Almost half a year later, the aforementioned coach with a stick went to my father and asked him if I could join his amateur club (which is superior to the interest club). He first introduced himself as Musheng Ma or “Mr. Ma” and explained that, based on his observation, I needed a higher level of training. Mr. Ma said that his amateur club provided training every day, the chance to take part in championships of the city (Guangzhou) or province (Guangdong), free soccer equipment, and he also noted the fee was relatively low, only RMB100 (about $15) per month. My father agreed immediately, but I initially said I would die before I went there. I had an image the coach beating kids with sticks burned in my mind, chirping at them with whistles, yelling when they did something wrong, and of the exhausted players at the end of training. I didn’t want my play time to become hell, so I hesitated, but my father thought it was a great chance to not only make my body stronger, but also my mind.

My father is an extremely persuasive person, and I finally agreed just to “try one time” after his never-ending attempts. He talked to the coach, emphasizing that I was a pure young boy who always followed orders, and he asked him not to use “violence” on me. Since I performed well and Mr. Ma kept his promise not to be too harsh on me, and later I found out I was one of only two kids he treated this way. This experience put me into the amateur club and opened both the doors of “hell” and “heaven.”

The Tianhe amateur club was made up of three teams: U 95/96 (kids born before 1995-1996), U 97/98, and U 99/00. There were about fifteen to twenty players on each team. The training sessions on school days were from 5pm to 7pm on weekdays and from 8am to 10am on weekends, and almost every day during holidays. Those that were absent were required to have a valid excuse because unlike the interest club, in which one could come and leave at their leisure, this club preached dedication and commitment. Thanks to this club, I could not sleep late on weekends or plan any vacations on holidays.

The beginning is always the hardest part. The kids here had played together for years, and their skill, stamina, and soccer minds were all superior to mine, so as a newcomer, I got bullied by the “boss”. I was too shy and timid at that time, so I cried instead of fighting back when others engaged me. In these instances Mr. Ma came and disciplined the offending kid so severely that it frightened even me. He said that we were all brothers and we should fight enemies together, and that we could never allow ourselves to be defeated inside. “I will kick your ass if ever someone bullies another!” he would exclaim. Because of this approach, bullying seldom happened again.

Another challenge was my health. We did not stop training in rain as long as there was no lightning, and one day I got such a severe cold so that I could not stop coughing for two entire months; since training could not cease, I had to get used to running while coughing. My coughing had not yet stopped when I met more misfortune, stepping on a ball and falling over it which broke my ankle. It took me another two months to get back on the field. A month later came the first championship in my career: the 2008 Guangzhou Junior Amateur Club Championship, the greatest honor in Guangzhou.

There are three kinds of soccer matches in Guangzhou: the first is the Guangzhou Amateur club soccer championship, consisting of different amateur clubs from each district; the second is the Guangzhou Games, like a miniature version of the Olympic games, which is held every three years with most of the attending teams identical to the ones that participate in the Guangzhou Amateur clubs; the third is the Guangzhou inter-school league, in which local public schools send teams to play.

The first Amateur club championship was not a big event in my memory.I missed a lot of training as mentioned above, so I was on the bench for half of the time, and we did not even get the first or second prize (compared to our future championships). But this time was full of really good memories, such as my first appearance in a real championship, our victory over the strongest team, and becoming aware of the fact that others chat about our club (Tianhe) as a powerful enemy. Even though we did not achieve the top results this year, Mr. Ma – not only our head coach, but coach of all the teams in Tianhe Amateur club – saw potential in our 99/00 team. Thereafter, he decided to focus on 99/00 only, which was critical to our following successes.

It was a while later when the parents of my teammates told me that Mr. Ma was the number one coach in Guangzhou, because he had cultivated many famous players who played for national team like the strikers Weiguo Peng and Zhijun Hu. Since he was part of the army for half of his life, Mr. Ma was tough and serious, which made him an effective coach. He devoted himself to cultivating youth—he started this amateur club with the first 91/92 team, almost two decades from then–and never asked for anything in return. He was an indispensable mentor to me, and really made a deep impression on my growth.

Entering the fourth grade in my area of China means it is time to prepare for junior high school study. Because of the enormous population in China, parents view this time as critical for pushing their kids to work hard in order to develop good habits and get into a good junior high school. Olympic math / English / science may not be regular topics for many young children, but in China many parents are sending their kids to study them, hoping their kids to win the others from the start. However, for me, because of soccer training I had no time to attend classes outside school. My fellow students did, and soon their grades were surpassing mine. Every Wednesday afternoon when we had only one class at school, my classmates all went out and played games together, while I had to try and catch up with them on homework, and of course, attend training. I watched them carelessly play while thinking about the hell of soccer training that I was about to face.

At one point that year I thought I could take it no more, so I cried to my father begging him to let me quit. My father comforted me and used his magic persuasion, and at that time I was still extremely obedient, so I returned to training. Since I showed up very late, Mr. Ma shouted and berated me as expected. Returning to the soccer pitch gave me mixed feelings – I love soccer but also wanted to play freely with my friends. In the end, this was a time when I started understanding that playing soccer was beneficial but also a sacrifice. Under my father’s direction and support, I decided to go on playing, which was one of the best choices I ever made in my life.

One day in the fourth grade, I received a surprising message from my P.E. teacher that our school would attend the Inter School League. I never saw a soccer team training at school, and there wasn’t a field at my school. I agreed to attend, and I found out that most of the team members came from the track and field team. This phenomenon is common, at least in Guangzhou, for at that time schools didn’t take sports teams seriously; they just sent some students to the match to pretend they cared about student health and that they gave them an opportunity to pursue sports.

I joined this “soccer team,” and we trained only a few times just before matches started; there was so little time I hardly knew some of my teammates’ names. Though I was one of the most skilled players on this team, my body was too short and thin at nine years of age, and those sixth graders were always the ones chosen to start. With those tall and strong track and field players in the matches, our weaknesses were obvious, and those schools with soccer traditions easily beat us. Our “soccer team” didn’t even get through our group, though we finished our job to show the educational department that our school pays a lot of attention in sports.

After Mr. Ma decided that he would train our 99/00 team on his own, our training became like hell. It was the 2009 summer holiday, and we were going to take part in an “international” championship held in Qingyuan, a city north to Guangzhou, which includes all of the amateur club teams in Guangzhou, a team from Shenzhen, and one from South Korea. Mr. Ma knew that before the long route to a championship, we needed to run a lot to greatly improve our stamina. For the first half of the holiday, we intensively trained in footwork and agility drills (with and without the ball), teamwork finishing, played in small seven versus seven matches, and finally the hellish task of running to improve stamina. The average temperature was about 37 to 38 degrees Centigrade (~100 Fahrenheit) with the sun burning our skins. The field was artificial turf, and little circular black rubber particles covering the grass would partially melt down and stick to the rubber soles of our shoes, and when we fell, our skin. When we finished the regular training, we were all exhausted, but then came our running session, including many timed 200m and 400m sprints. We faced punishment if we didn’t finish on time. It was really like hell, and every time our whole training was over, we all felt like we were on the brink of death. I don’t know if this kind of training is really scientific or not, but later during the grueling matches of the championship we found out that our stamina was indeed a level beyond others’. Through these days, I found out I was indeed no longer that shy and cute little boy any more. I was growing up, both physically and mentally.

When championship matches started, we found during the games that we were one of the best teams. In our group, we regularly won matches by five or ten goals; we finally reached an elite status unlike the year before. We gained a lot of confidence, and entered the semifinals, facing South Korea. My teammates were very excited, for this was the first time we would play against a foreign team, and we knew nothing about them. The following day, both our team and the South Korean team played a really high-standard game, and finally we lost by just one goal, sadly eliminating us from the tournament. Overall, Mr. Ma was quite satisfied with our result, as we had improved so much this year. He was surer than ever that our 99/00 team could be the best in the city of Guangzhou, and perhaps even in Guangdong Province.

Back in Tianhe District after the tournament, we receive two new jerseys, but to our surprise, instead of the word “Tianhe” in the front, it was “Panyu.” Mr. Ma held a meeting and explained to us: we would be representing the Guangzhou district of Panyu instead of the district Tianhe to take part in the Guangzhou Games two years later, because our local district administrators, the Tianhe Sports Bureau, did not want to invest in soccer anymore. This meant that the Tianhe amateur club, which Mr. Ma ran for decades, now might be forced to disband. Facing this problem, Mr. Ma knew that Panyu did not have a soccer team, so he negotiated with them and they agreed to sponsor our team to continue playing. Luckily, we survived, but depended on the Panyu government bureau. Mr. Ma told us that playing soccer for ourselves was our goal, it should not matter to us whom we were representing; he alone would worry about this issue. He also insisted that we must not wear the clothes with “Panyu” on them when training to stress this point. After this event, we were even more desperate to get every championship, in order to show the Tianhe Sports Bureau what a good team they had chosen to abandon. We were eager to prove ourselves, and show our local district it had erred.

It almost seems like a joke looking back at the situation today. Tianhe District, one of the wealthiest and most populated districts of Guangzhou, one of the three most powerful cities in China, had no money to sponsor its only soccer team. It didn’t make any sense then, or now. Many Chinese laughed about that our men’s national soccer team was bad, but then why doesn’t the government even try to make the situation better? When the leader of the Bureau said that they didn’t want to sponsor soccer, then soccer was over. In my view, this decision showed no respect or responsibility.

In the summer of 2009, we took part in the amateur club championship as expected, but now with the words “Pany” printed on the front of our chest.Using this as motivation, we won literally every match. The game versus the Huadu district team, however, made a deep impression on my mind. In that match I got the captain armband the first time in my life, and also scored two crucial goals, which I viewed as proof of my personal skill growth. Though it was not a very important match, I impressed Mr. Ma greatly, and since then I was often chosen to be a starting player, and scored several times. In the end, we finally won the elusive championship, the first for U 99/00, which opened a new page to my soccer journey and to club history. The feeling was crazy happiness, because we were the best of the best after such a long time training and fighting for this moment.

When we were about to take picture, Mr. Ma just sat quietly aside. He was this kind of man who didn’t like to show off, and just focused on his interest to cultivate generations of young soccer players. I was quite moved by him, and finally understood the greatness behind his “scary” and “violent” look.

The Amateur club championship in the summer of 2010 was the last one before the important match — the Fifth Guangzhou Games. We were eager to beat our opponents to ensure we remained the best. This Championship was not a tournament, but the system was a league match system, where each team plays each other team one time (like a regular season). Our largest opponents were Haizhu and Liwan, and we did not lose a single match before we met each other. The three games among us were extremely trying, and at last we beat Liwan in regular time and defeated Haizhu in penalty. After these matches, the only remaining opponent was Huadu, which we had never previously lost to, before the championship. The coming match with Huadu taught me the valuable lesson of never neglecting one’s enemies.

We kept attacking on Huadu’s half of the field, but they persisted with a strategy based on sitting back and defending. Their strategy was never meant to go for the win, but just to play stout defense and deliberately bring the game to penalties so that they had a better chance to win. I was on the bench and quite anxious when Mr. Ma asked me to warm up. I was terrified at that time, because I was the last substitute. Mr. Ma called me over and gave me a succinct, stern, and encouraging speech: I needed to believe in myself, and I already knew what a great responsibility I was undertaking. With only ten minutes left he put me in the game. A minute later, I got the ball near the attacking third, and was intent on breaking through the defense on my own, when all of a sudden a loose clearance from our team passed through the legs of one of Huadu’s defenders. I raced to the ball and was first to it; now I was facing only the goalkeeper. I took a soft touch to slow the ball’s quick pace and took a shot quicker than the keeper expected, placing it to his right side. It was a goal! I was ecstatic at that moment, and sprinted to the embrace of my teammates and coaches. I don’t know if God arranged this for me, but it was the first time I was a hero who created a miracle from seemingly nothing. The match still had a few minutes remaining, but our opponents were apparently defeated in their minds. Our captain saw my signal to send a through pass to me, and I was one step ahead of their offside trap, and suddenly faced the keeper again! I envisioned the goal, a low hard shot, and it materialized as I imagined. My captain ran over excitedly and said to me, “Are you kidding me? Two goals one time?” I saw the happy faces of my teammates and was thankful I had persisted in my pursuit of this activity. I saved our team!

When I was given the honor of holding up the trophy as the representative of our team, I felt an unmatched feeling of happiness. We had again proved to the whole Guangzhou that we were the superior team for our age group.

In sixth grade, I was feeling great: a star at the school team and several recent championships under my belt. However this last Inter School League didn’t end well. My school did not have soccer traditions, but luckily we had three players training at Tianhe Amateur Club, so we were better than most schools. Our last match was against Gaotangshi School, one of the most powerful schools with a strong soccer tradition. I led my team to fight as hard as we could, but in the end we lost 1-0.

Losing was not what made us angry, instead it was the poorly kept secret that Gaotangshi had multiple players who were a year older than we were, a clear violation of the rules. However, there they were, playing against us; my father and other parents tried to talk to the referee, but no result came. By hearing other parents’ conversations, I got to know that there were schools which wanted the championship so desperately that they were willing to cheat in this league, through methods such as using false identifications, or sending players older than the maximum age to play. Referees were obligated to punish those schools if violations were uncovered, but they refused to investigate the matter because of how troublesome it would be, so they turned a blind eye. I finally understood a new type of competitiveness, a mean-spirited, selfish and ethically blind competiveness. Coming to this understanding helped soften the blow of the loss, and it also opened my eyes to the fact that I would inevitably face issues like this in the future. I resolved never to embrace such tactics.

Before the Fifteenth Guangzhou Games soccer championship, we had recently won the Amateur Club Championships in both the winter of 2010 and summer of 2011. It was still summer so our last cup was fresh; at that time we started to become jaded to the feeling of hoisting the cup, thinking that we were powerful enough to continue generating championships. Thus, our failure in the even more important Guangzhou Games left us all in disbelief.

It’s true that we were as good as before, but the others were improving faster than we could imagine. We won all of the games until the finals, but we had a close call when our most powerful enemy—Liwan district—just lost to us in penalties. This meant if we won our final match against Huangpu, which we always did, we would get the championship. The bad news was, our center back was injured; however, we thought our opponents were weak enough that we did not give this adequate care.

The arrogant warrior always loses. Indeed, we played much better than them, but they scored two goals on few attempts, and then just sat back to defend. At last, we managed a 2-2 tie, but we lost to Liwan because of goal difference. Liwan got the champion at last. The invincible Tianhe (now Panyu) team was defeated in our most important tournament of the year. I cried on the field, because I felt such a deep sense of loss.

After our failure, we were strike by news that the Spanish club Real Madrid would be coming to Guangzhou, and that our club members would have the chance to take pictures with the team. At that time I did not have my favorite team, and when I saw them I automatically became a fan. I remember that day clearly, as we stood in front of the team members: Ozil was right behind me, and Ronaldo was three meters on my right hand. I almost felt suffocated, and dare not moving. I brought a pen with me, but I was too scared to call their names or ask them to sign anything. It was quite an amazing experience that I stood in crowd and took pictures with Real Madrid players.

Hala Madrid!

After our loss to Liwan, we had another chance that 2011 summer to avenge our loss. The top two finishers of the Guangzhou Games could take part in the Guangdong Championship, and we were proud to wear a jersey with “Guangzhou” on it, though it noted we were “Guangzhou No.2 Team.” We swore that we would take revenge and beat the “Guangzhou No.1 team.”

The championship was held in Yingde, a small city in the north of Guangdong province, which was the former national women’s team soccer training base. However, we were shocked when we arrived—the rooms were decrepit, the grass was in disrepair; the whole base seemed like a big factory which would imminently close. How could a national training facility be like this? Just because it was women’s soccer? Having experienced the decision of Tianhe district to pull our funding years before, I was at a loss, especially when recalling the fact that in 1999 China’s national women’s soccer team won 2nd place in the Women’s World Cup, and has consistently remained one the premier teams in Asia. It was really hard and sad for me to believe these conditions.

Teams from other cities could not match us, and we and Liwan won all matches, setting up a rematch in this tournament’s final. I performed well in that match, and helped my team win 2-0. Proper mental preparation and refusal to take any opponent lightly allowed us to avenge our loss to Liwan, and achieve our first Provincial championship. In the end, the Guangdong Provincial championship remained a competition rooted in Guangzhou city.

The Guangdong Provincial championship was our last performance as part of the Tianhe Amateur club. We were like graduates from Tianhe, and now the only way to be part of a competitive team would be to be selected to represent the Guangzhou city team in the national championship tournament. As part of the preparation, we needed to test “bone age,” which helps measure body development and determine someone’s actual biological age. For example, a child may be fourteen years in age based on date of birth, but bone age may be fifteen, which means he or she has developed faster than the typical student (bone age of thirteen would indicate slower development). In this way, the coaches could determine physical strength and games become fairer.

Even though I was the tallest player other than the keeper on my team, my bone age was 1.1 years younger than birth my age. My captain, however, was 0.6 year older than his birth age. This partly explains why he always had more strength than me, because by comparison, I was 1.7 year younger than him, and I need not mention how much a difference 1.7 year can do when kids were growing so fast. This Guangzhou team was U 99/00, so children like my captain would not be included on the team as he was 0.6 years in bone age older than kids born in 1999.

The technique of testing the bone age was only introduced recently when I went through this process, as the Bureau was paying more and more attention to people trying to cheat the system. In China, it is not hard to change the birth date on one’s ID card (especially if you are not born in a big city), so this practice, as contemptible as it is, was common. To gain an advantage in order to “play better,” it became clear to me that many children I encountered had either changed their birth dates to make them technically “younger,” so that, for example, a kid born in 1998 could play for the U 99/00 team. There was one 1998 player in my Tianhe team changed his birthday to be on our U 99/00 team, and it was quite obvious because he was significantly stronger than us. The unfortunate reality is that another teammate lost his starting position because this age manipulator joined the team.

The phenomenon of age cheatings in China helps explain why Chinese U15 to U17 teams often get strong results in international tournaments. However, it is also important to note that as boys grow up into men, age and body types matter less; this helps explain why our men’s Chinese national team still is so weak. This is really a sad truth, and honestly it makes many Chinese soccer fans very angry.

Just like a primary school students will graduate and go to junior high school, my time in Tianhe Club was finally about to come to the end. The 2012 winter was the last championship for our U 99/00 Tianhe club team. Because there was no requirement to take the bone age test to play in the Amateur club championship, we had a tough time fighting those other teams which had older children. We only had one older kid, our captain, but our opponent, again Liwan, had several. We finally lost the championship match in penalty kicks and received another second place finish. Mr. Ma was no longer that angry, because he knew after the match our team would be disbanded. It was all over.

A few teammates and I still insisted on training with the Tianhe Amateur club, but we had no matches to play. Our mission then was to train the younger generations, like U01/02. I was sad, but still I got to play and engage in soccer as my hobby.

The U99/00 Guangzhou City Team was open to every amateur club team member in February 2012, and from then on the district-level U99/00 amateur club team no longer existed. It was like a graduation, and now we needed to compete for a place in a higher level institution.

This was how the Guangzhou system works, and is basically in line with the Chinese way of training athletes: if you were chosen to be a member of the Guangzhou team, you would have to agree with the “Three Together”—live together, study together, and train together. This is not like a boarding school, because the so called “study together” essentially means nothing – there is very little oversight over these athletes to ensure they study, and for many of them this freedom is like a perverse heaven for them because they had no obligation to study, and sufficient time to play whatever they like. One reason why Chinese people often stereotype athletes as having low intelligence is partly explained by this Three Together which was, in my opinion, “Three Separations”—separation from family, school, and society. I made a firm decision not to go to the “Three together” Guangzhou team even if I was qualified, and it was sad to say that my soccer career almost ended then.

Kids had to pass the bone age test before entering the U 99/00 Guangzhou team. This was welcome news because the bone age test made the competition fairer, but how the Chinese Bureau implemented this act was irresponsible. There were only three chances to test the bone age within a two-year time limit, and if one is still deemed older than his supposed birth age, he or she is barred from this team. For example, my captain was 0.6 year older, so he could not be on the Guangzhou team after the first test. Six month later came the second test, and he again was deemed too old. Almost another eight months later, the same result. What then? He could never have the chance to get in the U99/00 team, even though maybe a few months later he could pass the test. He was not the only victim of the impotence of the Bureau; A vast majority of those “older” kids ended their soccer career for this reason, and a few really skilled players like my captain entered the U97/98 Guangzhou team, but they never gained the chance to play during matches, because after all, they were one or two years younger than the U97/98 members. What a waste of skilled players!

Two months later, I walked to Tianhe fields as usual, and was surprised to find out that Mr. Ma looked extraordinarily happy. He said that the coaches from Guangzhou team wanted us to train there; because the Three Together plan made many high level players like me decide not to join them. As a result they decided to delay the plan and allowed us to train without the “living together” element. This was great news for me! My soccer career didn’t end, and I also got the chance to play for the city on the national championship!

By delaying the full implementation of the Three Together plan, the Guangzhou team now had about fifty players; eventually the team would select only 23 to play in the championship, so it was survival of the fittest. I had many disadvantages: the first was that I only started playing soccer at age eight while most others began at six or seven; second was that I studied in a boarding school, 35 miles away from Guangzhou, so I could not attend the training on weekdays. Overall, it meant that not only was I training less than in the past, but also that I would be training less in the future. But why care? I was playing soccer again! That’s simply how I thought at that time.

Training on the Guangzhou team was really different from on the Tianhe Amateur club. There were four professional coaches, who were once the members of the invincible Guangzhou Taiyangsheng (trans., “The God of Sun”) club playing in the highest level league in China. There were two training sessions a day on weekends, one from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., and the other from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. The amount of training was less intense than Tianhe’s overall. From then on all the matches would be eleven-a-side. However, I always felt very tired, because I had to travel significant distances by metro before and after the training.

As the only kid on this team that stayed in a boarding school, which was the third best school in Guangzhou and thus also academically rigorous, the training could be overwhelming. The following was my schedule on weekends at that time: 8:30 get up; 9:00 go to the field; 9:30-11:30 training; 12:30 return home; 1:00-2:30 have lunch and nap; 3:00 go to the field; 3:30-5:30 training; 6:30-7:30 shower and dinner; 8:00-10:00 study for school. The very limited time to study and the intense physical exhaustion I faced from two-a-day trainings were the main challenges I had to overcome, but I decided it was a fair price to pay for my soccer dream. Instead of these difficulties, I was more worried about when the Three Together plan would finally be fully implemented, which would mean the real end for me.

It was now April of 2012. My studying and soccer duties were constantly colliding, and now that I was a junior high school student, the collisions were taking a toll on me.

The first Guangdong Championship was held during the finals week at my school, which caused me great headaches. Not only was I striving to be in the top first 23 of 50 kids, I also needed to talk to my coach to gain permission to miss the first two group matches because of school obligations. Additionally, since tests finished very late in the evening my parents had to drive me late during the night for over 100 km to send me to the base where the championship was held, which was stressful and burdensome. I did not know what to do, because if I missed championship games it would likely mean that I might not be considered by the coaches in the future. My father calmed me down, and said, “First you need to do your best in the final, secondly try your best to get into the 23 people’s team, and we’ll figure it out later.” Thinking about how hard I had been training these years, I agreed and renewed my commitment to make the maximum effort to impress the coaches.

Finally, I was chosen as part of the 23 person crew! I managed to finish my finals with success, and my father sent me back to the soccer base that night. I missed two matches, but I caught up with my team afterwards. Our team was, of course, the best, and went to the final as expected, facing Zhanjiang City Team, a city in the south of Guangdong Province.

We were better than Zhanjiang, but we could not score; no matter how many attempts we took, how many corners we had, how anxious we got, we could not take the lead. There were only ten minutes left when I was substituted in, hoping to make a difference to the game. Not long later, my teammate gave me an excellent cross from the left side of the pitch, and the ball just slipped past a defender to my feet. I faced the goal keeper with another defender coming fast. I aimed and shot the ball into the bottom left netting before the defender tried to clear it. When the ball hit the net I took off running to the coaches and my teammates. I didn’t want to think at all, but to celebrate this moment of glory after so much struggle. At the first Guangdong Championship I ever attended, I raised up the big cup as my teammates and coaches insisted to let me do it. After this match, with renewed confidence in me, my teammates trusted me more and the coaches decided to give me a starting position.

As a bit of background, people from the south of China are generally shorter, thinner, and less robust than those coming from the north. As a result the players that comprised our Guangzhou team, all coming from the furthest southern regions in China, generally focused more on skills to balance the disadvantages of body.

I trained hard and was ready to take part in my first national championship, but first we had to fight in a qualifying game for a ticket forward. This game was nine-a-side, and I worked hard to get a starting right wing position. After half a month playing, in July, 2012, we were qualified by the result of three wins and two losses. We just beat another team by merely the goal difference. All in all, we qualified for our first national championship, which would be held in the national men’s soccer training base in Haigeng Kunming city, which was 1800 meters (6000 feet) above sea level.

It was disastrous to play on the field with such a high altitude and  temperature. After we arrived, I felt tired even from simple jogging exercises; I could not imagine how hard it would be to play against the most powerful teams around the whole country. My stamina was not at its peak during this period because of my limited training due to school obligations, and in this new environment and altitude I often found myself unable to perform at my maximum potential throughout the whole game. After the very first match, I found out that the skill level of national-level competitions was really far higher than provincial games, and we all needed to fight for every match just like a final. In retrospect, during the championship run we actually performed at a high level. We won matches we should win, and lost to those that were physically and technically superior. Finally, we received sixth place in China, which was the best record before I quit the team. This seemed fair enough. And also fair was the fact that my starting position was gradually lost because of my relative lack of training and stamina compared to my teammates. This would prove to motivate me to continue to vigorously train.

The best team in the tournament was Shandong Luneng, a club with a long soccer tradition. My father heard that they had been implementing Three Together for a long time, which explains that in no matter what aspects--teamwork, personal skill, or body strength--they were better than teams like us that had not yet fully implemented the plan (in fact there were no kids like me on that team; i.e. kids that were both pursuing soccer as well as education). I actually was sympathetic to many of those kids, because they had not even finished their junior high school before being sent to play soccer in their club, with no other major goals or direction for their future. Many of them even lacked basic education. If they could play for professional clubs when they grow up, it would all be fine; but if they could not reach that high level (clubs only want the best players), they would literally have nothing left—no education, and no teams to play for. How would they survive in society? The sad truth is: this was the conventional Chinese way of training athletes, and for many there may not be a happy ending. Reflecting on this also allowed me to gain new appreciation for my experience – albeit an arduous and tiring one – to follow the duel path of high level soccer and education.

After this championship, my coaches clearly realized how large the gap was between us Guangzhou team and those teams that had already been following Three Together. They divided our teams into two, team A and B. Guangzhou A included the best players who were willing to accept “Three Together,” and Guangzhou B included the rest. I had no choice but to go to team B. I knew that my time to quit was about to come.

Finally 9th grade had arrived (which in China is actually the last year of middle school instead of the first year of high school), which meant my studies became more intense and took more time away from my extracurricular pursuits, especially my commitment to the Guangzhou City team. I started to notice my goals and commitments differed widely from my fellows at school. Most of them used holidays to take additional outside-school courses, while for me, holidays were filled with soccer.

I was always proud that I could balance my time so that my grades and soccer level were both strong, but at this time, my academics were hindered more and more by my training commitments. After the mid-term exam, I dropped from 30th in rank to 160th in rank, which nearly made me give up my soccer career. On the other hand, I also missed a championship because it was held during school hours. I felt very anxious and panic for doing bad both at school and on the team, like the whole world was turning against me. Is it an eternal truth in China that kids can only choose one between studying and playing high level soccer? I didn’t know, but I was still determined not to let my career end without my consent.

In January of 2013, I was officially appointed to be a Guangzhou B player, taking part in the national championship in 2013 winter in Wuzhou (one of the national men’s soccer training base in Guangxi province). Though I was one of the best talents on this team, our overall strength was relatively lower than what was used to be. The A team had also declined in relation to our competition, and they only got 11th place in the tournament; we were far behind 30th place. This bad result again prompted coaches to more strictly implement the Three Together concept.

That April 2013, I was forced to give up another championship because of school commitments. What made matters worse to me was knowing that my coaches would pay less attention to me because of these unavoidable absences, and often when playing a match in training I was put on the bench. I understood their reasons – that I would not play in the following game – but this still made my disappointment and anxiety grow. I had a significant amount of homework and reviewing to do every day, and though I kept my commitment to training, the time was largely spent sitting and watching. I started to wonder what the point of staying here was. I thought that I was wasting my precious time to improve my study, so slowly I was coming to the conclusion again that it may be my time to quit, however much this was against my wishes.

Since I was not ready to leave, I pushed through this difficult time. I began implementing new study habits and techniques to improve my efficiency.

There was also good news that team A had a chance to take part in the national championship during the summer between my 9th and 10th grades, so Guangzhou B had the chance to take part in the Guangdong Provincial championship representing Guangzhou city.

Though I trained less from April to July in preparation for finals, I kept my skills sharp with individual practice, and through more intensive fitness training before the tournament, my stamina and body strength caught up with the others. I became one of the best players on the B team again, and during this new tournament scored the only goal in the last group-stage match which helped place us into the final.

However, the final versus Guangzhou Evergrande Soccer Academy was depressing; we played a technically superior game, but could not score a goal. Guangzhou Evergrande played a conservative game once they took the lead using their sole attempt, which left us in second place. Though the result wasn’t ideal, I had found my way back on the starting team after all the misery I had been through!

More good news came before the second tournament of the 2013 summer, a higher level Guangdong Provincial Elite Championship. This time only Guangzhou A would take part representing Guangzhou, but there were now three open spots. From my performance in the Guangdong Provincial Championship with Guangzhou B, I was honored to be chosen as a team A member again. It was really surprising, because the purported rules suggested only those who agreed with Three Together could stay in team A. This tournament would take place in Yingde, Guangdong.

I played one third of the matches during this tournament. I knew Three Together would prevent me from playing on this team in the future, so I enjoyed myself in the matches, treating every one of them as my final one. Our Guangzhou A team had a dominant performance and we cruised to hoist the championship trophy. When I got the chance to hold up the cup and bite my metal, I knew it may truly the last one. I was sad, but remembering all the hardship I overcame these years, I felt no regret because I made it to the end.

My time had come.

On a normal day on November, 2013, after an afternoon training session, we were packing up and suddenly my coach hold a meeting. He said, “Now we are strictly implementing Three Together. I want you to take your time talk to your parents about the opportunity to choose the soccer path for your future.”

We were dismissed. Walking out the front door of the field, I was quite calm. This was the moment that I had waited for and been scared of for so long, a reoccurring nightmare. Finally the judgment day was here. I thought about the first time when I entered this front door, the good times, and the miseries I had been through, but ultimately there was no choice. I valued my future academics over the slim chances of becoming a professional soccer play, so it was all over.

Though I felt down, I was not at all angry because my coaches’ had done all they could for me, and I had done all I could for the team and club given my situation. I was grateful that my coaches did their best to talk to the Bureau and try to delay Three Together as long as they could; without them, I would never have even been selected for the Guangzhou team two years ago, and certainly would not have just played in these competitive regional and national tournaments.

I was not alone. A quarter of the teammates left the team to go focus on their education. We were the victims of Chinese system, and we stayed in close touch to help comfort each other during this transition. We were like birds trapped inside a cage; we had beautiful dreams to play soccer, but were confined by the wretched bars of Three Together.

Some of us were the members of team A, who played the last Guangdong championship. We had consistently maintained a high level of soccer as well as strong academic performance against significant odds, but a complete commitment was simply not possible. It really bugged me that the bureau must strictly implement Three Together, and this kept me thinking about weaknesses of the Chinese recruitment system.

Let me summarize: there were less than forty U99/00 teams in the whole country. After Three Together was fully implemented, Guangzhou team members (both A & B) were cut from about 50 to less than 30. Guangzhou is one of the largest cities in China and has relatively more players than many other smaller cities in China, so on average, each team and city would have about 25 players to represent their age group. With forty teams throughout the country, this added up to only about 1000 players in all of China. In future selections, these 1000 would be whittled down to about 500, so only about 50% would even have a chance to touch higher level soccer. From this, it is clear why Chinese soccer is so far behind the rest of the world – there are only around 500 players per year that have a chance to make a deeper impression and be selected to play for the national China squad. With these paltry numbers how would it be possible to compete with other nations that include many more numbers of talented prospects in their systems?

In my perspective, it is not the fact that there are not enough children playing soccer, the most important factor that prevents China from developing talent is the policies such as Three Together which eliminates many students who are not willing to sacrifice education for a gamble at being a soccer professional. To clarify, in China for a professional athlete or semi-professional athlete to graduate from a university is an astonishing achievement, because most of the athletes are forced to abandon their education. This is the sad truth of Chinese system.

By May of 2014 I had been away from soccer training for six months, and the majority of the time had been spent preparing for the all-important high school entrance exam. I set a goal of studying at the Affiliated High School of South China Normal University (nicknamed “Huafu”), because it was the best high school in Guangdong, and as a secondary reason, because it had a good soccer team.

Before the entrance exam, there was also a test for students with soccer talent. I signed up and performed well in front of the Huafu coach even though I hadn’t played for several months. I had passed the athletic test, which was reassuring, but I still had to get top marks on the entrance examination. With the support of all my months of study, I also performed well and was accepted to the international department of Huafu. I was ecstatic because my goal was finally achieved. I had placed in the top two hundred students in all of Guangzhou (over 110,000 students!); this was amazing! Not only had I proved my academic credentials, but I had the chance to play soccer again. As I was in the international department, I would now also have the opportunity to fulfill another one of my goals: applying to US universities in 2017.

By the time I started high school at Huafu in the fall of 2014, the overall soccer atmosphere in China was showing signs of improvement. Our new chairman and president, Xi Jinping, is a well-known soccer fanatic, and he made promises to improve Chinese soccer, with a stated goal of making the Chinese soccer team one of the best teams in Asia in ten years. Local governments around the country also responded to Xi’s proposal, and began introducing a slate of new policies related to soccer. With a new spotlight on it, soccer was becoming a bigger focus in China, which gave soccer players like me new hope. In this atmosphere, I went to study in the Huafu International Department, and began training with the school team.

The first few weeks were hard for me. I was known as a former member of the prestigious Guangzhou team, but after eight months without training, I was initially like a novice. I could not run as fast or for as long a time; my body was weaker and my finishing and dribbling had regressed. I felt like an old man for the first time in my life.

Fortunately, many of my young teammates were in the same situation, and the seniors were extremely patient and kind. This was not the same cut-throat environment as pre-professional track players faced. Soon the Guangzhou high school inter-campus championship would be held, which made me very excited. I could return to the field and carry on my dream again.

As the tournament started I also was able to meet many old friends from the Guangzhou team, who were now on different school teams. From November 2014 to June 2015, we played twelve matches and finally fought our way into the final, playing against Zhengguang High School. Zhengguang and our team were nearly evenly matched, and neither of us could create many chances during the game. We played stout defense for most of the game, but our opponents took advantage of one of our only mistakes to punish us with a goal. Finally, we lost 0-1.

Despite the loss, the result was one of our school’s best finishes in history. However, no one on our team felt like laughing or celebrating because we had been so close to a title.

Our Huafu team that year revolved around two players, both seniors, one forward and one back. They were extremely talented and also physically much more developed than the incoming 10th graders like me, so they scored the majority of the goals. I played right wing this year, aiming to create chances for them. The strategy we used was not really based on team work as much as it was based on the personal skill of these two seniors. The rest of us essentially had to think of ways to compliment these stars, and help them score goals. This was unfamiliar to me because at Guangzhou team, we were much more balanced and relied on comprehensive teamwork. During the first year at Huafu, I gradually got used to depending on the seniors, and started to lose the instinct to break through the defenses on my own. This would harm me a lot the following year, but at least after a whole year of playing soccer, I had regained my strength fitness, and was physically prepared to build on our success the next year!

Due to the fact that I was on the path to apply to US universities two years later, I decided to take part in different universities’ soccer camps in the 2015 summer. I knew nothing about the camps at that time, so I registered for seven different soccer camps: Cornell, Swarthmore, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton. I had no idea how intense each one would be before, and it turned out to be harsh test to my physical limits.

The first camp was at Cornell. I still remembered how horrible the first night was. That evening, we played a training match, and I was the starting right forward. I ran too much and my leg was unfortunately cramped. When I sat aside to watch them play, suddenly a heavy rain and winter came, and the temperature dropped drastically. It was around 13 Centigrade (55 Fahrenheit) with huge wind blowing with rain. The rest of us who were not on the field nearly froze, so we ran to get warm. My leg was again cramped, and I could not run any more. So I sat down and froze for the next 20 minutes. I thought, “Wow, what a good first impression I am making for Cornell!” Ironically, though it was a tough experience, at least during this camp I was fresh. However, my performance at Cornell ended up being the best out of all the camps.

My days at other universities were fruitful, because I learned new knowledge about American culture and colleges every day, but the trainings were extremely exhausting. I had never previously tried training three times a day, and every training was a match that required me to fight to the end of my strength. In 42 days in the United States, I intensively trained for almost 20 days, and the rest of the time was nearly all travel to and from the other camps. I truly learned the meaning of the word exhausted from this experience! During every camp I talked to my mates that I would attend seven camps this summer; they were all incredulous. Had I come from the United States I think it would have quickly been obvious that more than two or three camps was an overload, but I had no prior knowledge. This was an important but exhausting lessons, but as many with soccer, it is not one I regret now that I have survived. After I finally made it through and returned to Guangzhou, I found that this trip was really a meaningful one—though it was hard, I felt that my soccer skill and stamina had vastly improved.

As the government was now paying more and more attention to soccer, our school gained access to better training facilities. We hired one of my former Guangzhou team coaches, so that our training become more scientific and efficient, and our playing style transformed from individual ability to teamwork.

After the first year training as well as my intense US soccer training experience, I was playing at a high level, and felt as confident about my fitness as I had ever been. That year, honorably, I was appointed captain of the Huafu team. I realized then that my responsibility was no longer to play well myself, but also to unite all of my teammates. Wearing the captain’s armband, I knew that this year was a big step for me as a leader and would help me grow up and become a more mature individual on and off the field. This year there were four new faces on the team, all very talented, and this year our Huafu team had high aspirations for winning our school’s first trophy from the inter-campus Guangzhou league.

Because we were the second in Guangzhou last year, for the first time, Huafu got the chance to play the 2015 Guangdong Province Governor’s Cup High school League, representing Guangzhou. The match would be held in November. During this game, I finally found the familiar feeling of my old time at Guangzhou team, because the level was much higher than that of Guangzhou campus league. Finally we lost to the Guangzhou Evergrande Soccer Academy team and got 7th place at the Guangdong Province Governor’s Cup out of a pool of 32 top soccer academies and high schools. I was quite satisfied, because we were only students in one of the myriads of schools in Guangdong, so it was not shameful at all to lose to the very professional Guangzhou Evergrande.

After this tournament arrived the all-important Guangzhou inter-campus league, which lasted from December 2015 to June 2016. We had a tough time trying to understand each other’s style of play in the first half of the season, and our results were good but not perfect enough to ensure a run to the championship trophy. We lost to our largest opponent, No. 5 Middle School, 0-1, tied three games, and ranked second in the league.

The second half went on in a favorable way. We trained for half a year and our new coach, (from my Guangzhou club team), improved our skills a lot. We won every match by at least three goals, including against No.5 Middle School, with the exception of one tie. I used to think that campus league was a game that largely depends on players’ physical strength, for many of them received few professional training, and to defend with strong players is easy in the seven-a-side field. But I was wrong; most of the toughest opponents we met were not using stronger players, but skilled players. Finally, we held our last game at our school’s stadium on June 2, 2016, and I proudly held up the champion trophy in front of students in Huafu. This feeling was amazing, just at in Tianhe team in the old times when we fought for and received every champion we could get. We finished our goal to get the championship, and made history at Huafu. We prepared ourselves to fight to defend the championship next year!

By 2016, I was long “graduated” from Tianhe Amateur club team. Now the Tianhe team had changed a lot. Because the soccer atmosphere was becoming better and better especially as relates to government funding, there were more and more kids playing soccer; for example there were more than 40 players in the U05/06 team (former U99/00 team only had less than 20). Mr. Ma no longer worked for Tianhe because he was beginning to feel the effects of old age and did not have the energy to train kids every day. He instead was working in a school, and on weekends taught children to play soccer, although not with the intensity of our Tianhe club. When I met him again, after two years apart, he seemed much kinder and happier, instead of the “devilish” image I had perceived when I saw him the first time.

When I met him, he asked me if I had interest in helping him train these primary school kids if I had time. I was honored to receive such a request from my illuminative coach, so I agreed, and have been volunteering my time one day per month to assist Mr. Ma.

Looking at those young kids, it was like watching my young self. Generation after generation, Mr. Ma watched us grow up into men, and I finally got a glimpse of this kind of feeling. Every time I went to help Mr. Ma, many of my childhood memories in Tianhe Amateur club would flush into my mind. The feeling was sweet, and becoming a coach and learning to guide, encourage, and motivate young men was a fresh and exciting new expression of my passion for soccer.

Now I am a rising senior, so after one more year fighting for Huafu, I will be attending a university in the United States. I am looking forward to continuing my fight to balance top academics and top soccer, and this summer I am again joining soccer camps in order to gain a chance to play in the NCAA in the future. Though out of China, I will still chase my soccer dream with passion, both on the field as a player, off the field as a mentor, and in the classroom as a student-athlete.

It was really a loss to leave Guangzhou team, but I did not regret it. Indeed, I was no longer a top level soccer player because of the unfair system, but my role had changed and was even better—I became a leader of a school team, a mentor for younger kids, a helper of my illuminative coach. I was out of the shadow of leaving and went on my life path in a different way, and I truly with the best of luck to all the people who were once in this system.