Wang Haiming, former coach of the Chinese women's football team: After thousands of sails, let football return to its roots

"Teacher, we want to come here and play football, okay?"

"You want to play, what grade are you in?"

"The first year of junior high school. But we don't go to this school. ”

"Then you can discuss with your parents, transfer to a school and play football while studying, I think you are in good shape, quite suitable for practicing football."

"And how much do you have to pay to play here?"

"If you don't pay money, you can get a tuition waiver if you play well."

▲Wang Haiming when he coached the women's national football team.

This is a conversation between two girls from other schools and an elderly person at the gate of Sunshine Yanshan School in Zunhua after school on the afternoon of April 11. Knowing that they were expected to play football at this school, the girls immediately smiled, and they asked a young boy passing by to borrow a pen and paper and asked for the contact information of the "teacher" in a sportswear in front of them. The latter happily wrote down the phone number and his name on a piece of paper - "Wang Haiming".

"This phone number is my WeChat," he said, "It's a very good thing to like to play football, you have to do it!" ”

The boy who borrowed paper and pen and made it convenient for others also opened his mouth at this time.

"Teacher, I want to kick too."

"What grade are you, little friend?"

"Third grader. I haven't practiced specifically, but I like it and I can play. ”

"It's even easier for students in our school, just find your primary school coach."

▲ Today's Wang Haiming is thin and has white temples

Obviously, none of the three children knew the role of "Wang Haiming" in this school, let alone the thin football enthusiast with gray temples in front of them was the former head coach of the Chinese women's football team. Two years ago, he found his home and sustenance in Zunhua City, which belongs to Tangshan, Hebei Province, and his current public identity is the vice president of Sunshine Education Group, the general manager and youth training director of Zunhua Sunshine Elite Football Club, and the chairman of the Xiong'an New Area Football Association.

In order to improve the physical fitness of tens of thousands of students in school and relieve the learning pressure of children, this private education group vigorously promotes after-school programs such as music, art, calligraphy, and sports, among which Sunshine Elite Football Club is its largest investment and most well-known sports project.

In 2008, he stepped down from the national women's football team, and Wang Haiming moved to the men's third-level professional club; After retiring from the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in 2018, he has not left football for a day. Now, the 67-year-old drives three and a half hours a week from Beijing to Zunhua to fulfill his mission, and does not return home until weekends or days off.

▲Ma Hongming and Wang Haiming gathered in Zunhua.

"It is my dream and mission to cultivate a new generation of educated, literate and civilized football reserve talents for the country." Wang Haiming told Football that his first thought after retirement was to pass on "too many successful experiences and failures" accumulated in his career to young coaches and the next generation of footballers, so that they could "improve as soon as possible and avoid detours".

Professional clubs and professional football teams are not in his plans, he wants to go to a place where he can play a role and need him the most - "then he can only devote himself to the school, and he can only serve youth football". In this case, the most ideal second half of life is to rely on such a school, "which can not only provide students with the best football training, but also provide the best cultural education for football people." "Generally speaking, the higher the quality of teaching, the less room there is for football, but there are always some schools that break the rules and stand out – Sunshine Education Group is one of them.

There is Wang Haiming, the national coach here, who chooses the wood, and there is Ma Hongming, the chairman of the group, who is eager to seek talents. The two came together, which is not only a kind of fate, but also a reason for being like-minded.

▲The home team's locker room at the new stadium allows children to try the feeling of a professional athlete

Thanks to Ma Hongming's strategic vision and investment, the campus club led by Wang Haiming has more than 10 professional coaches, an annual competition budget of more than one million yuan, and even its own newly built home stadium - 1,000-seat spectator seats, home and away team locker rooms, referee lounges, athletes' dormitories, coaches' offices, and club offices...... Such a hardware and software configuration has surpassed many low-level professional clubs.

"I am very grateful to Mr. Ma for his support of football, including his trust and care for me personally." Wang Haiming believes that Chairman Ma Hongming's understanding and love for football are extraordinary. He often said that football is a systematic, long-term project, and it must be sustainable, not always thinking about what to do in two or three years. And always remind me not to put so much pressure on the coaching staff, just let the kids play and have fun. ”

In addition to using funds, Ma Hongming also repeatedly mobilized his principals and teachers to "change their stereotypes and support the development of football". In order to let the management have a personal understanding of football, the school organized a delegation to Guizhou to visit and learn the "village super", and after returning, the "class super" and "school super" in the school have also been carried out more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

▲Wang Haiming enforces the "class super" league at school

Although there are different understandings of the individual implementation details of campus football, Wang Haiming is pleased that he and the chairman are highly consistent in the "youth training concept", including some reflective views and breakthrough ideas he drew on "why Chinese football can't go up", which has also won deep resonance from investors.

"Compared to Japanese football, we don't have a mechanism to export players from high schools; Judging from my experience of coaching the Chinese university team to win the bronze medal in the Universiade, although the time I took over the team was short, the student players improved quickly, had strong understanding and high execution. He said that putting education in the first place, putting reading in a more important position, and first starting to solve the problem of cultural literacy of football players. The second is to take a longer period of time, perhaps six or seven years later, to start sending reserve talents from the high school to the professional team and the national team. In this way, the child kicks into the profession and does not lack cultural literacy; If you can't play professionally and go into society, you will be more popular because of your cultural literacy and football skills.

▲ Wang Haiming went out to eat and happened to meet the contestants of the primary school group "Class Super".

Starting from a small place, Wang Haiming asked teams of all ages to do three things every day: cultivate civility and politeness, pay attention to the concept of time, and pay attention to environmental hygiene. After the guidance and supervision of the coaching staff, the team has a new look, which not only amazes the parents, but also moves the bus drivers from other places when they go out for winter training. "Code of conduct is part of quality education, and it is also an effort to change the face of football people within my power and beyond the technical and tactical aspects." He said.

Starting from the baby, the Sunshine Elite Club began to send coaches to the surrounding Luoxiuzhuang Primary School and the First Experimental Primary School this year after setting up an echelon in the primary school last year to drive the influence of football and expand the scope of material selection. Wang Haiming said that the biggest shortcoming at the moment is the scarcity of local high-quality football students. On the other hand, behind the tens of thousands of students in Sunshine Education Group itself and the local population base of more than 700,000 in Zunhua is the fact that this thousand-year-old county is almost a virgin land of football. "We still need to put in a lot of effort to get football to be understood by local parents, and it is ideal to use local materials, but at the moment we have to recruit players from Tangshan and even other places."

▲Wang Zhenjie explained how the goalkeeper controls the game

The problem of selection and enrollment is more prominent here in goalkeeper coach Wang Zhenjie, whose physical condition is far more demanding than other positions. "There are so many children around me, it's not that there are no suitable ones, but either the parents don't agree, or the children like other sports." The former Bayi team goalkeeper said that in the past two years of taking root in the campus, he has enjoyed a new kind of work pleasure, that is, accompanying and supporting the team members into the university in the most important stage of children's life growth. "In this year's college entrance examination, it is the turn of the main goalkeeper of our high school boys' football team, and I hope he can be admitted to the Tianjin Sports Institute and set an example for other children who practice goalkeeping."

Yu Libing, the head coach of the high school women's football team who was born in a professional team, used a story that happened around him to make a plain and vivid annotation of the youth training concept of the Sunshine Elite Club: In September last year, the seventh-grade recruitment of Sunshine Yanshan School attracted the attention of the club. The girl overcame all kinds of objective and artificial resistance to study in Zunhua, but made a surprising request: "Can you skip class and only play football?" According to the coaching staff, Wang Ziqing is obsessed with football, except for showing her face in football games, she rejects all collective activities, so she has no sense of presence in the class.

The coaching staff communicated and guided her many times: "Football is a team sport, I am for everyone, everyone is for me. Football cannot be successful without the participation of teammates, partners, opponents, spectators. You don't participate in class activities, and you don't give your enthusiasm and actions to your classmates, so your classmates will treat you coldly. ”

▲The home of the newly completed Sunshine Elite Club

After Wang Ziqing opened her heart, she not only actively participated in the class meeting and grade badminton matches, but also became the protagonist, the popularity of the class became better and better, and her poor academic performance also improved rapidly. The parents soon noticed the positive change in their daughter and were pleasantly surprised to find out the reason from the coaching staff. Yu Libing said: "What changes the children is the children's love for football, the second is the environment of the campus itself, and the third is the proper guidance of coaches and teachers. The parents were very touched when they heard this: "Because she played football well, the team gave her full tuition fee." But you are so good to your children, if you still don't pay the tuition, we are very upset. ”

If Wang Ziqing becomes a professional player in the future, the improvement of her learning ability and team consciousness will only make her feel like a tiger; If she can't go that way, she will be more popular in other industries. "Of course, it's good to be in the professional team and the national team," Wang Haiming said, with the physique, quality and awareness that he has cultivated in football, "It's also good to become a doctor and teacher who can play football." ”

(Written by Zuo Rui)