Chengdu students visit Finland, Chengdu campus football "goes out" and keeps pace

From June 29 to July 6, two U12 football teams in Chengdu were invited to Rovaniemi, Finland to start an 8-day sports and cultural exchange journey, and participated in the "Santa Claus Cup" football match specially organized by the local area, which is also the largest visit activity of the Chengdu Youth Football delegation in history.

The two teams are Yingbin Road Primary School Men's Football Team and Xinjin Third Primary School Women's Football Team. They won the U12 men's group championship and the U12 women's group runner-up in this year's Sichuan Provincial "Gongga Cup" Youth Campus Football League, which is a concentrated reflection of Chengdu's campus football competitive level and educational results.

Promote sports exchanges between China and Finland

Chengdu students go to the "Hometown of Santa" again. Rovaniemi is located in the Arctic Circle. It is the political and cultural center of northern Finland and is known as the "Hometown of Santa". Since Chengdu established a friendly city with it in 2015, the two sides have continued to exchange in the fields of education, sports, culture, etc. From 2015 to 2019, the Chengdu Youth Football Team went to Finland to participate in the "Santa Claus Cup" football match for five consecutive years; in 2023, the Municipal Foreign Affairs Office and the Municipal Sports Bureau jointly hosted the "China-Finance Life Sports Culture Salon", once again building a bridge for the youth sports exchanges between the two places.

Urban Power Team and Rural Women's Football Team represent the image of Chengdu to join the International Green Land

Yingbin Road Primary School Men's Football Team is a "traditional strong team" of Chengdu campus football, and its strength must not be underestimated. Campus football has gone through 17 years of development, winning more than 100 awards in various competitions at all levels, and has sent more than 50 talents to the national, provincial and municipal echelons. It has been rated as a national youth campus football demonstration school.

Xinjin No. 3 Primary School is a rural primary school. In 2015, the school established its first women's football team, and the conditions were extremely difficult. The playground is bumpy and the equipment is pieced together. Even the coaches are volunteers dispatched by the district football association. But it is precisely in the face of great difficulty that this team insists on "low threshold popularization + high-intensity training" and gradually builds a relatively complete campus women's football training system. In the past nine years, the school has never stopped training in the women's football program. In the 2024 Gongga Cup, it advanced to the finals with 64 goals and 0 conceded goals, winning the runner-up, creating the best historical results of Chengdu Rural School in this event. According to Chen Bo, principal of Xinjin No. 3 Primary School, most of these girls with an average age of less than 12 years old have gone abroad for the first time, but their heroic figures show the solid basic skills and the sports spirit of Chengdu students.

Football is a game

and also a way for children to connect the world

In Rovaniemi, the Chengdu delegation held several friendly matches with the local youth training clubs. Li Yurong, captain of Xinjin San, said: "Fight hard on the field, and after the game, the opponent handed me water and helped me, so that I could understand that there is friendship behind the competition." Outside the game, the children experienced the day for the first time, walked into the Arctic ecological exhibition hall, and intuitively understood climate change; and experienced the Nordic fairytale cultural scene in Santa Claus Village. "I used to see Finland only in books, but this time I really came to Finland." A player wrote in his notebook.

In recent years, Chengdu has deeply promoted the "integration of sports and education", and the youth training system has been continuously improved, forming a complete path from popularization, school team building to competition and delivery. At the same time, relying on the international friendly city platform, Chengdu continues to expand international exchange scenarios for youth. At the beginning of this year, the Chengdu U15 men's football delegation went to Sao Paulo, Brazil to conduct exchange training; now, the U12 delegation has entered the Finnish polar region, and "going out" is gradually shifting from one-time activities to systematic layout and continuous promotion.

Chengdu Daily Jinguan News Reporter Xie Hanying