Football China | Honghe County No. 1 Middle School: Dribble the ball on the top of the mountain and break through the clouds

Reporter Zuo Rui Honghe reports The Red River is a noun with multiple meanings, it is not only a river, but also the common name of a prefecture and a county in Yunnan. Honghe County, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture is a small city located in the Ailao Mountains and along the Red River. Honghe County No. 1 Middle School, which is famous for its football, is a school on a hillside.

The high-speed railway station named "Honghe" is not in Honghe County, but far away in Mengzi City, the state capital; The nearest high-speed rail station to Honghe County is in Yuanjiang Hani Yi Dai Autonomous County, Yuxi City, which is also an hour's drive.

In order to play more games, Honghe County No. 1 Middle School, which has the most diligent training, took the initiative to apply and asked to participate in a new campus football event for cities along the province's high-speed railway. Their enthusiasm and level of competition were specially approved by the Yunnan Provincial Department of Education, and they became the only non-high-speed rail team to participate in the competition, as well as the host of the high school finals of the football project.

On April 26, the 2024-2025 "Diligent Exercise" Colorful Yunnan Campus Three Balls Super League Football Project High School Group Finals opened in the school, with a total of 8 men's teams and 4 women's teams shortlisted. According to Xue Bin, dean of the School of Physical Education, member of the organizing committee and competition supervisor of Kunming City College, the organizer of the event, the eight-month cross-year competition was hosted by the Provincial Department of Education.

As the champion of the high school women's group in the finals of the Yunnan Youth Campus Football League Four-level League, squeezed into the high-speed rail line, and fought at home, Honghe County No. 1 Middle School must win this brocade symbol. In the final round of the women's group on April 28, they fought 0-0 with Kunming No. 14 Middle School in 90 minutes, but the penalty shootout fell short. "It's like having a championship trophy in your own home and someone else snatching it away." Head coach Zheng Xuefeng sighed.

▲ Zheng Xuefeng, the head coach who became a monk halfway

Despite this, he did not blame the players, after all, the result of the penalty kick exchange was uncontrollable, but thinking of the details of the game such as the chances in front of the goal, rhythm control and other details, he couldn't help but feel a sigh: "It's not that you haven't experienced it, I haven't reminded it, why don't you learn a lesson?" That's what makes me sad. Hearing this, the girls lowered their heads.

The winner of the penalty shootout, Kun 14 Middle School, is one of the echelons of the Kunming Football Association and has won the 2022 Provincial Games Youth Group Football 11-a-side Women's Group B championship. At that time, many members of Zheng Xuefeng's team had not yet been exposed to football. "The team has been training and studying at school since winning the gold medal. At present, we are on a par with the women's football team of Honghe County No. 1 Middle School. Feng Zhigang, the leader of Kun 14th Middle School, said with a smile.

With no opponents to find in Honghe Prefecture, the women's football team of Honghe County No. 1 Middle School has been looking for opportunities to compete at a high level, and this time squeezing into the high-speed rail line and playing all the way through the preliminaries to the finals is just one of their attempts to improve themselves. Previously, they had gone to the border counties to compete with their Vietnamese peers; I also used to play against the younger men's football team on campus...... But these fragmented informal confrontations have yielded little in the end.

It is worth mentioning that Honghe County No. 1 Middle School has maintained the trend of simultaneous men's and women's football since its launch of campus football in 2016. It's just that the competition in the men's football team on campus is far more fierce than that of the women's team, and the results of the men's team are not as eye-catching as those of the women's team. In this year's three-ball super league on campus, the men's football team ranked ninth among the 24 teams in the preliminary round, only one step away from entering the finals.

55-year-old Zheng Xuefeng is a track and field specialist, when campus football was launched in the school in 2016, there was no teacher in the school who could teach football, but seeing that the then principal Liao Canbing had made up his mind, he stepped forward and took up the burden of the first head coach of the school team, and he worked for nine years.

Liao Canbing has been the principal since 2007, and when he stepped down in 2019, at the request of the superior department and the successor leader, he was transferred to the position of director of the school football office until his retirement in November last year. In the past eight years, he has advocated and promoted the three stages of development of campus football in two different capacities: "from scratch, from existence to perfection, and from perfection to excellence". During this year's finals, he sat in the stands every day. Although the identity has become an audience, how can the heart of the "football principal" let go of his concern for football?

▲The old principal Liao Canbing returned to school to watch the game

In 2016, in response to the call of the country and the spirit of his superiors, before he decided to work this football barren mountain, Principal Liao knew the difficulties - he himself had no chance to play football when he was in school in his hometown, and he did not get his wish until he was admitted to Yunnan Normal University, and when he became the principal at the age of 40, the reason for not playing football still existed - there was no venue.

No field, no equipment, no teachers - his football entrepreneurship started with a "three-no team". If you don't have a court, you just kick on the concrete; If you don't have football, go to Xinhua Bookstore to find donations; There are no teachers, Zheng Xuefeng will talk about it at the top. On today's football stadium and on the concrete floor of the past, they showed unprecedented enthusiasm and vowed to do a big job.

In March 2016, the team was formed, and in July, it participated in the third-level campus football league in Honghe Prefecture (4 cities and 9 counties formed teams to participate), and the debut results were surprising when all the coaches and players had zero foundation and only 4 months of training time: the women's team was fifth and the men's team was runner-up.

Now you can still find the testimony of the enthusiasm of the year: the hall on the first floor of a music and physical beauty teaching building was named "Cloud Football Hall", which is related to the fact that the school can look at the clouds and the naming person has lofty intentions. In the corner of the hall is a broken soccer ball, with the caption "The first soccer ball of the women's football team of Honghe County No. 1 Middle School".

Not far from the hall, there is a rusty goal under the bushes, and a wooden sign hangs on the beam, which reads "Women's Football Shooting Training Site 2016.6-2019.10". There were no wire fences on the concrete floors back then, and if a shot missed, a limited number of soccer balls were likely to roll down the hill and disappear. Therefore, although it is a hard surface, the running distance is sufficient, and a few pieces of artificial grass are spread in front of the goal, and the goalkeeper is not so easy to get injured. What's more, with trees and buildings to block it, the flying soccer ball can be recovered.

The relics and old sites are part of the school's football culture, documenting the hardships of "starting from scratch" in 2016-2018. During this period, teachers and students once created a sand field, but with the improvement of the school's hardware, the original site is gone.

Completed in 2018, the artificial grass soccer field is the first 11-a-side standard soccer field in the county, and it is also one of only two standard fields in the county. After 7 years of intensive use, the turf has been badly damaged. Before the finals, with the funding of the county government, the turf was changed for the first time.

▲The former site of the women's football shooting training

"The football of Honghe County No. 1 Middle School can have today's results and atmosphere, which is inseparable from the concern of the government and all walks of life." Liao Canbing said that the struggling women's football team has since won seven state championships, six provincial runners-up, and won the Yunnan Provincial Campus Football Championship for the first time last year - another important reason is that "the team trains harder than others".

From the training schedule, it is not difficult to feel the breath of "three from one big" - no coach here mentions "difficult, strict, from actual combat, and a large amount of exercise", but what he does obviously has the traditional training thinking of the older generation of Chinese folk sportsmen. They practice six days a week, twice a day, and that's just a little more.

Due to the growing size of the training team, there are teams that take turns practicing on the court throughout the day. From Monday to Friday, the 50-minute physical training starts at 6:30, from 10 to 12 o'clock, from 16 to 18 o'clock, and from 21:30 to 23:30, which is the technical and tactical training of different teams; Saturday, from morning to evening, is a teaching game for some teams; On Sunday morning and afternoon, it was another varsity training...... Zheng Xuefeng emphasized: "As far as each team member is concerned, it is only six times a week and two times a day. ”

▲Zheng Xuefeng and Zhang Xiong arranged tactics in the midfield

Looking at campus football in 16 states and cities in Yunnan, it is very rare for daily training to reach this intensity. The provincial champion was pressed by a more industrious opponent, and the situation was formed in which the two teams won and lost each other. Feng Zhigang, the leader of Kun No. 14 Middle School, admitted that Honghe County No. 1 Middle School "did invest more training time than we did." Another member of the No. 1 Middle School in Honghe County told reporters that in addition to the winter and summer vacations, there must be competitions and preparation training, the school team has almost no small long vacation, even if there is no competition task during the National Day holiday, they only have two or three days off, the purpose is to "consolidate and improve the previous training results".

This extraordinary perseverance and hard work have given them unimaginable glory in the industry. Over the years, Yunnan football has been called Lijiang, and Honghe football has been synonymous with Kaiyuan. Now, the football team of Honghe County No. 1 Middle School is refreshing the original understanding of the industry. In the hearts of Liao Canbing and Jiang Xuefeng, the old partners, "hard-working" is their biggest capital, and even the only competitiveness under the existing conditions, "Otherwise, if you are a small county, what will you do to compete with Kunming, Lijiang, Qujing, and Chuxiong?" ”

Liao Canbing said that not only the players worked hard, "our teachers and coaches are also more bitter and tired than their peers." It's unbelievable that the coaches have been working for so many years without "a penny of extra income." According to reports, although the school's football coach is not professional enough, he is a full-time coach. If there is no work assignment in physical education, there is no income from class fees. Three years ago, the school introduced a new teaching model and received special funds, from which the coaches received a class time subsidy.

Zheng Xuefeng often laughs at himself: "People can make money by playing football, and we always post money." The local weather is hot, the temperature is as high as 40°C in midsummer, and seeing the children's hard training, he bought popsicles for the team members; The team does not have the conditions to serve meals alone, eats in the canteen with classmates every day, and occasionally goes outside the school to do a team building, change the taste, and add some nutrition, which is also paid by the coach out of his own pocket.

In the face of the interview, Li Fenyan, the seventh captain of the women's football team, and Li Sisi, the vice captain, both said that in the past four years of joining the team, they have not missed a single training, and no team member has complained once. "The other students study hard every day, but we are very lucky to be able to study and train at the same time, and the life is not so boring, and relatively speaking, most of the people in the team still seem to prefer training."

If Zheng Xuefeng hadn't gone to various towns and villages to select materials, the two Hani girls might never have become football players. Li Fenyan is from Baohua Township, and Li Sisi is studying at Jiayin Township Middle School, and they were selected for only two reasons: extraordinary hardships and hard work, and outstanding physical fitness.

"Although our players have been acquainted with football relatively late, their love for football is just as sincere." Liao Canbing believes that love is the fundamental reason why the team members generally "do not take hardship as suffering".

Recalling the feeling of being selected for the team four years ago, Li Sisi said that it was mainly curious: "None of us have ever touched football, but we can still play football, really?" Since I was selected by Mr. Zheng, why don't I give it a try? ”

▲Forward Li Sisi is the first graduate of the "Junior High School Football Special Training Class".

Zheng Xuefeng said that rural children are relatively simple-minded, and parents do not have so many worries and pampering. This is also the reason why he has visited the countryside many times to search for reserve talents. The children in the county are generally not interested in football training, first, they go to Mengzi, Jianshui and other places to study in high school, and second, the living environment is relatively superior, and they do not want to go to the football field to expose themselves to hardships. For example, the women's team participating in this year's three-ball Super League on campus has only one player from the city, and the rest are all from the countryside.

It is understood that Honghe County is the largest Hani county in the country, with a total population of 360,000, of which more than 290,000 are Hani. As one of the "six southern counties" in Honghe Prefecture, rural students already enjoy the policy of free high school education, and ethnic minority students are also exempted from tuition and miscellaneous fees and subsidized living expenses. If you join the county No. 1 middle school team, you will be free of charge, including accommodation, training, equipment, sneakers, and outings. This can also increase the motivation for families with lower incomes to let their children play football.

After joining the team, continuous basic skills and physical training quickly diluted the curiosity of the players. Li Fenyan said that they were then arranged by the coach to watch the senior sisters play live, and they were quickly fascinated by football. "It turns out that football games are like this, so interesting, so fun!" They had no idea there was such a fascinating team sport at school, and it seemed that the girls who played soccer were pretty cool!

In this way, the curiosity about football turned into a passion, and the conjecture about whether I could play football began to evolve into goals and self-confidence. Now, goalkeeper Li Fenyan and striker Li Sisi are both juniors in high school, and the football major of Shenyang Sports Institute is their common goal.Perhaps, it is precisely because these rural children hate to meet football late that their love for football is stronger and they cherish the opportunity to play football more; That's why they like training so much, so "don't take hardship as suffering".

Ending the entrepreneurial period of "starting from scratch", 2018-2021 is the development period of campus football in Honghe County No. 1 Middle School. While the competition results have been steadily rising, with the successful completion of the football field, the enrichment of the coaching team, and the abundance of training equipment, the team's reserve talents and influence are also expanding.

If the teachers are strong, the football is strong, which is the consensus of the football people in the county No. 1 middle school. In order to expand the coaching team, the school has introduced teachers with professional football backgrounds from various township schools in the county in the form of secondment. Among them, Nong Kui had experience as a goalkeeper when he was in college, so it was logical for him to become a goalkeeper coach; In order to facilitate the management of the women's team, Zhang Yinghuarong was also seconded to serve as a full-time coach of the women's football team......

In addition to searching for coaching talents in the county, in 2021, they hired C-level coach Han Weidong from Henan as the technical director. As of now, the school has a total of 9 full-time coaches. The latest exception is Zhang Xiong, a 2014 alumnus of Honghe County No. 1 Middle School, who kicked from the cement floor of his alma mater to the football major of the School of Physical Education of Yunnan University, and after graduating from his bachelor's degree, he went to Menghai County No. 1 Middle School to coach, and is the head coach of the Xishuangbanna Youth Men's Football Team A team in the 2022 Provincial Games. Among the coaching staff, only the head coach of the women's football team, Zhang Xiong, and the head coach Zheng Xuefeng, who have completed the formal transfer procedures, are the teachers in the school's establishment.

With the support of the local government and the Education and Sports Bureau, the high school established the "Junior High School Football Training Class" in 2020, with one class in each grade from grade 7 to grade 9, with more than 30 students in each class, and half male and half girls. Since then, among the more than 3,600 students in the school, there are 1 team of men's and women's football teams in 6 age groups from the first year of junior high school to the third year of high school, forming a complete echelon of nearly 300 players in 12 teams.

9 coaches train 12 teams every day, which can be imagined as hard work. For example, goalkeeper coach Nong Kui must face the training task of 24 goalkeepers taking turns every day. The birth of the "junior high school football training class" has increased the workload of the coaching staff, but its more important significance is that it has changed the unfavorable situation of "late start, difficult training, and difficult graduation" in the large-scale selection of zero-based players in high school men's and women's football teams.

According to the school's statistics, from 2016 to 2023, a total of 360 football players from the school were admitted to Hunan Normal University, Yunnan University, Yunnan Normal University, Yunnan Agricultural University and other universities, cultivating a group of outstanding football talents for Honghe Prefecture and beyond, and some have served as coaches on campuses or youth training institutions in Pingbian, Jianshui, Jinping and Honghe counties. As the first graduates of the "Junior High School Football Special Training Class", Li Fenyan and Li Sisi are facing the second major challenge in their 12-year student career as national first-class athletes.

In December last year, Gao Yan, who was admitted to Yunnan Agricultural University from Honghe County No. 1 Middle School, was selected for the five-a-side women's national football team to prepare for the 2025 Asian Cup; In January this year, the school girl Li Fenyan was selected by the Shaanxi National Games U18 women's football team, and after the team was promoted to the first place in the preliminary group, she began to prepare for the National Games as a substitute goalkeeper. There are players from the national training team in front of them, and there are players in the main match of the National Games - the record-breaking footsteps of the Red River women's football team continue in the clouds.

Zhang Jianpeng, coach of the women's football team of Yunnan Agricultural University, member of the organizing committee and referee of this tournament, said that Gao Yan is a player that coaches like at a glance. She was admitted to Agricultural University, from a newcomer to the current captain, and has always maintained the diligent and simple nature of a Yi girl. "After three seasons of women's B, being selected for the futsal national training team is a graduation gift she deserves." Zhang Jianpeng said, "Gao Yan is an outstanding member of Honghe County No. 1 Middle School sent to our school, she is the pride of Honghe County, and she is also the pride of our Yunnan Agricultural University. ”

Although Li Fenyan is only a substitute in the Shaanxi women's football team, she is very fortunate to have the opportunity to experience professional team training and participate in the main match of the National Games. "Every week after I first arrived in Xi'an, every muscle in my body was sore and painful." The girl, who never complained, was shocked by the intensity of the professional team's training, but after a week, she was able to keep up with the team.

"Do I have what it takes to become a professional footballer? I don't know yet. "Where will the Shaanxi Women's Football Team go after the National Games? She didn't know either. Although the campus football players in the county joined the professional teams in other provinces almost "offside", and the new owner did not give her any commitment to further education and employment, she was willing to take advantage of this uncomplaining youth, even if she had to play football without school in Shaanxi, her student status was still retained in Honghe County No. 1 Middle School. Her biggest wish now is to be admitted to Shen Ti, "As for playing in the college league or the professional league in the future, let's take a step at a time, anyway, it is inseparable from football." ”

▲Goalkeeper Li Fenyan rushed to his alma mater

In the matter of Li Fenyan going straight to the northwest to chase her dreams, what Zheng Xuefeng did was to drive to O'an Village, Baohua Township, accompanied by village cadres, analyze the pros and cons for her parents, and ask the Li family and his wife to decide for themselves. "I hope Li Fenyan can enter university smoothly this year, after all, she has almost given up studying in the four months she has been in Shaanxi."

From Gao Yan and Li Fenyan, the old principal saw more hope. "Our original intention of engaging in football is just to exercise and win glory for the school." Liao Canbing said, but the path of football students is becoming more and more single and difficult, "Is it possible that after we strengthen the professional teachers, let the children go to professional teams, clubs, and national brands like Gao Yan?" He still couldn't help but suggest to Zheng Xuefeng, the current director of the school football office and head coach: "From full to excellent" to go further, it can only be "from excellent to fine".

Liao Canbing believes that every grassroots coach of campus football should try his best to make the players' admission channels more diverse and broader. The definition of "from good to fine" should include "cultivating elite players". Whether it is Tu Yongsheng, the current secretary of the party committee of the school, Jiang Huaifeng, the principal, or Wang Xuexin, the vice principal in charge of football, they are all caring for the teachers and students of the team as always, and they also cherish the hard-won honor in campus football. However, since President Liao's tenure, the problem of "lack of funds and teachers" has always been difficult to go. "We in Honghe County have no shortage of students, no lack of ambition, and no lack of perseverance and patience." Liao Canbing said.

From winning glory for the school, to fighting for the hometown, looking forward to being among the higher platforms and competing for higher honors, the ultimate goal is to "win glory for the country". The road is long, I will go up and down and seek. This school is located in the clouds of the mountain, the future development of football is unimaginable, what is certain is that football has let more people know about Honghe County; The team of Honghe County No. 1 Middle School suddenly made people realize a commonality between rivers and football - long-term flow and perseverance.