What a Beautiful New World

As for the turning point of Chinese football, there were two prevailing theories. One held that it began with the loss in the final round of the 2001 World Cup Asian qualifiers, caused by Wang Xiaojun's own goal.

The other believed the turning point came in that 2005 match, when Zhao Kangming was sent off just fourteen minutes after kickoff, formally ushering in Chinese football's dark decade.

But even those who subscribed to the second view had to admit that the 2001 qualifying defeat dealt Chinese football an enormous blow. Even though China reached the Asian Cup final in 2004, it was no more than a brief dying flare.

Perhaps darkness had already descended before the "dark decade," and its first shadow had appeared after that match in 2001.

China's national team in 2001 was packed with talent, bringing together the finest products of China's professional football reforms at the time. Furthermore, that World Cup was held in Asia and co-hosted by two countries, immediately removing two of Asia's strongest competitors.

At the time, Chinese media and fans were overwhelmingly optimistic. They believed that, with the right time, place, and circumstances all on their side, it was finally China's turn to reach the World Cup finals.

Yet this team, which carried the hopes of the entire nation, fell once again in the final qualifying round. They missed what might have been their best-ever chance to reach the World Cup finals.

When later generations looked back on that time, many felt that Chinese football had already died then. The red card Zhao Kangming received in the fourteenth minute in 2005 had merely been the final nail in Chinese football's coffin.

Chinese football then entered a bleak, sunless period that lasted nearly a decade.

The football association was corrupt, its officials greedy and derelict in their duties, willing to resort to any means for money;

The referees in black were no longer judges on the pitch or guardians of order, but became true "black whistles";

National team selection became an auction, going to the highest bidder rather than the most capable candidate;

Head coaches were merely the football association's dogs. Their most important quality was not coaching ability, but obedience;

Clubs spent more than they earned, and their money-burning could not continue. Many companies withdrew from football one after another, while those that remained could only struggle bitterly to survive. Some teams changed home cities every year, like rootless duckweed with nowhere to settle, drifting from place to place. Attendance and viewership for Chinese football leagues plummeted. In the end, not even national television stations were willing to broadcast their own country's leagues, and no sponsors were willing to provide title sponsorship for leagues constantly plagued by negative news;

Media reporters abandoned all professional integrity, formed cliques and attacked rivals, and spoke for whoever paid them more. For naked profit, they did not hesitate to spread rumors, using their pens to portray anyone they disliked in the media as an utterly vile bastard and a sinner of Chinese football;

The public became restless and treated Chinese football as a spittoon for venting their negative emotions, scrambling to spit on it for attention and to prove their own wisdom, further driving Chinese football's image into the abyss;

As if countless hands were pushing Chinese football ever deeper into the abyss.

In an avalanche, no snowflake was innocent.

This continued until 2014, when the state could finally no longer tolerate the chaos in Chinese football. The upper levels heard the voices of the people and launched a thunderous campaign against the darkness, corruption, and ugliness in Chinese football.

Football association leaders who needed to be arrested were arrested, and those who needed to be sentenced were sentenced. Those corrupt referees, players and coaches involved in match-fixing, and even club executives—big shots who had once appeared glamorous on television—were all marched off to prison, wearing inmates' uniforms and making haggard confessions before television cameras.

After the anti-corruption storm from above, the football association was practically torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

A completely new football association leadership was established, and at the national level, barriers between different departments were also broken down.

In the past, football had seemed to be only the concern of the General Administration and the football association. So although the association had long proposed bringing football into schools and developing campus football, it achieved little because it had no authority over the education department.

In everyone's eyes, the education department was already giving the football association plenty of face by allowing football to be added as an optional subject to the middle school physical education graduation exam. After all, the football association had almost the worst public image of any department in China. If it ran into setbacks or suffered humiliation, it would only draw ridicule and mockery. No one would sympathize with it, much less speak up for it.

But this time, the high wall had been breached.

Through the joint efforts of the football association and the education department, a brand-new national middle school football tournament was organized.

There had actually been national middle school football competitions before, but few schools participated, and they had little influence or recognition. Almost no one knew about them. They were more like self-entertainment within a small circle.

That was absolutely not the kind of middle school competition the new football association wanted.

By cooperating with the education department, they worked to promote the tournament. Existing provincial middle school football competitions were linked with the national tournament, turning those provincial events into qualifiers for the national competition. During the qualifying stage, each province and municipality was allowed to establish its own format based on local conditions. It could be a straight knockout format, a league format, or a centralized tournament format.

In the end, one qualifying place would be decided, with the winner advancing to the national tournament the following spring.

At the same time, they actively contacted all kinds of traditional media and online new media platforms to publicize and promote this brand-new tournament.

Starting from the fall semester of 2014 and continuing until now, five national tournaments had been successfully held. Today was the sixth.

Over five years, the tournament had been steadily promoted and publicized, gradually taking root in people's hearts.

The results were striking. Among middle school students, the national tournament now received enormous attention. Whether they liked football or not, they knew that every spring, the country held a National Middle School Football Championship to determine the strongest middle school football team in all of China. Many schools with football traditions took great pride in winning this national title.

Some people even compared China's national tournament with Japan's.

Though the two were not comparable in any way so far, merely being discussed together was already an extraordinary step forward for China's later-starting National Middle School Football Championship.

Some people analyzed why the football association was so enthusiastic about organizing this middle school football championship. Cultivating reserve talent for Chinese football was only one reason; the more important reason might have been to reshape Chinese football's image.

Chinese football's previous image had been utterly rotten. During that period, countless jokes were born mocking and ridiculing Chinese football.

Compared with professional football, which was more complicated and had an even more negative past image, campus football was far purer—especially at the middle school level. Building a sunny, positive campus football tournament would help change the public's fixed perception of Chinese football.

This was not something that could be accomplished overnight. Perhaps these efforts alone would not be enough to change society's current negative view of Chinese football. But think about those students who had participated in the national tournament and experienced its atmosphere. As they gradually grew up, entered society, and became its mainstream, how would they remember the National Middle School Football Championship that had become part of their youth?

Would they say that the matches into which they had poured their tears and sweat were worthless trash? That they were an ugly collection of fixed matches and corrupt referees?

No. They would not think so themselves, and they would never allow others to insult the tournament into which they had poured the passion of their youth.

Then, led by these people, might Chinese football's overall image improve?

Hu Lai emerged from his memories. Just now, he had carefully recalled the information he had learned about football in this country since coming to this world.

To some extent, Chinese football in this timeline had many similarities with Chinese football in the timeline he came from—so many that he had even felt the illusion that I never actually transmigrated.

But clearly, there were still many differences, and even in those familiar aspects, the subsequent development had taken a different direction.

Setting aside the changes at the professional football level and the leagues' different paths of development, just look at the changes in campus football.

Before transmigrating, Hu Lai's goal had also been to join his school team. But he had not joined it for any national tournament—he had known almost nothing about such a tournament and had never even considered it.

He had only wanted to join the school team. As for what would happen after he joined, he had not thought that far ahead. At most, he imagined they would play the nearby schools from time to time, and it would already be pretty good if they got to take part in the city's "Mayor's Cup."

But after coming to this time and space, joining the school team meant he could compete in a nationwide middle school football tournament. How could that not be enticing?

Now, in the fifth year since the tournament had been introduced, Andong Province alone, where East River City was located, had 128 participating middle schools. That was only because the provincial organizing committee had deliberately limited the number of entrants. Otherwise, there would have been even more schools. But too many teams would drag out the schedule, and an overly long schedule would in turn dampen the schools' enthusiasm for taking part.

After all, a school did not exist solely for its football team. Studying was still the students' main responsibility. The relationship between football and education had to be balanced. They could not focus only on how many teams needed to play, nor could they blindly expand the tournament. Otherwise, schools would be forced by pressure from parents to withdraw from football competitions—if parents discovered that football affected their children's academic performance, they would not care about youthful passion or football dreams. They would ruthlessly and without hesitation sever their children's connection to football.

This was also the delicate balance that had emerged after five editions of the tournament.

It was clear from this that only cooperation between the education and sports departments could allow this competition to go further. Without the education department's support, the Football Association alone could never have pushed forward something this enormous.

Since 128 schools were competing in Andong Province, the tournament used a single-match knockout format. As for who played at home and who played away, that was decided through an online draw.

Dongchuan Middle School, where Hu Lai attended, had been lucky enough to draw a home match.

But No. 50 Middle School, the visiting side, had actually been luckier. They had drawn an opponent from their own city and did not have to travel across cities for the match. Although high-speed rail was now highly developed, and no trip from East River City to any other city in Andong Province took more than two hours, the fatigue of travel would still affect a team's fighting strength.

Because the match was being played in the same city, No. 50 Middle School's football team had also brought along a small cheer squad of thirty people. Dressed in matching uniforms, they used synchronized chants and movements to cheer for their team.

Even though their team was currently trailing 0–3 on the pitch, their cheers never stopped.

Before the match, Hu Lai had heard Mao Xiao say that No. 50 Middle School was not a football powerhouse. Their school team was fairly average. Their best result had only been reaching the third round of the Andong Cup—the national tournament qualifiers.

But that had not stopped them from entering the competition every year. Even if they were eliminated in the first round, they would still come back the following year.

For the seniors on the team, losing this match might mean losing three whole years of dreams and hopes. Yet they were still running tirelessly across the field. Every one of them was treating this match seriously, even though it might be their final game of the year...

Wearing the number fourteen jersey, Hu Lai sat on the substitutes' bench by the pitch. Although this match had nothing to do with him, and just like that match during PE class, he could only be an observer on the sidelines, he watched with utter fascination.

In the past, he had envied Japanese high school students more than he could say—their youth spent sweating on the pitch, shedding tears in the locker room, and cheering their school teams with all their hearts from the stands.

He had even envied those heartbreaking defeats.

By comparison, the youth of Chinese students had been defined by television dramas as melodramatic nonsense: boys and girls losing their minds, getting abortions, and getting into fights.

He sat perfectly still, staring unblinkingly at the pitch, greedily taking in every scene on the field and in the stands. It all dazzled him and left him intoxicated.

What a beautiful new world this was!

PS: It's not behind a paywall yet, so no matter how much I write in the post-chapter notes, no one has to worry about spending extra money. I'll take this opportunity to properly talk about the thoughts behind this chapter.

This chapter may look like an introduction to the new world, something like an explanation of the setting, but I described everything from Hu Lai's perspective.

I hope no one thinks it's filler.

Because what this chapter talks about is actually why I wanted to write an alternate football world:

After writing football novels for seventeen years and being a Chinese football fan for nearly thirty, I have a lot to say about football—especially Chinese football—and I have had some ideas that may sound arrogant and wildly unrealistic.

I could post those thoughts on Weibo, Moments, or even my public account.

But as an online novelist, I feel that turning these thoughts into an online novel is probably the method that suits me best.

I had already touched on thoughts about football and education in Champion's Heart. During the 2018 World Cup, at the invitation of Champion's Heart's publisher, I also wrote an article about football's educational value and posted it on my public account.

In Verdant Glory, I expressed some of my thoughts through Director Zhao—what happens to those who start down the path of professional football at a young age but ultimately fail to make it? Who is responsible for their lost youth? Who is responsible for their future?

How many parents would be willing to send their children down the path of professional football and gamble on such an uncertain future?

Could school football become a way to address parents' concerns?

Now I have a family of my own. My son is already seven and a half years old and in elementary school. Last semester, my wife and I went to quite a few places and looked into many things regarding football interest classes for him.

To be honest, my child does not have much talent, and I do not expect him to pursue professional football. But I still want to send him to learn how to play, simply because I hope he can come to love football and learn something from it. At the very least, it can help him exercise and pull him, if only a little, away from his daily life of staying home reading and doing homework.

I believe many parents who send their children to various football interest classes think the same way—they may not truly want their children to become professional players one day. They just want to find an opportunity for their children to get some exercise and perhaps come to love football through it.

And that is still under the premise that we do not have a systematic, unified school football league.

But what if we did?

When my son was still very young, I once had a fantasy. I imagined that after he started school, he would join the school football team and play matches with the team every week. I would watch him from the stands and cheer him on. If he played well, I would praise him; if he played poorly, I would have a good talk with him on the way home. If he lost, I would comfort and encourage him.

Along his path of growing up, memories related to football would become an extremely important part of his life. A school football league would become a shared memory for his generation. That would be their youth.

And I would find particular comfort in seeing the youth I never experienced realized through my child.

But unfortunately, the school football environment in our country does not yet support a dream like mine.

So I wrote it into this book. In a world where I, the author, have the final say, I wanted to depict a unified nationwide tournament, a group of teenagers sharing their footballing youth, and their journey from school football to the professional game.

In this world, parents do not have to worry about their children abandoning their studies to walk the narrow bridge of professional football. If their children truly have talent, they will naturally attract the attention of professional teams through competitions like the national tournament. Whether they go or not will be decided together by the children and their parents.

If their talent is ordinary, or if their ambitions lie elsewhere, they can still enjoy football on campus without giving up their studies. They can continue going to school, take the college entrance examination, eventually enter university, and embark on another path in life.

Or they can take part in an equally nationwide university football league. If they perform well, they will likewise have a chance to enter professional football.

Once they become adults, they will be grateful for everything they experienced on their high school football teams. It will have taught them how to face setbacks and work as a team—how to fight alongside their teammates, celebrate victory, and face defeat.

All of it will become precious wealth in their lives.

Only by resolving the worries of students and parents can football regain its vitality in this populous country, allowing us to have a huge football-playing population.

With China's population, such a footballing population would be enormous—enormous to a frightening degree.

And that vast footballing population would become the foundation and soil for the structure of elite football above it—just as it is in every footballing powerhouse.

Without a sufficient footballing population, there could be no outstanding football culture or standard of play. Without a sufficient footballing population, there could be no powerful national team, nor a thriving professional league.

But most importantly, without a footballing population, there would be no such sport as football. Football would become water without a source, a tree without roots.

For me, creating this kind of campus football environment was also a small suggestion—or perhaps a vision—of how Chinese football might improve.

I knew this was somewhat idealistic, but I was only a football novelist, not the chairman of the Football Association. How to turn that ideal into reality was not my concern, so let me finish dreaming this beautiful dream first.

As Hu Lai had remarked from his perspective—what a beautiful new world this was.

I hoped that one day in the future, we too could have such a beautiful new world in reality.

Thank you all for listening to me ramble. Let us continue looking forward to Hu Lai's future in this new world!