Fourth Crown! The Best Farewell Gift!

"The World Cup's influence really is enormous!"

After the Chinese team announced its World Cup squad, discussions surrounding the roster continued for more than a week.

Even Lin Feng, all the way over in Spain, was affected by it.

Quite a few reporters made special trips to ask him what he thought of the Chinese team's World Cup squad at Real Madrid's post-match press conferences, showing no interest whatsoever in Real Madrid's performance or result.

Apparently, after domestic fans finished discussing the starting lineup, they began studying and debating the Chinese team's tactics for the World Cup.

Some fans even started playing armchair strategists, offering advice for how the Chinese team should handle their group-stage opponents.

The Chinese team had been absent from the World Cup for eight years. Now that they had finally qualified again, it naturally ignited football fever among fans and even the general public.

This grassroots football enthusiasm not only drove the growth of football-related industries, but also fed back positively into youth training and the league.

It was said that the number of registered Youth Training Players in China had surged from fewer than 8,000 in 2005 to more than 90,000 in 2009!

Although that number was still far behind neighboring Japan and South Korea—Japan had around 500,000 registered youth players, while South Korea had fewer but still over 200,000.

The reason Japanese and South Korean football had remained at the top level in Asia for so many years was closely tied to their outstanding youth training programs.

Still, this upward trend in the number of domestic Youth Training Players was extremely encouraging.

If the Chinese team could achieve good results at this World Cup, it would certainly further stimulate the domestic football industry and attract more young people into the sport.

Given China's enormous