‘Chinese football will never be the same again’: How world’s biggest soccer boarding school is striving towards China’s World Cup dream
Training and lessons from dawn to dusk, no soft drinks, junk food and mobile phones as pupils at Guangdong school set their sights on World Cup glory
Wang Mu is one of the smallest players in his soccer team but that’s not stopping the 13-year-old, a pupil at the world’s biggest soccer boarding school, in Qingyuan, Guangdong province, from dreaming of becoming China’s next football superstar.
“My favourite player is Neymar of Barcelona. He is like me, not heavily built but very agile on the field and plays smart. I wish to become a player like him one day,” said Wang, who was born in Tanzania but moved to Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, to join his father at the age of two.
He already has a future mapped out on the green fields of Evergrande Football School in rural Qingyuan as one of about 2,800 pupils aged nine to 16 on the 67.5 hectare campus, which features more than 50 soccer fields.
We won’t just sit here to wait for our turn, I wish to represent China to claim the Asian championship and make it to the World Cup finals
With European gardens wrapped behind Forbidden City-style red walls, it resembles a Chinese Hogwarts. The magical transformation going on behind its walls is aimed at turning pupils into players who could win the World Cup for China one day.
“When President Xi Jinping visited Manchester City [last year], I knew Chinese football would never be the same again,” Wang said. “We won’t just sit here to wait for our turn, I wish to represent China to claim the Asian championship and make it to the World Cup finals.”
The profile of China’s national soccer team received a boost when Xi, a passionate soccer fan since his childhood, became Communist Party secretary general in 2012.
Last month, the central government laid out a grand plan to produce one of the world’s strongest soccer teams by 2050, with other interim goals such as boasting some 50 million soccer players by 2020 and becoming one of Asia’s best teams by 2030.