Life is wonderfully full for us, which leaves little time for writing here. However, Zach was interviewed recently and the article was published today. I wanted to share it because I think the reporters (Shao Wenjie, Li Siqi) did a fantastic job capturing all facets of the team; from their equality battles to the grassroots efforts of many who usually get things done. This has been translated via software, so it is a bit wonky grammatically and has those endearing flowery phrases that show up in every Chinese text. So, grab your beverage of choice, a cozy chair, and enjoy a (translated) glimpse into what has been keeping my husband busy since our return.
Lianfeng Women's Soccer, Blooming Love
Editor's Note: On April 15, 2023, the women's soccer team of Zhongshan College of the University of Electronic Science and Technology (UESTC) won the "Sportsmanship Award" in the Andromeda Collegiate Women's Soccer League (Campus Division). According to the tournament director Tan Chaofeng, as the first large-scale women's soccer tournament in the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area, the Andromeda Collegiate Women's Soccer League will be based on the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area, and will set up a good platform for the exchange and demonstration of women's soccer in colleges and universities and build a brand tournament of "Women's Soccer in Colleges and Universities", so as to radiate its influence from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to the whole country, and actively promote the development of soccer programs by using brand events to promote the development of soccer programs. It will be a great event for the soccer circle in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area to make use of the brand event to actively promote the development of the soccer program.
In the game, the women's soccer team of Zhongshan College of the University of Electronic Science and Technology (UESTC) was not afraid of the strongest enemies, even when they faced the opponents from the national training team, they still had the courage to fight, and they competed with their own style and won the respect for themselves. Before participating in the game, the women's soccer team of Zhongshan College had been disbanded by the school, but they fought hard to save the team for the love and honor, and now they will continue to write their own story with hard work and sweat.
Soccer is a partnership, a team.
After achieving good results at the tournament, the UESTC women's soccer team abstained from pride and continued to train hard. Every Thursday night the women's soccer players and coaching staff showed up on time at the Peak Soccer Field for training.
In the game, the women's soccer team of Zhongshan College of the University of Electronic Science and Technology (UESTC) was not afraid of the strongest enemies, even when they faced the opponents from the national training team, they still had the courage to fight, and they competed with their own style and won the respect for themselves. Before participating in the game, the women's soccer team of Zhongshan College had been disbanded by the school, but they fought hard to save the team for the love and honor, and now they will continue to write their own story with hard work and sweat.
Soccer is a partnership, a team.
After achieving good results at the tournament, the UESTC women's soccer team abstained from pride and continued to train hard. Every Thursday night the women's soccer players and coaching staff showed up on time at the Peak Soccer Field for training.
Liao Zisan from the College of Humanities, majoring in Exhibition, is the captain of this women's soccer team. She is already a senior and although she is facing the pressure of graduation and employment, she still comes to the soccer field on time. She said to us, "Training is once a week, although usually the main time is on study, but this time I will still try to find time to come over for training."
Liao Zisan was shy in the interview, very different from her training time. On the field, she always has a confident smile on her face, and from time to time she makes a bright laugh, actively communicating with her teammates, full of energy. She told us the story of her relationship with soccer: "I started playing soccer when I was in the third grade of elementary school, and I like soccer probably because I'm not particularly interested in other ball games. I was more into sports before I came into contact with soccer, and it was a coincidence that I came into contact with soccer. When I was in gym class in elementary school, I tried to use my feet to grab other people's balls. After I snatched someone else's ball with my foot, this dramatic scene was seen by the physical education teacher. The teacher then called me over and I thought he would punish me for grabbing the ball, but he didn't do that and he asked me if I wanted to play soccer." After this incident, Liao Zisan began her soccer journey, but before that, she had also wanted to join the soccer team, but she missed the election due to illness. After joining the team, Liao gradually fell in love with soccer. Not only was she in good physical condition, but she also trained hard, so she progressed quickly and participated in the city tournament in fifth grade.
The main reason why Zishan Liao fell in love with soccer is the atmosphere of the sport. She likes the feeling that soccer as a team sport brings to her, "Soccer is a team sport, when we are a team and fight for the same goal together, there is a very hot blooded feeling, and the atmosphere of the team is also particularly enjoyable". Liao Zisan, who has been playing soccer since she was a child, tried other sports when she first entered UESTC, but she chose to continue playing soccer. "I joined the basketball club and they needed me, probably because I was taller, but after a while I realized that the kind of atmosphere they had was still so much worse compared to soccer".
Although the experience when she enrolled in the school is still fresh in her mind, time flies and now she has become the leader of this team. Talking about the dilemma that the team is facing at present, she said, "Although there are female soccer players in every college, the number of them is still relatively small in general. In this case, we don't have the opportunity to select more talented girls who can play soccer into our varsity team by way of selection". The soon-to-be-graduate sends her best wishes to the team, "I hope that the UESTC women's soccer team develops better and better, continues to grow, and has more and more people. And then I also hope that under the leadership of the new coach, our women's soccer team will go to glory."
Love is the oar, the light boat has crossed ten thousand mountains.
In addition to the hard-working players, there are also the meticulous and responsible members of the coaching staff. Currently leading the women's soccer team are Zach, the new foreign head coach, and Su Chuhao, the team leader, who joined the team this semester.
Mr. Su Chuhao, former head coach of the women's soccer team and former captain of the men's soccer team, worked in the Bureau of Physical Education of Zhongshan City after graduation this year. Even though he has a busy schedule, he still makes time after work to return to the school to assist in the training of the women's soccer team. Currently, he serves as the team leader, assistant coach and interpreter for the team.
He first introduced to us: "University of Electronic Science and Technology Zhongshan College women's football was founded in October 2020, initially a group of football-loving girls spontaneously set up a team organization and formed their own team for training, friendly exchanges and other activities, with men's football players serving as coaches and leaders. This team has gone through a rough patch, formed by enthusiasts on their own initiative, then taken over by the school sports department, and then disbanded and reorganized by the school, and finally rejuvenated this semester". It is understood that there are twenty-five members of the women's soccer team. This year ushered in a lot of freshman siblings who like soccer, there are six senior players, only one junior player, and the rest are freshmen and sophomores, making it a relatively young team.
Su Chuhao has been involved in soccer since he was a child. He started playing in the first grade of elementary school and trained for a period of time at a sports school in Guangzhou. His most memorable moments were playing street soccer with his buddies and classmates in the neighborhoods, streets and ancestral halls, and having fun with his buddies is what made him fall in love with soccer, "I have a lot of happy memories with my buddies, and that's why I fell in love with soccer and insist on playing it until today. When I came to UESTC, I was infected by the atmosphere of the school's men's soccer team, which was hardworking and improved, and I continued to play for four years on the varsity team.
Speaking of how he became associated with the women's soccer team of UESTC, he recalled the past: "In 2020, the women's soccer team organized itself to go to UESTC to have friendly exchanges with the women's soccer team of CUHK. At that time, I was studying journalism and volunteered to be a reporter with the women's soccer team, wanting to help them record some precious materials, and I became associated with this team. Later on, the women's soccer team went through a lot of difficulties, and the coaching team at that time, Mao and Bin, and I chose to stay on, and we told the players, 'As long as you don't give up, we won't give up on you'". During this stay-at-home process, he gradually took on multiple roles in the team. Later on, even though he was facing the pressure of school and employment, he still had no way to let go of his personal involvement in the team that was formed from zero to one, so he became the leader of the women's soccer team, and continued to help the women's soccer team with his own strength.
When asked why the women's soccer team experienced dissolution and reorganization, Su Chuhao looked a bit gloomy, he said: "First of all, the number of girls playing soccer is insufficient, and there is no atmosphere in the school for girls to play soccer, so we can only cultivate their hobbies and try to improve their motivation. Furthermore, we currently do not have a lead teacher from the sports department, and there is no way to apply for official leave for the players to attend training and competitions, so we can only 'survive' in the cracks. And we lack sufficient funds to support the team's operation, but this I have contacted off-campus "Chaopu" sports and cultural development company to provide free sponsorship". Speaking of the sponsorship, Su Chuhao's expression obviously relaxed, he continued: "At that time the school to dissolve the women's football, we could only reorganize the school soccer team into a women's soccer enthusiasts group, joined the school soccer association, back to the beginning of the state of self-organization to save the team, waiting for a new opportunity". In this difficult time, all parties have given a helping hand to this team, the school football association at that time is willing to help the women's soccer recruiting and run the game, the men's football players are willing to serve as a coach without pay, the school teacher can not directly lead the women's football team, but also behind the scenes for the women's football team to provide convenience and help, all because the women's football team themselves did not give up, their love and perseverance so that all parties are willing to help them. "The most important thing is that the players love soccer enough and did not choose to give up in difficult situations."
Participating in the tournament this year was an important turning point in the development of the women's soccer team, said Su Chuhao, "The lack of tournaments has been a major factor in our team's struggle to stay motivated. So when I saw that there was a huge women's soccer tournament organized by an organization, I immediately thought we could try to sign up for it. In the end, we were able to sign up and play against women's soccer teams from universities in Guangdong Province, and the team made a lot of like-minded friends". Although the team was successful in registering for the tournament, there were many difficulties encountered during the tournament. The venue of the tournament was in Guangzhou, and the team faced transportation difficulties every time they played, while going out to play also meant that the team had to coordinate their time and balance the pressure from their studies, "Transportation and time were our biggest problems, but the sports department of the school gave us a lot of help, and the team was especially grateful for that. The team is very grateful. Many of the team members were able to keep training and competing in between studying and exams, and everyone really gave it their best shot."
Su Chuhao breathed a long sigh of relief. We can't imagine how devastating the difficulties at that time were to the women's soccer team, but they persevered with love, and they were a team of true cohesion. After participating in the tournament and achieving good results, the team basically got rid of the crisis of disbandment and was reborn in nirvana. The arrival of the new head coach, Zach, also brought new hope to the women's soccer team. Su Chuhao was impressed by Zach's full commitment and meticulous responsibility, and he recognized the new coach very well, and was sure that Zach could lead the women's soccer team to achieve a better development, so he willingly assisted Zach with all his efforts, and after a month of bonding, they became a very tacit understanding of each other. Su Chuhao was able to quickly understand Zach's intentions and accurately translate them to the players, and this pair of tacit understanding partners will definitely bring the women's soccer team to a higher level.
Love is life. We have an equal right to love it.
One person who stands out on the soccer field is Zach, the new head coach of the UESTC women's soccer team, who is from Portland, USA. He's from Portland, USA, and he's also an English teacher at the Foreign Language Institute of UESTC. Zach was very enthusiastic and talkative, and he was very happy to have us interview him.
Zach is 44 years old and said, "I just came to UESTC this semester and have just been coaching women's soccer for about a month, but I had previously coached the women's soccer team at Guangdong Ocean University's College of Foreign Languages for four years." Zach has also been playing soccer since he was a kid. Zach's mother first let him try playing baseball, which Zach hated, but he fell in love with soccer at first sight, "Then my mom let me try playing soccer, and I immediately fell in love with it." Zach's smile is contagious and he was very happy when we talked about soccer.
Before Zach left the United States, he worked as a career counselor at a university. He left the United States in 2011 and chose to come to Beijing Normal University in China out of the many job opportunities available in the country, where he was working as an English writing teacher at the time. Zach was not used to being in a big city, and after six months he chose to go to Guangdong Ocean University in Zhanjiang City to work as an English teacher, and in 2013 he became the head coach of the women's soccer team at the School of Foreign Languages at Guangdong Ocean University, a team with which he spent four years. In 2018, he came to UESTC, where, in addition to his job as an English teacher, he also serves as the head coach of the men's soccer team at the School of Foreign Languages at UESTC, which is not yet the largest soccer team in the world. The UESTC women's soccer team had not yet been formed at this time. He was traveling in Thailand at the time of the severe outbreak in 2020, and China tightened its entry policies at that time, so he was forced to work in Thailand and Vietnam for three years. That's when he earned his U.S. E soccer coaching license through a combination of online courses and offline assessments. He returned to UESTC after the outbreak ended this year 2023 and volunteered to be the head coach of the college's women's soccer team.
Why the love for women's soccer? Here's how Zach and we explained it, he believes that women's soccer needs to grow and that they should have equal opportunities as men, "Honestly, I love coaching women. They have a different passion for the sport than boys because boys have all the opportunities and girls have very limited opportunities". Zach's philosophy in coaching women's soccer is that he wants to promote gender equality, to show girls that they can be just as good as boys, and to strive for equal opportunities for both men and women in all aspects of the game. He took the initiative to share with us how the women's soccer team trains, saying, "We start our training process with a warm-up, a dynamic warm-up. Then we'll do small drills, which will progress to medium-sized drills, and then we'll do full-field match practice." Zach's training method is very scientific and efficient, today he led the women's soccer team in a triangle attack and defense training, and the women's soccer team immediately used the triangle attack to score goals in the friendly training match with the men's soccer team later, which had an immediate effect.
Although Zach has been in China for many years, he still doesn't speak much Chinese, and usually there is a language barrier between the training and the players. But Zach will let the players understand the intention by posing the tactical board and making gestures, and team leader Su Chuhao will help Zach to translate at this time, so they overcame the language barrier very well in the training. "There is definitely a language barrier during training. My Chinese is very limited, but Stephen (Su Chuhao) is a great coach and his English is also very good. A lot of the time we communicate through hand signals or direct demonstrations so the girls understand what needs to be done. If something important needs to be said, I make sure Stephen translates." Asked about the gap between the current UESTC and Guangdong Ocean women's soccer teams he said, "I think the UESTC women's team is very similar to the Guangdong Ocean University women's team we had years ago. At the first practice of the Guangdong Ocean University women's soccer team, I asked the players how many of them had played soccer before. There were fifteen girls in the team, only two raised their hands, and the other thirteen knew nothing about soccer. For four years we learned how to play and be a team. The UESTC women's soccer team was formed a few years ago and they have been growing as a team, there are some really good players here and some who are just starting out in soccer, so they are still in the developmental stage."
We continued to delve into Coach Zach's plans and outlook. He said, "We will continue to train hard and will continue to do what we are doing until people see us and recognize our value." Zach's dreams for this team are limitless, and he wants the school to recognize the women's soccer team as a real team. Right now the school still doesn't take women's soccer seriously enough, so they aren't allowed more practice time. The soccer field is usually filled with boys playing soccer most of the time, while the girls rarely get a chance to play or only get to play on the small field next to them, "My dream is that the girls will have an equal chance in the future to be able to play soccer like the boys."
During the training, the female soccer players are using only half of the soccer field for training, but there are still many boys playing on the sidelines, talking about this, Zak changed the smile on his face and said with a serious look, "The girls are training hard and we have promised to use only half of the field, but there are still a lot of boys who are crossing the line and disturbing the girls. If this was a boys' soccer practice, no one would be allowed near the field." Even though the women's soccer team only occupies half the field, boys still try to come to the girls. They stood around the field smoking cigarettes, played between the cones that the women's soccer team had set up for practice, and disrespected the women's side of the field. "Honestly, boys may think that girls shouldn't be taking up the field for practice or are just interested in girls playing soccer, but they don't know how to stay polite and respectful." What Zach is really trying to push for is equality and understanding, he believes that girls have a right to like soccer, they have a right to be on the field, they have a right to practice, and they have a right to play like boys.
Zach believes that what women's soccer really needs in terms of support is simply equal rights and the same opportunities to play the game, not any extra help to differentiate it from men's soccer. He made a joke to make us understand the point he was making when he said, "I think the biggest thing that's lacking right now is the recognition that girls can play in tournaments too. A lot of times the men's team has the opportunity to play in tournaments while the women's team doesn't have the same opportunity. A lot of people think that girls can't play soccer, and that's the wrong view. Your Chinese women are better than your Chinese men, Chinese women can play in the World Cup and Chinese men can't, so who is better?" That joke aside, Zach thinks the biggest problem is that many people can understand boys playing soccer, but don't understand that girls have equal opportunities. So the biggest support girls need is support for their ability to play.
Zach continues to support the women's soccer team in a practical way. He has been serving the team he coaches without pay since the beginning, and his enthusiasm and meticulousness have made the Zhongshan women's soccer team more cohesive. It was his love of soccer that prompted Zach to become a soccer coach, he said: "I think if you've ever seen the TV show 'Ted Lasso', you'll know there's a character on that show. He constantly says soccer is life" and "I am an English teacher for money. I am a soccer coach for love".
This is a story of love. Behind the joy of success there are setbacks and failures, as well as confusion and uncertainty. UESTC women's soccer team has gone through the storm and blossomed on the top of Lianfeng Mountain with indomitable tenacity. They are training hard and uniting together, striving to go further and achieve higher honors in the next tournament. They are also striving to fight against the world and win equal rights and respect with practical actions.
Full Text Reporter/Shao Wenjie Li Siqi
