Mountain coach gives wings to soccer dreams

Barcelona inspiration

Jifu's relationship with soccer began with a Barcelona jersey.

When he was in the second year of junior middle school, a friend who was leaving for school in Xichang gave him the shirt before moving away.

At the time, Jifu knew almost nothing about soccer. "But that jersey opened another world to me," he recalled.

He began watching match highlights online, teaching himself dribbling skills and saving his pocket money to buy a football. Back then, a soccer ball cost 55 yuan ($7.70), while his weekly living allowance was only 50 yuan.

His school had no soccer field, so he practiced dribbling on a basketball court. When he returned to his mountain village on weekends, he searched for the flattest piece of ground he could find. "As long as the ball was at my feet, I was happy," he said.

After graduating from junior middle school, Jifu scored well enough to attend the county's top academic high school. But the school had no soccer field.

Despite scoring more than 200 points above its admission requirement, he instead chose a vocational school with soccer facilities.

Determined not to abandon soccer, he asked the principal for permission to attend classes in the morning and devote his afternoons to training. The request was initially rejected. Only after he finished first in a monthly examination for his grade, did the principal agree to his request.

When older students graduated, however, he was forced to train alone.

During his second year of high school, Jifu put his studies on hold and returned to the mountains. He set himself a five-year goal to become a professional footballer.

Without coaches, teammates or any formal instruction, he relied on online videos, books and self-designed training programs.

Unable to afford proper training equipment, he improvised. He tied plastic bags to climbing ropes to create resistance parachutes. Tree branches inserted into wooden frames became defensive walls for free-kick practice.

Eventually, he built a small wooden hut in the mountains and stayed there for several days at a time to focus on training. There was no electricity. He cooked over a fire.