1. Daily activities

As head coach of the Chengdu Football Association (Chengdu FA) Academy U-18, I work to strengthen the team and develop the players through a cycle of “planning → coaching/training → games → analysis/reflection.”

Before each training session, a staff meeting is held to discuss how the session will be conducted and the key elements of the training. In addition, as I am also overseeing coaching education at Chengdu FA, I keep our pre-training meetings and training sessions open to everyone in the academy, allowing many dedicated coaches and staff from other categories to attend. I have been striving to communicate not only with the staff in my own category, but also with many other local staff to better understand the current situation, identify problems, and offer solutions for the development of Chengdu FA.

2. Environment surrounding the players

In order to focus solely on football, the players live together in a training centre called “the base,” which combines training facilities and dormitories, and do not attend external schools. Some of the players are from Chengdu, while others come from cities far away. Players from neighbouring regions can go home for the weekends, but many cannot return until the long holidays. The players have an excellent training environment with two artificial grass pitches and three natural grass pitches, allowing them to train on natural grass on a daily basis. However, as there are no teams of similar age and skills to play against, the only option is to play against the football team from a local sports university.

3. Tournament format

Since it is difficult to play matches every week because of the long travels, the “U-19 League,” which is played in several blocks of six teams, is played four times a year in a centralised format. Teams are relegated and promoted each season, so the league becomes more competitive by the third or fourth season. This year, the league was held at training centres in Yunnan and Liaoning, with the first season taking place in March before my dispatch, the second and third in May and September after my dispatch, and the fourth to be held in November. This league is an intense competition, with matches played every other day to complete five matches in a duration of ten days, which can be mentally and physically demanding for the players. In addition to this competition, there is also “The National Games of Students & Youth,” in which our team qualified through the preliminary round in June to secure our place in the finals in November. This tournament has the same format as the U-19 League, except that each team must include at least five U-17 players.

4. Conclusion

There are a lot of players here with tremendous potential. I will continue to do everything in my capacity to help them pursue a successful football career. I am also committed to the development of Chengdu FA and the future success of the many passionate coaches in the area.