With the morning sun shining, Tang Jiali of the Chinese women's soccer team is embarking on a crucial point in her career as a foreigner.
At the break of dawn on the 14th, our elite women's soccer team, Tang Jiali, helped Tottenham Hotspur Women lock up a win in the first round of the League Cup Group Stage match against Charlton Women, with the goal she scored becoming the turning point of the match.
This is the first goal of her foreign career, crossing an important milestone in her career. After crossing this moment, Tang Jiali accepted an exclusive interview with media reporters and shared her journey after staying in the ocean.
She describes the faster pace of training, the more independent but demanding life than at home, and the hard work of learning and progressing with the language. ...... These new experiences were both stressful and challenging for Tang Jiaoli, but more than that, they were a time of growth.
Talking about the desire to return to the Chinese women's national soccer team, Tang Jiali was blunt: "Of course I want to go back, but the final decision is in the hands of the coach, depending on the coach's selection and the needs of the team."
First goal, long awaited
In the League Cup match against Charlton Ladies, Don Chia-Li scored the only goal of the match and was the key to her team's victory. For the goal, she said she had waited too long.
"I actually waited for this goal for a long time, and when I came here, I thought that only by scoring this first goal could it be considered the beginning of my stay." For Tang Jiali, the significance of the goal cannot be overstated.
Although she had already scored in pre-season warm-ups and broken through from time to time in training, the key goal in the official game meant much more than that.
The goal also "released a lot of pressure from me," as Tang Jiali said herself.
"(The coaches and teammates) were very happy for me, congratulated me on finally scoring my first goal for the team, told me you did a great job, and everyone came and congratulated me a little bit."
"I also want to bond more with the team, and now with the coaches and teammates I feel that the bond is getting better." Tang Jiali told media reporters.
Don Chiarelli with her Spurs teammates.
Despite having some basic English and learning specialized vocabulary in soccer English through vocabulary books, Tang Jiali still needs more time to communicate with her teammates and coaches without barriers.
"There are definitely obstacles, but I can also feel getting used to their speed of speech, sometimes I can understand them, and they also make it a point to talk to me individually again for my sake, including the team's mechanics and tactics."
In addition to training and competitions, the club has hired an English teacher to teach Tang Jiali lessons via the Internet.
"Even though there are still a lot of harder ones that I don't really understand, they all feel that I'm making progress and that I'm improving my English, after all, I've also been officially on the team for less than two months." Tang Jiali said.
Don Chia-Li intercepts an opposing player during a game.
The most noticeable feeling: the pace is faster here.
Although the time of staying in the ocean is not too long, but Tang Jiali has clearly felt the Premier League women's football and domestic women's football in the training and competition is different.
In her opinion, one of the biggest differences is one word: fast.
"There are definitely a lot of differences in the game, first of all the speed is particularly fast and then the intensity of the physical confrontation (is higher). Because the players on this side are all more physical and play more wide open, there are small combinations as well, but the long passes might be on the side of a little bit more."
"Because of the fast pace, there will be a lot of one foot outs, long passes, the other team gets the ball and immediately they have to be in place quickly, there is no break, and corner free kicks have to be sent quickly."
Don Jiali cheered herself on.
In the view of Tang Jiali, this "fast" is a full range of offensive and defensive ends, "the rhythm is really fast, the defense of your pressure and pressing, your fast counterattack, fast with, including your own disk, must be in a high-speed basis, in order to do other actions. "
"Their bodies are also very strong, the kind that fights for every ball." Previously the team's coach also hoped that Tang Jiali's athleticism would continue to improve, "I will be given some extra training after the game, such as speed endurance, some upper body strength exercises, etc."
The only way to achieve such a fast pace in a race is to work on it from daily practice: "The training is really similar, it's still fast paced - there are daily distance measurements here and it will be looked at how much sprinting you do in a training session."
"If the amount of sprinting is not up to (the requirements), you might even be asked to add on at the end of practice to make sure you run that amount, so the training time would have to be more full-speed, sprint runs." Don Chiarelli said.
Don Chia-Li breaks through during the game.
Here, you have to do everything yourself.
The different style and pace of play in Premier League women's soccer is something Don Chiarelli is adapting to quickly. But unlike at home, it's certainly not just soccer.
Although she has traveled abroad with the team many times before, living overseas is still a first for Tang Jiali.
Under the liaison and organization of the brokerage team, Tottenham Hotspur FC helped Tang Jia Li to deal with some of the life matters, in addition to providing her with an English online teacher, but also helped her to rent a house, organized the transportation to and from the training of the vehicle, but there are still a lot of chores to be Tang Jia Li to worry about.
"It still feels like a lot of work, after all, I just came here and don't know anything. There are a lot of things to think about when it comes to food, clothing, housing and transportation. Because of the various services over here is also not too familiar with, so also found a friend to help me get a period of time, do the documents and so on." Tang Jiali said.
"At home, you'd probably have someone like an usher to do it for you, and you wouldn't need to put in much effort yourself. Whereas over here it's - even though you're also told to do this and that, you end up needing to get it yourself, and I'd have to get a friend to ask and then do it myself."
"There were thoughts of the difficulties before coming out, and the fact that it takes a while to get used to it, but after actually coming and experiencing it, it's still different than what you think you're prepared for."
"For example, the local area is very different from the domestic area is usually walking training, that is, like work to train, and then go back to their respective homes, they have their other spare time, such as perhaps some will go to the school to lead the team and so on."
Tang Jiali basks in the life of a stay-at-home.
Tang Jiali revealed that her daily routine is to gather at the team at about 8:45 a.m., have some stretching exercises after breakfast and meetings, followed by an hour and a half of field practice, and then strength training after lunch, depending on the situation, and sometimes it's three or four o'clock in the afternoon after the practice is over.
In her spare time, if she doesn't have an English class, she goes out with her friends to the city of London or goes out for a walk with her teammates.
Compared to the domestic, the players have more autonomous moments, such as away matches are only a day ahead of the meeting to go, and home matches are directly from their own home to go to the game.
"I'm going to gradually enrich my spare time as well. More often than not for them maybe soccer is just part of the day, for me it's not thought of as this (day)." Tang Jiali laughed.
Directions: Become the centerpiece of the team
When she left the country, Tang Jiali also brought along hot pot base and snail powder, which really came in handy - as the team provided brunch, but she had to take care of the dinner herself. Tang said that her cooking skills should also improve through the overseas training.
But what she wants more than anything else is to take her soccer abilities to the next level by training abroad. In her, there are also the expectations of many Chinese fans.
In the process of playing with Tottenham Hotspur women's soccer team, there will be Chinese fans and local international students specially come to the scene to cheer for Tang Jiali, which makes her feel warmer. She was also impressed by the enthusiasm of the local fans for the women's soccer team.
"After so many games, we basically have a lot of fans that come to our games, whether it's home or away, there are a lot of fans that show up." Don Chiarelli said.
Tang Jiali's outstanding performance in many games, also conquered the hearts of many fans, after the game there are fans to ask her for autographs, and now after the completion of the first goal of this "small goal", Tang Jiali is also more motivated to face the next challenge.
"The expectation is definitely to go higher and better, but it's still a matter of taking it one step at a time, first of all to gain the trust of the coaches and teammates, and then gradually to be able to play in the starting position, and gradually to be able to become the core figure in the team." This is her hope for her entire career in the foreign countries.
Tang Jiali played for the Chinese women's soccer team.
Definitely want to return to the Chinese women's soccer team
This year's Tokyo Olympics, in the Olympic preliminaries in the outstanding performance of Tang Jiali did not enter the list of Chinese women's football, so that many Chinese fans confused, which about Tang Jiali himself is also a huge regret.
Now playing in England, her desire to put on the national team's uniform and fight for her country remains unchanged.
"I definitely want to go back, but I'm not a coach at the end of the day, it's still up to the coaches to pick and the organization they want." She told media reporters.
Because the Chinese women's soccer team has been practicing long training for a long time, it may be difficult to coordinate with the national team training to play soccer in the ocean? On this issue, Tang Jiali does not have too much worry.
"Since I have come out to stay and have international days as well, there will still be time to go back. If it's a long training session like at home it will still be negotiated."
Now on British soil, Tang Jiali's path to stay in the world has started smoothly - for China's women's soccer team, a driven Tang Jiali can be a powerful weapon, and after missing the Tokyo Olympics, she still has a chance to shine on more big stages.
