At the start of 2024, Sun Jihai made a high-profile claim on social media platforms that he aims to cultivate Chinese players who can play in Europe's top five leagues, officially unveiling the Haixuan Future Football Program.
Meanwhile, this year coincided with Xu Genbao's 80th birthday. Many Chongming soccer disciples gathered on the island to visit on the second day of the first month. Inadvertently, people realized that Xu Genbao's profound influence on Chinese soccer has been over 20 years.
From Qatar to the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Xu Genbao has stealthily become the think tank behind the national team, with Chongming players occupying almost half of the national team's starting lineups in the two World Cup cycles.
And Sun Jihai's recent developments are slightly mysterious. In an interview, he was looking forward to Xinjiang youth soccer training, "I think Xinjiang soccer has great potential for development, perhaps my soccer dreams can be realized there."
As the concept of "Xinjiang Youth Training" is gaining popularity, Sun Jihai is still on the Olympic team and is also the vice president of the Xinjiang Football Association.
In August 2019, Gao Hongbo took over as vice-president of the Football Association, and Sun Jihai then handed in his resignation, bidding farewell to the Olympics. The team's disorganization was eased after Hao Wei suffered a crushing defeat.
The National Olympic Mystery
Before Sun Jihai traveled to the Great Northwest, he worked with Hiddink.
In September 2019, the Chinese Olympics and the North Korean Olympics met at the Yellowstone Four-Nation Invitational. When the camera was on the Chinese Olympic coaching box, it was not Hiddink, but Sun Jihai, who was in command.
Three days later, Hiddink faced a two-goal defeat against the Vietnam National Olympics, coached by his assistant Park Hang-su, and the CFA's crisis of confidence in Hiddink reached its peak.
In the Olympic training games, Abdukhemi's performance impressed the fans, which may also 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 had little knowledge of the players' form. He spent most of his time at home in the Netherlands. Nearly half of the Olympians selected by Hiddink's assistant, Sinkehlavern, came from the agency Starlight and Sheng.
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 clubs in Portugal to send young domestic players overseas, complete their overseas gold-plating before choosing a national brand for the next round of packaging and finally selling them at a premium to domestic clubs.
Luneng players led by Duan Liuyu were ignored by Hiddink and Sun Jihai for a long time, and the situation didn't improve until Hao Wei took over, but the end of the failure didn't change.
Mysteries of the Olympics remain, including why no one has been held accountable for using the national team as a moneymaker. Did Hiddink passively relinquish command or resign voluntarily, and what was Sun Jihai's role in the Olympics?
Business in Xinjiang
Xinjiang youth training, is it really as pure as people think?
If one were to look into the details of Sun Jihai's youth training in Xinjiang, one would find that his model is the same as 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 is also the chairman of Hi Ball Technology, which is rumored to bring in $20 million a year for Sun Jihai.
Xinjiang youth training is special, in the context of the foot reform, Xinjiang Football Association formally delinked from the autonomous region Sports Bureau Football Management Center, Xinjiang Daming Mining Group for the first time as an entrepreneur, Chairman Xu Minglai Football Association Chairman.
In this context, youth training in Xinjiang has a high degree of autonomy, but it can also fall behind closed doors. No one can give a clear answer as to whether the will of superiors affects the rules.
According to the expectations of the director of the Xinjiang Football Center, his reasoning is simple and clear.
"Currently, dozens of Xinjiang players play in all levels of the national league. Authoritative studies have also shown 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 was purely for business, I would not have chosen 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 seemed to be more pure than Sun Jihai, the savior of Chinese soccer in the moment of crisis has been properly handled.
Of course, the most interesting thing is that Sun Jihai's Xinjiang youth training also involves 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 to the group stage of the Asian Youth League.
Efirdin traveled from Kashgar to Shaanxi Old City Roots in 2014. Both Baihulamu and Buyurang traveled to Luneng Soccer School around 2016. Only Mutalifu traveled to Chengdu with Sun Jihai.
The current 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 too much, not cut for nothing.
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 professional league system is poorly constructed.
Due to the lack of a system, the number of professional players in China's soccer leagues is extremely limited, and except for the top players, it is not profitable to play in China.
It is not known whether Sun Jihai will be able to form multiple professional training teams by attracting investment, but it is unknown whether those players who follow them will have any other options should the industry falter.
Therefore, why not ask Sun Jihai whether Star Sports was out of touch with the National Youth Olympic Games that year, whether he went to Xinjiang to expand his business, or whether he really contributed to Xinjiang's soccer, and think about the small mind behind him.
The seedlings themselves in Xinjiang have escaped the local youth training system. Sun Jihai entered the business 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 the Chinese people's passion for soccer. I wonder if anyone still remembers his unconfident statement that "Chinese people are not fit to play soccer".
As for youth training, Wanda's Atletico Madrid program, Hebei Elite, and other projects were all completed at the best time in the soccer gold dollar environment, and ended up with no success. I believe Sun Jihai knows better than anyone whether centralized selection and training is effective.
If you can actually engage in popularizing and building a small team of people in the area as others have done, that's admirable. It can only be a little embarrassing when traffic goes up and then the tone is set so high.
In Chinese soccer, everyone is acting, some solve problems, some work hard, but for the real problem, everyone pretends not to see it.
