Rebirth 1994: Football Situation

Chapter 554 The gap is more than a little bit
Accompanied by Sheffield, Pei Wei visited Newcastle's training base in one day, which may be the reason why his vision has become higher now. Although the hardware facilities of Newcastle's training base are also very good in Europe, they and Yunjia Compared with Tianyu's training base, it is not much stronger.

It's no wonder that Yunjiatianyu built it with reference to the hardware facilities of top European clubs from the very beginning. In addition, Pei Wei has never been stingy in this regard, adding whatever he has. It is not inferior to European clubs, otherwise the two future superstars, Deco and Adriano, would not be even better than their historical development.

"Compared with your club's first-team facilities, I am more interested in your club's echelon construction." Pei Wei smiled and said to Sheffield: "In the Newcastle area, Newcastle United is a sacred temple for all young players. Already looking forward to seeing it.”

Sheffield's face turned into a flower with a smile: "You have won the award...but our Newcastle echelon training has always been the best in England, and our standard bearer Shearer also came out of the Newcastle miners. He is the greatest in England. Captain!"

"This guy really takes me for two hundred and fifty." Pei Wei chuckled in his heart. Even though he is not familiar with the Premier League and Newcastle, he also knows the biggest own goal in the history of Newcastle United - Shearer, the miner's son. At the age of 16, he hoped to join the favourites, but the England captain and one of the greatest goalscorers in history suffered the biggest blow of his life - Newcastle United senior footballer Svensson, who once dug out famous stars such as Beardsley, Hoddle and Gascoigne, did not fancy Shearer. He commented on Shearer as "talented and hardworking, but with little potential." This was also an evaluation that later made Svensson extremely embarrassed and extremely regretful.

Shearer, who failed to enter Newcastle United as an apprentice, began to look for development in other cities, then he joined Southampton, scored a hat-trick in his first professional league appearance, and moved to Black in 93 Ben, and reached the peak of his career in the 94-95 season-his 31 league goals helped Blackburn become the only team other than Manchester United and Arsenal to win the Premier League since the establishment of the Premier League. He also won the league top scorer.

After helping Blackburn to win the championship, Newcastle United realized what a serious mistake they had made, so they bought Shearer back with a world-record price of 500 million pounds in the spirit of mending the situation after the disaster. That was in 1995 !
A local star trained by Newcastle did not play a game for Newcastle. In the end, in order to let him return, Newcastle paid a price of 500 million pounds-there is no worse business in the world than this.

Now Sheffield is actually using Hiller as an example. He is just bullying Pei Wei. He doesn't know this.

However, what Pei Wei said just now was not casual. He is indeed very interested in Newcastle's echelon construction. It is a local player from Newcastle, which is different from Manchester United and Arsenal. These teams basically cast a net to recruit outstanding young players from all over the world. Although this method is undoubtedly more advanced, it is not only advanced but useful. Just like you can't teach primitive people democracy, you can't expect Chinese clubs to find good seedlings around the world to cultivate - it would be nice to be able to let talented young people in your city embark on the road of football!

China is still far from the point where all the people play football. As a professional team, in addition to achieving good results, it should also create an environment where more people can learn to play football.

"No problem, now is the time for Newcastle to recruit apprentices, you can follow me to watch."

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Pei Wei stayed in Newcastle for ten days.

These ten days really opened Pei Wei's eyes.

Compared with Yunjia, Newcastle does not have a formal football school, but all schools in this city can be regarded as football schools.

Both primary and secondary schools have their own football teams, and the exchanges between these football teams are extremely frequent. They have their own strict competition system. Take primary schools as an example. There are many large-scale games in Newcastle’s primary schools. The most famous is the "Birling Cup" Junior Football League. In the eyes of Newcastle primary school football players, this cup is equivalent to the FA Cup!

You know, in the minds of England fans, the most important game is not the league or the European Champions Cup, but the FA Cup, the oldest football game in the world!
What surprised Pei Wei even more was that football, the number one sport in the world, is not mainstream in schools in England!English people who focus on tradition pay more attention to rugby and cricket. In Newcastle's schools, most schools choose these two sports as their main projects instead of football!
A non-mainstream sport can have such rigorous competitions in primary schools. With such a solid foundation, the prosperity of the Premier League is not difficult to understand.

Although the prosperity of the Premier League is inseparable from the influx of foreign players, especially French players, the leagues below the Premier League, such as League One and League Two, are basically dominated by local British players. With such a deep and solid foundation, how can it afford so many football teams!
After entering middle school, Newcastle local students will have the opportunity to be invited by Newcastle United to become a part of the Newcastle United echelon. Even so, they cannot be regarded as real professional players. During this period, Newcastle has seven teams, and these young players usually go to school, but participate in training four times a week after school. Among these students, most of them are destined to be eliminated, so Usually the coaches also attach great importance to their studies. For players of this age group, the coaches are more to cultivate their interest in football, rather than making football their all.

After the students graduate from middle school at the age of 16, the best among them will officially become football apprentices of Newcastle United after passing the assessment. Among them, there will be some more talented and capable people who will become professional players in the future.

The next thing that opened Pei Wei's eyes was the unique apprenticeship system in English football.

These children entering the 16-18 age echelon can not only get the apprentice salary given by the club and practice games every day, but also have to become the private apprentices of the stars of the first team, responsible for cleaning the jerseys and shoes of the stars, and taking charge of the locker room And the cleanliness of the lawn - this is the biggest feature of English football!There would never be such a league in other countries' leagues, but in England it's a tradition!

"It's a great honor for every kid in England to play football, actually to be an apprentice," Sheffield said with a smile. Most of the apprentices will become apprentices of the main stars, which can promote them to better learn from these famous stars, and the tradition of our English football is like this that continues from generation to generation."

Pei Wei was full of emotions. In terms of hardware facilities, as the best club in China, Yunjiatianyu was no worse than any European giants—at least compared with Newcastle, their hardware facilities were not bad at all. Not very good, but they are considered one of the absolute giants in England, but in terms of background and software, there is more than a little gap.

The hardware facilities are easy to catch up. As long as you have money, there is no equipment that you can’t buy. Besides, football training equipment is not an advanced weapon. It is simply not possible to catch up in a short time.

Football powers such as England, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, etc., basically have no possibility of letting talented players die young, and an astonishing number of scouts will not let go of any potentially talented children like locusts, and China wants to do to this point?Unless every school-age child has the opportunity to learn, it is administratively stipulated that every school, whether it is an elementary school or a middle school, must have a football team and participate in at least ten games a year. Talented kids are taking the path to professional football - but is it possible?
Football is wonderful, but a government can never put football first. After all, people's livelihood is the most important thing.

Thinking of this, Pei Wei can only smile wryly. It seems that the development of Chinese football will not happen overnight. At this stage, the increase in the number of regular football schools is the only way to increase the number of grassroots players-at least to make people willing to play football The children can find a place to play football without causing too much burden to the family.

The more he saw in Newcastle, the more Pei Wei believed that his thinking at the beginning was correct. Focusing on grassroots construction, the regularization of football schools, and the professionalization of the league is the only way for the normal development of a country's football.

The more he knows, the more he understands his ignorance-this is what Pei Wei is now. When he first formed the Yunjia Tianyu Club, he naively thought that it would take at most ten years for the Chinese team to become a world-class team. In the ranks of the team, now he knows that if he can see this goal achieved in his lifetime, it will be a great blessing!
PS: Update for ticket 210.

(End of this chapter)