The women, hardened by adversity, have carved out a way to survive.
Despite the overcast skies and dark clouds, the Beijing women's soccer team manager Yu Yun's hanging heart finally fell on the day he returned to Beijing after completing the mission of the preliminaries of the National Games.
This is the third time this year, Yu Yun led the team back to Beijing, because of the preparation for the National Games preliminaries and the Women's Super League, the first half of the year they only stayed in the capital for more than a month, even the Spring Festival was also spent in Guangdong.
During the six months, the Beijing women's soccer team not only suffered in the preparation and games on the road, but also went through many trials and tribulations.
Fortunately, in the preliminaries of the Women's National Games that ended on June 7, the Beijing women's soccer team broke through from the group of death and grabbed the key "lifesaving straw".
At that moment, the girls of the Beijing Women's Football Team cried tears of joy, and even experienced veterans such as Wang Fei, Gu Yasha and Ma Xiaoxu could not hold back their tears. Head coach Yu Yun was also moved by this, tears of both joy and the pain of these six months.
In February, we reported on the plight of the Beijing women's soccer team.
As Beijing women's soccer team prepares for the 2021 season, the team's investor, Beijiang Group, informed the team that the previously agreed upon investment of 80 million dollars has been fully invested, and that it will not continue to invest in the team for the new season.
It's been six months now, and the Beijing women's soccer team still hasn't been able to find a sponsor. Even under such difficult conditions, Yu Yun and his team are still tenaciously killing their way to survival.
The first thing that struck me when I met with Coach Yu Yun this time was that he had lost a lot of weight compared to before.
Two years ago, Yu Yun suffered from "SAPHO syndrome", which is still recurring. "Recently better, a while ago when playing games, can not sleep at night, the whole body string pain." Yu Yun said.
The Beijing women's soccer team spent the vast majority of the first half of the year out of town preparing for and playing in matches. Yu Yun and her teammates left for Shunde, Guangdong on Jan. 2 to prepare for the tournament, and then moved to Sanshui, Guangdong on Feb. 2, where they spent the New Year's Eve.
March 2, Beijing women's football team and directly to Kunming to prepare for the game and the game, until the beginning of April to end more than three months of "wandering", back to Beijing.
On May 2, the team went to Kunming to participate in the first stage of the Women's Super League, and returned to Beijing in the middle of the day to prepare for two weeks before heading to Foshan to participate in the Women's Football Qualifier for the National Games.
"Being out there for three months is the longest time ever, and last year it was just over two months for the closed conference women's super league." Yu Yun said.
The difficulty of the actual conditions also made the period extraordinarily long.
With no sponsorship from investors, Beijing women's soccer players and coaches lost more than 70% of their income without winnings and training fees, and only the basic salary of Xiannongtan Sports School.
"The base salary is a little more, like the old players estimate that it is only six or seven thousand dollars a month, and get their hands on five or six thousand, and the young players are going to be even lower. Like Ma Xiaoxu is not the first Nongtan sports school system, this half a year a penny wages are not." Yu Yun said.
It's really cruel for the players who eat youth and makes it more difficult for Yu Yun to lead the team.
With regard to the impact that the departure of a number of key players has brought to the team in terms of strength, the stabilization of the mental level is even more important. The good thing is that over the past six months, the team's spirit has not been scattered, but rather the more frustrated, the more courageous.
The preliminaries of the National Games women's soccer program, the Beijing women's soccer team fell into the "group of death" with Jiangsu, Henan and Guangdong, the team has always been the most difficult grouping.
Yu Yun clearly remembers the day of the draw: "It was April 13, China's women's football and South Korea's women's football Olympic qualifying round before the second round of the match of the draw, when I was leading the team training, they sent this message over, I looked at this is indeed very unsatisfactory, it is a lower draw."
In the last National Games, the Beijing Women's Football Team finished eighth, so this time it was designated as the third-ranking team, increasing the probability of entering the "Group of Death".
In the group where the Beijing women's soccer team is located, Jiangsu is the first-ranked team, with six international players in the midfield and backfield, namely Ma Jun, Yao Lingwei, Wang Xiaoxue, Zhai Qingwei, Li Mengwen and goalkeeper Peng Shimeng.
Guangdong, on the other hand, is a relatively strong team in the fourth gear, with four international players, including Luo Guiping and Lin Yuping, and also occupies the advantage of hosting this group. The second-ranked Henan team has international player Lou Jiahui.
Of the four teams, only the Beijing women's soccer team does not have an active international player, while Ma Xiaoxu and Zhang Linyan, two of the main players, did not receive arbitration until May 15, the deadline for registration, and finally confirmed that they could play for the Beijing women's soccer team.
Until then, Ma Xiaoxu hadn't played a game for the team, and Zhang Linyan had returned to Beijing temporarily before the Games.
The less-than-stellar fortunes have added insult to injury for the struggling Beijing women's soccer team.
Once they don't make it to the main round of the Games, it will be a bigger blow to the Beijing women's soccer team. As far as Yu Yun remembers, Beijing women's soccer team has never missed the main round in the history of the Games.
"Trying to survive, with poor grades there's even less attention." Yu Yun's words were painful to say, but this was the harsh reality.
Yu Yun and his coaching staff have formulated a strategy for this National Games qualifier, which in a nutshell is to fight Guangdong to the death on the basis of taking Henan in the first match.
"At that time, the coaching team's judgment was that as long as normal play is not unexpected, the decisive battle is the third round against Guangdong." Yu Yun said.
By the time we got to the All-Conference preliminaries, the process was indeed the same as predicted.
Beijing Women's Soccer first won the first round 1:0 against Henan, while Jiangsu was 1:0 against Guangdong. In the second round against Jiangsu, Beijing women's soccer team rotated three players and finally lost 0:1.
Speaking of the match, Yu Yun analyzed, "The last two matches are separated by just one day, and even if we win Jiangsu, if Guangdong wins Henan in the second round, the final match is equally likely to fail to get out of the tournament if we don't beat Guangdong."
"No matter what, the final game against Guangdong is a decisive one. Even though we are pushed to the brink, we can put ourselves in control. And we have five veteran players who have played in the Olympics and the World Cup and are very experienced, so this competition situation is nothing."
In the final match against Guangdong, Beijing women's soccer team must win the game to get out of the tournament.
"I felt it was a game before the pre-game practice because Guangdong was a little nervous because no one talked from the time they did the preparatory activities." Yu Yun said.
When it came to the game, the process went surprisingly well.
Beijing Women's Soccer scored a goal in only 1:30 of the opening match, and the team eventually kept this advantage strong and successfully got out of the line.
"After the match I told the team that I really believe there are more important things in this world than money." Recalling the scene, Yu Yun's eyes reddened a bit.
"Looking back, all four teams in this group were actually pretty close, we played three games and scored two goals, one from a free kick and one from a penalty."
"Guangdong scored a penalty kick in three games, Jiangsu scored a free kick in the last minute of the first game for Guangdong, and kicked our team to score a sports goal in the second game. The process was all grueling."
"It's also a bit of luck, it's called placing death before life." Yu Yun lamented.
The end of the National Games preliminaries mission, Yu Yun rare moment of respite. In the past few days he took on the task of transporting his children to school, "There is still more guilt about the children, because our vacation doesn't match up with the children's vacation, so this time he came back to transport his children at ease, do his duty, and it's also a rare enjoyment."
In August, Yu Yun will lead the team to play in the Women's Premier League, and in September, she will set foot on the women's football field of the National Games.
Although the road ahead is still unclear, but now the Beijing women's soccer team, after the difficulties of the preliminaries of the National Games, there is a little hope and running.
However, the long-term "bare running" for a work team is not a long-term solution. I hope that the Beijing women's soccer team can eventually find sponsors as they wish, this unit, worth it.
