Scoring a winner with football team in basketball land
Print Edition
In the middle of a piece of rough yellow land, a brand-new football field is particularly eye-catching. Abdumijit Emet is here training boys and girls from his school in passing and catching, dribbling, weaving through poles and shooting.
With sweat dripping down their faces, love for football is palpable among the young players. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know how to play football until Emet came, and now I am a big fan,鈥 said Wang Ningbo, 13, a student from Jiangtai Middle School of Xiji County, northwest China鈥檚 Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
Emet, from Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is still a second-year postgraduate student at Fudan University in Shanghai. In August 2018, he came to Jiangtai Middle School as a volunteer teacher.
Xiji County, along with several other counties, is called Xihaigu, one of the world鈥檚 most uninhabitable places due to its dry climate, high mountains and harsh environment.
It is not easy to find a flat piece of land in the Xihaigu area. For this reason, basketball has become the mainstream sport for local people. The girls鈥 basketball team of Jiangtai Middle School once won the championship at a regional basketball tournament, but the school has never had a football team.
Emet has enjoyed playing football since childhood, and when he went to Beijing and Shanghai for his studies, football was still his biggest interest.
Even after he ventured to this rural school, Emet still could not keep his feet away from football. Every time he played football, some students would join him out of curiosity.
鈥淭hey liked it and I found that some of the kids were very talented, which gave me the idea to form a football team,鈥 he said.
With support of students and faculty, Jiangtai Middle School had its first-ever boys鈥 football team, which was also the first middle school football team in the towns of Xiji County. The team鈥檚 first training was on the school鈥檚 basketball court, and it drew throngs of crowd.
After the training, several girls started to 鈥減ester鈥 Emet to set up a girls鈥 team as well. He was hesitant at first, but eventually relented. 鈥淚 finally said yes, but did not expect so many applicants. I had to hold a fitness test. Many of the eliminated girls cried,鈥 Emet said.
Playing football on an existing basketball court was quite inconvenient, so Emet decided to move to a new field about 500 meters away from the school, which was built in February last year and is the only football field in the towns of Xiji.
Lei Qin, 15, cherished her chance to join the team. 鈥淧laying football makes me happy, and I want to get familiar with the moves and improve my skills as the earliest,鈥 she said.
Happiness is what Emet wants to bring to the kids through football. 鈥淭hey started late, and it is unrealistic to turn them into professional athletes. I just hope football can enrich their extracurricular life, bring joy to them as they grow up, and allow some kids to find confidence on the pitch,鈥 said Emet.
This July, Emet will complete his voluntary teaching, and the reins of the football team will be handed over to Zhang Guowu, the school鈥檚 PE teacher.
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