more than 1 million broke Gao Hongbo black information", he never had the opportunity to realize this promise.
Chinese soccer is not the fault of youth training, but the problem of professional league system construction.
Due to the lack of a system, the number of professional players in the current Chinese soccer league is extremely limited, and except for head players who make money, it really doesn't pay to play soccer in China.
I don't know if Sun Jihai will be able to form multiple professional training teams by attracting investment, but there is a lot of uncertainty as to whether those players who follow them will have any other options once the path of the youthful industry goes awry.
So, why not ask Sun Jihai, Starlight Sports that year and the National Youth Olympic Games there is no disconnect, is to go to Xinjiang to expand business, or really contribute to Xinjiang soccer? Think about his little scheme.
Xinjiang seedlings themselves still escaped the local youth training system. Sun Jihai entered the commercial operation with capital and did nothing more than try, even trying other people's money through crowdfunding.
A statement rooted in Xinjiang's youth training is enough to inspire Chinese people's passion for soccer. I wonder if anyone still remembers his unconfident statement back then: "Chinese people are not fit to play soccer".
As for youth training, Wanda's Atletico Madrid program, Hebei Elite, and other projects were completed during the best period of China's soccer gold dollar environment, and ended up with no success. I believe Sun Jihai understands the utility of selecting and centralizing training better than anyone.
If you can actually engage in popularizing and building a small team in the area as others have done, that's admirable. The fact that traffic is up and then the tone is set so high can only be rather embarrassing.
In Chinese soccer, everyone is acting, some are solving problems, some are trying, but for the real problems, everyone pretends not to see them.
