Sowing the seeds of success

Dedicated devotees of grassroots game confident their hard work will reap rewards, Shi Futian reports

With 28 years of grassroots coaching experience behind him, Gao Yuan has good reason to describe himself as one of the seed sowers of China's soccer dream.

And he firmly believes those seeds are starting to sprout, even if the country's senior side came up short in its latest attempt at World Cup qualification this year.