Fresh face brings diverse experiences to soccer training on the prairie

"Dribble the ball firmly, support your weight on your left foot and use your right foot to power your spin, and tighten your instep," Martins shouted.

"The ball needs to be coordinated and relaxed, your knees should not be too tight, and the ankles should not be loose, otherwise it will bring you weak balance."

Hugo Miguel Salgado Martins, a professional coach from Portugal, has been teaching soccer skills in Ordos city of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region for three years, and the kids under his expert care say he has made a real difference to both their playing and their attitude toward the sport.

Martins manages to use his not-so-fluent Chinese with a tinge of the Ordos dialect to help guide these children on the pitch. He teaches them how to start dribbling the ball and demonstrates the proper moves. The children repeat it over and over again until Martins is satisfied.

He is an A-level coach at the Union of European Football Association. In Portugal, he is crowned "teenage training champion coach". During his 15-year coaching career in Portugal, six of his trainees were selected by the Portuguese national team and three by the European first-tier clubs. He led his team to have won the 2011 Atlanta Cup Azores and the 2011 "Ollhão Cup" (national) champion, the World Youth Championship in 2015 and many other honors.

Ingenuity and excellence－Martin's strict criteria for the taste of coffee－are just like his requirements for the children on the training ground, and there is no room for sloppiness.

Martins said that the unique enthusiasm and friendliness of the Ordos people was one important reason keeping him there.

When he first arrived in Ordos, his only plan was to experience the soccer culture in Inner Mongolia for a short while.

But through his contact with children during training, Martins found talented kids in desperate need of more professional guidance.

"I hope to bring new thinking, new directions and new models to teenage football here," he said.

The arrival of Martins attracted many parents to bring their children to try out, but at the same time, difficulties and problems followed.

"At the first impression, I felt that he was particularly fierce and severe, so I didn't like him," a trainee said. Looking at the football class that was far from the happy interest class, many children chose not to stay after the trial class. In life, he is the fun-loving Portuguese, but he "changes his face" as soon as he gets on the court. Martin's focused and strict attitude seems to be incompatible with the concept of "happy football". The strict training requirement makes many students and parents feel pressured.

"Happy training is meaningless, what can children learn from it? Happy training, everyone is happy, parents are also happy, but the children ultimately will not master professional football skills. It is not my style to teach perfunctorily," He said.

Martins said he also wants to help Ordos' children learn more about the wider world of the sport.

With his determination to pass on and promote international soccer culture, Martins has so far stayed in Ordos for three years.

When talking about the challenges and differences he has encountered during his time there, Martins points to the huge climate difference between Ordos city and his hometown, a place with a warm and rainy winter in southern Portugal.

Ordos city has long and extreme cold winters with the temperatures usually dropping to-20 C, which brings a real challenge to football training and teaching, he added.

Through unremitting efforts, Martins has cultivated a group of outstanding football teenagers. In the 2020 "Sports Lottery Cup" Inner Mongolia autonomous region Youth Football League and Youth Football Championship U14 and Group 13 competitions held on Aug 24, two outstanding players from his club were selected to represent Ordos.