Soccer gives girls an ambitious goal to strive for

HAIKOU－The girls kick off the day at the pitch for a one-hour soccer session. After training, they head to school.

This is the morning routine of the all-female soccer team from Qiongzhong Li and Miao autonomous county, an impoverished area in South China's Hainan province.

The team receives financial support from the county government, and each player is offered free education, dining and boarding to ease the burden on players' families.

Instead of getting married or leaving home for work like most of their peers, the girls chose a different path in life. Since the first-ever Qiongzhong women's soccer team was formed in 2006, over 30 rural girls have been admitted to college through sports.

In Qiongzhong, only a few girls had ever even entered high school, due to a lagging economy and a narrow view of the world, let alone college.

Through years of hard training, the team has won several national-level matches and the Gothia Cup, the world's largest youth soccer tournament, for three consecutive years from 2015-17.

Huang Weiwei is a shining star in the team and has been top goal scorer several times. From a small village in Qiongzhong, the 14-year-old is currently attending middle school. Her home is far away from the downtown area and it always takes her father one and a half hours to ride her to school on a motorcycle.

When she was 8 years old, a coach came to Huang's elementary school and saw her untapped potential for soccer.

Since then, the little girl's life started to change.

She was brought to one of the best schools in the county to take on more comprehensive training and specially designed compulsory courses.

She has been to Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou for training and competitions. "I have broadened my horizons via soccer," says Huang.

Great efforts lead to better results, as Huang and her team have won several championships.

"She is the only child who ever played soccer overseas. Her father and I are very proud of her," says Wei Zhuqin, Huang's mother.

"I want to get into a university by playing soccer, and I hope one day I can be capped by the national soccer team," Huang says.

Before the girl took up soccer, her parents had no idea of the sport's rules. Now, they have become great fans of their daughter.

"We often watch her matches on TV. Her father and I once went to an international soccer game in the downtown area to cheer for our daughter," Wei recalls.

In 2019, the Hainan Qiongzhong International Cup soccer tournament took place, featuring around 400 players from 21 teams from 17 countries and regions.

Hundreds and thousands of local people in the county came to watch the games. The world started to know about the small county and its women's soccer team.

Currently, a professional soccer club has been formed and several schools in Hainan are seeking to cooperate with local schools to establish distinctive soccer classes.

Chen Xin, 28, is a player from the first batch of the Qiongzhong women's soccer team. Now, she is a soccer teacher in charge of Huang's class.

"I went to college and majored in physical training. I decided to come back home to be a soccer coach. I am lucky because soccer has helped me find my goal and now I am striving for a career in education," Chen says.

Xinhua