Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 3, “teaching one to fish is better than giving him fish”, Du Zhaocai, deputy director of the State Sports General Administration and Party secretary of the Chinese Football Association, said in an exclusive interview with FIFA that the Chinese Football Association would employ high-level foreign youth coach, consolidate the foundation of youth football talents.
FIFA said in an exclusive interview that in recent years, in order to improve the competitive level, China has successively hired Lippi, Hiddink and other world leaders. However, the Chinese Football Association also realized that if we want to achieve the goal of expanding the football population and entering the World Cup, we must develop the youth training system and train local coaches. It is understood that the Chinese Football Association launched the “grass-roots program for 100 foreign teachers” in 2018, and will hire high-level foreign youth coach to invest in China’s basic youth training.
Du zhaicai said that youth training is the foundation of Chinese football reform. “We plan to hire about 100 high-level foreign teachers by the end of 2019, hoping that these coaches can inject international training concepts into players and further consolidate the basic skills of young players.”
It is reported that these foreign teachers include Scouts, physical coaches and goalkeeper coaches, while in order to improve the local youth coach level while teaching high-level foreign coaches, the Chinese Football Association’s “grass-roots plan for 100 foreign teachers” uses the “1+3” model to form a youth coach team, that is, one foreign teacher is assigned three Chinese coaches, which further broadens the vision of Chinese coaches, have a new understanding of the development of international football, especially the youth training system.
“In addition to the guidance of football technical level, foreign teachers pay more attention to cultivating players’ self-confidence and independent thinking ability in the process of training young players. The arrival of foreign teachers not only helped players improve their technical level, but also benefited Chinese coaches deeply. They improved tutorial level from daily training, accumulated coaching experience and made common progress.” Du Zhaocai said.
Du zhaicai revealed that the first batch of 15 foreign teachers from Spain have been in place, while the Chinese Football Association has established 29 national youth training centers (including 14 special youth training centers for women’s football), and plans to build 50 national youth training centers by 2020. At the same time, we must adhere to the road of international development and build an international youth training center in the site selection of European and American football powers.
“The Chinese Football Association has established three international youth training centers in Czech Republic, Spain and Belgium. In the future, the Chinese Football Association will further establish international youth training centers overseas. Youth training is a long-term plan, and we will strive to build our own youth training system.” Du Zhaocai said.