By Sportswriters Yao Youming and Liu Yangtao
BEIJING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Zhou Bingling may not have watched the British movie "Bend It Like Beckham," but the 12-year-old girl from rural China is still determined to become a football star.
"Life has opened a new door for me, after I took part in a football summer camp in 2017," she said.
Zhou's team, established just two years ago, has just grabbed the trophy of the U13 women's football tournament during the second edition's Chinese National Youth Games on their home soil in June. It's Shanxi's first national championship in football.
Back in her old school in Jiaokou County, Shanxi Province, Zhou was seen as "a headache" by her teachers for her mischievous character. She had known nothing about football before she participated the summer camp held at Shanxi Sports Vocational School.
There, she played football for the first time, with 26 other girls just like her -- from villages of Shanxi and knowing little about the sport, but also outgoing, active children who didn't like to sit quietly in class.
"I thought I came here just for fun," said Gong Jiaqi, from Xiguan Village.
The energetic girls showed their potential in the sport at the tryouts, but finding management for the team turned out to be a problem. The job fell onto Ma Yanshuang, a professional coach.
"Every day when I wake up, I begin to think of what to do with the players who don't like training and who eat too little," Ma said.
He has set strict team rules, and the children began to listen to him.
Seeing that most of the players are short, Ma developed a skill-based tactic for them. With the coaching of Ma and his colleague Wang Wenliang, Zhou and her teammates spent almost two years practicing running, shooting, dribbling and passing on the field.
"We have trained hard like this for almost two years, getting up early and going to bed late," Wang said.
Every player in the team has since developed excellent skills.
The final of the second Chinese National Youth Games saw team Shanxi make an impressive comeback after their opponent scored the first goal, to take out team Shandong 2-1 to reach the highest position on the podium.
"As a Chinese saying goes, one minute on the stage takes ten years of practice," Ma said. "Hard training and great determination are the key to our win. "
"I had never dreamed of being on a national championship team before. The title made me see a brighter future and more possibilities in my life," said Li Shiran, a team member.
"I want to become a professional footballer and join the national team in the future. Football has shown me a way to move forward," Zhou said.
