Just looking for a gap?, Please have 7 strong foreign teams accompany 1 Shanghai team in the competition, observation: Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions Cup

On September 3rd, the Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League came to an end. South Korea's Ulsan Hyundai U16 team won the championship by defeating Japan's Osaka Sakura U16 team 1-0 in the final. Vietnam's PVF Football Academy team and Portugal's Porto U16 team finished third and fourth respectively. As the host team, the Shanghai U16 team ultimately finished seventh.

The Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League will be broadcast live on video platforms through multiple football vertical accounts. A small number of fans from other regions who are not sure why are puzzled: "The game was exciting, but the final was a team of Japanese and Korean clubs. Seven high-level foreign strong teams were invited to play with the only Chinese Shanghai team, just to find a gap?"

Winning or losing is not everything: stand in world coordinates and calmly measure the difference

In the 7-8 qualifying match held on the morning of the 3rd, as the only Chinese team to participate, Shanghai U16 team defeated Qatar's Asbair Academy team 1-0 and ultimately ranked seventh in the competition.

The Shanghai U16 team ultimately ranked seventh, and they were the champions in the previous competition, indicating that the seven international teams of the same age invited to participate have impressive strength.

From August 28th to September 3rd, the "Baiyu Bowl" SAIC Pudong Football Stadium hosted 20 consecutive matches, providing better practical training opportunities and international exchange platforms for all participating teams. Taking Shanghai U16 as an example, with 3 group stage matches and 2 qualifying matches, the intensity and quality of the matches were high, which greatly benefited the soldiers.

Team head coach Tao Jin admitted, "This time we are truly facing high-level peer teams from Asia and Europe, exposing many of the team's problems that need to be slowly resolved and gradually improved in the future. Due to some players from the Shenhua and Haigang teams participating in the China Youth League, the depth of the Shanghai U16 team's bench has decreased, otherwise the results may still be better."

Shanghai U16 team head coach Tao Jin and Asbair team coach exchanged gifts.

Last year's first Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League was held, and due to the impact of the epidemic, the participating teams were mostly domestic provincial-level national sports teams. Even Juventus and Borussia Dortmund Youth Training Academy teams, whose members were foreign children studying in Shanghai, were not very strong. In the end, the Shanghai team coached by Tao Jin won the championship.

This year's Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League has significantly improved the level of opponents, quality of matches, and intensity of confrontation. The organizing committee has invited top teams from prestigious clubs such as England, Portugal, Japan, South Korea, and Qatar, as well as youth training institutes. The same Shanghai team, this year placing themselves in the world reference frame against strong teams of the same age in Europe and Asia, is easy to measure their weaknesses and shortcomings.

In the third group stage, Shanghai U16 team lost and missed the top four, causing the young players to shed tears of regret. Team member Zhang Liao bluntly said, "The quality of the team we came to this time is very high, which can clearly show us our own shortcomings. Indeed, there is too much that we lack and need to practice. This game is very good, let's find the gap, train well when we go back, and gradually narrow our shortcomings. In the future, we will work hard to turn into a draw or even win."

A coach of Shanghai U16 team believes that facing strong teams of the same age in Europe and Asia is not without any opportunities, "but our ability to seize opportunities in front of the goal is indeed much worse than our opponents. Football is ultimately a game of scores, and a team that does not pass and receive well will win. In the end, it is important to score the ball, and a goal kick is the most important. This is also a key aspect that we need to improve in the process of preparing for the 2025 Greater Bay Area National Games."

Shanghai U16 team members have gained valuable training opportunities.

The Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League focuses on the development of youth football.

The Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions Cup focuses on the development of youth football, aiming to create a top Asian youth football tournament with high positioning, high standards, and high standards. The ultimate goal is to solidify the youth training soil of Shanghai football and cultivate more youth football talents.

An insider from the Shanghai Football Association admitted that the 8 teams invited to participate this year represent the top level of competition in the U16 age group worldwide. "To put it bluntly, since we have invited so many international strong teams, we are mentally prepared for local teams to lose, including losing by a large margin. I have always believed that winning and scoring in youth competitions are not the most important, the key is to improve our abilities."

A youth training director who works for a youth club believes, "For Chinese youth football, failure is not scary. What is truly scary is burying our heads as ostriches. If we are all sophisticated egoists who only care about our own feathers and cannot face failure, then we will not even have the courage to face stronger opponents face-to-face, let alone admit the gap with the world's high-level, that is truly sad."

Open your eyes to the world: go out and invite in, pay attention to cultural exchange

On the second day of the Lunar New Year this year, Li Xiaopeng's national football team lost 1-3 to the Vietnamese national team away, causing a public uproar throughout the country; On August 22nd, in the qualifying round of the AFC Champions League, Shanghai Haigang lost 2-3 to Thailand's Baton United at home, marking the first time in history that they missed the opportunity to advance to the group stage at home in Shanghai; At the previously concluded Budapest Athletics World Championships, the Chinese athletics team finished with 2 bronze medals, setting the worst record in nearly 20 years; The Chinese men's basketball team, which is currently competing in the Asian Cup of the men's basketball team, despite the historic introduction of naturalized player Li Kaier, was completely unable to "go straight to Paris" due to their poor strength

Manchester City is the English Premier League champions, and their U16 team strength is also impressive. On the last day, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur engaged in a Premier League youth training derby.

Many media outlets also believe that in many sports such as football, basketball, and athletics, the Chinese army not only has a gap in their own strength, but also suffers from the aftermath of the epidemic. In the past few years, the professional football and basketball league system in China has been implemented. This year, the home and away game system has been fully restored, but the intensity of the matches is not enough; The lack of sufficient international exchanges and warm-up matches between football and basketball national teams, as well as the hiring of foreign coaches and the promotion of overseas training, have been affected, which to some extent amplifies the shortcomings of some weak sports teams themselves.

Nowadays, Chinese sports should recognize the objective reality that "openness is the key to progress, and closure is the key to being beaten" in international sports exchanges, and adhere to the sustainable development path of "inviting in and going out" in international exchanges.

Focusing on global exchange, it is the most distinctive feature of the 2023 Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League. Except for the host team Shanghai U16, all seven participating teams come from top foreign club youth training teams and well-known football colleges. They are Manchester City, which has just won the European treble, English Premier League veteran Tottenham Hotspur, the world-renowned star processing factory Porto in the Portuguese Super League, Osaka Sakura in the Japanese J-League, Korean K-League champion Ulsan Hyundai, as well as two elite youth training teams in the U16 age group from the three star football academy of AFC, Qatar Asbair Academy, and Vietnam PVF Football Academy.

The Qatari Asbair Youth Training Academy team adopts a "national system" similar to China, selecting outstanding young players from a young age for collective training and living.

The answers submitted by the 8 participating teams also allowed Shanghai Football and Chinese Football to directly see the rapid progress of their Asian opponents through face-to-face dialogue and confrontation, as well as the systemic advantages of European football.

On the evening of the 3rd, as the first professional football stadium built strictly in accordance with FIFA standards in China, it welcomed the final of the competition. The top three teams in the final match were actually three Asian teams, especially the outstanding performance of the Vietnam PVF Football Academy team, which also made a Shanghai youth training coach who watched the game lament: there was a chance for the Chinese football team to lose to the Vietnam team, but the continuous progress and even gradual surpassing of China in Vietnamese football youth training is a cruel reality that people have to face.

High level international competitions can promote teams to improve their level.

As the old coach Xu Genbao has been thinking about the saying that has been on his lips for over 20 years: Chinese football should produce star players. Star players have always been honed in high-level competitions, especially international competitions, through constant confrontation and communication, rather than being produced in closed training. In the 2023 Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League, Asian youth training teams from Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam delivered impressive results, which actually reminded Chinese football youth training: sailing against the current, not advancing, retreating.

Grasping and valuing young people is probably the only way for Chinese football. Faced with the persistent problem of lack of high-level international communication and confrontation in Chinese youth training, the 2023 Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions Cup offers a positive attempt with an international perspective and a brave eye opening to the world.

Competition Seeks Win Win: Building a Youth Training Brand, Putting National Interests First

Shanghai has always adhered to a global perspective and benchmarking against international standards, actively building local characteristic sports event brands on the basis of fully exploring Shanghai's sports elements. Getting on a horse, boat, sail, and so on are all like this.

The 2023 Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions Cup is another independent brand event that Shanghai focuses on building. The organizing committee is more focused on building an international exchange platform full of Shanghai youth training characteristics, emphasizing football cultural exchange and global concept integration, rather than just individual football events and the outcome of the competition itself.

In the 2017 Tianjin National Games, Shanghai won four gold medals in football, creating history. Behind it, we cannot do without the policy guidance of top-level design, adhering to reform promotion, unleashing market vitality, and seeking chemical reactions from sports functional departments and social forces.

As early as 2015, Shanghai reformed the traditional model of one company taking charge within the original system, introducing market thinking and stimulating professional vitality by purchasing social services for the first time in the history of the National Games and innovating the establishment of multiple football elite training bases. Under the promotion of reform, Shanghai, the first football youth training model in the country that stimulates market vitality, integrates the advantages of concentrating efforts within the system to accomplish major tasks and professional football professionalism.

The establishment of the 2023 Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions Cup also aims to integrate the reform and cultivation of Shanghai style football youth training talents and the creation of a new local independent IP competition. Before the epidemic, Shanghai professional clubs took on the task of preparing for the formation of the national sports team and invested several times the government's purchase of services to enhance their own level by "going out" and playing more international competitions. An industry insider said, "Back then, the club led the organization of the national sports team and had to go abroad twice a year: once in Japan or South Korea in Asia, and once in Spain or England in Europe. In three weeks, almost every three days, they had to play a game, but the gains were particularly significant and the improvement was particularly fast."

With the shining of the Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League, more and more world-class teams of the same age are being invited in, and the Shanghai All Games team enjoys host treatment at their doorstep. On the field, football future stars from all over the world embark on their professional football dream journey in Shanghai; Outside the field, the 7-country and 8-team football youth tour of Pujiang admires the beautiful scenery of Shencheng. The participating youth training mentors gather in the coaching roundtable style, polishing the background of the domestic brand in the ideological confrontation, and discussing the development of football youth training together.

The host is also hosting a cultural exchange event while creating their own brand events, using football language to convey Shanghai's urban charm of "embracing all rivers". At the same time, the competition quietly enhances the strength and experience of local teams in Shanghai, pointing to the 2025 Greater Bay Area National Games, enriching the culture of Shanghai style football, consolidating the talent foundation of Shanghai's youth training, and adding new momentum to Shanghai's construction as a globally renowned sports city.

Recently, the Chinese Football Association announced the new training roster for the national football and Asian Games teams. In the list of 24 players for the Chinese national football team, Wu Lei, Yan Junling, Zhang Linpeng, Wang Shenchao, Wei Zhen, and Gao Zhunyi, among others, all started from Shanghai youth training and have now become the backbone of the team. The 23 person roster for the Asian Games includes 8 people, including Zhu Chenjie, Jiang Shenglong, Wang Haijian, Xu Haoyang, Zhou Junchen, Sun Qinhan, Xu Yue, and Peng Peng, all trained and transported by Shanghai, accounting for one-third of the entire team.

"Whether it's Wu Lei and Yan Junling from the Chinese national football team, or Zhu Chenjie and Jiang Shenglong from the Asian Games team, they all had a common experience back then. They represented the Shanghai National Games team to win championships in their youth and then continued to grow into national football players." A person from the Shanghai Sports Bureau believes that hosting the 2023 Shanghai Tomorrow Star Champions League and inviting so many world-renowned teams to participate is not just "training a Shanghai team", but ultimately training local players with potential, striving to deliver talents to national brands in the future. "We hope to play the leading role of the competition, invite more outstanding players from all over the world to start from Shanghai, and become the stars of their respective national teams in the future." I hope that the competition can help Shanghai's young football talents continue to emerge, ultimately selecting and delivering usable talents for the Chinese national team