During the just-concluded women's soccer tournament here at the 6th Chinese City Games, the excellent performance of some marginal national players became the most eye-catching scene.
Due to the loose limitation of women players' age, some players from national team had chance to show themselves up at the City Games. Wuhan got the most benefit since its elites such as defender Yue Min, forward Zi Jingjing and goalkeeper Weng Xiaojie, who were from the national team led by former coach Marika Domanski-Lyfors, made great contributions to the hosts.
Besides, Yuan Fan and You Jia from Shanghai Pudong, Zhuang Ran from Chengdu, who ever entered the national team, all put on a good performance at the Games.
The Chinese City Games are widely regarded as a cradle to nourish future sports stars. Zhang Ying stood out in the women's soccer matches at the last city games, and Ma Jun, a key figure in Wuhan's midfield, is the largest harvest at the 6th Chinese City Games.
The 18-year-old girl showed her strong capability in attacking and defense, striking power as well as aggressiveness by scoring six goals in six matches.
Ma has just been enrolled in the training camp of newly-shaped Chinese women football team She is the youngest player in the national squad.
However, the soccer matches at the city games also reflected the unbalancing development of Chinese junior women players. Except Xi'an, all the other top eight teams came from the traditional key areas such as Jiangsu, Dalian, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai. The winning margin like 7-0 and 5-0 indicated the immaturity of the women soccer players of their age.
Coaches from many teams told one point that fewer and fewer girls would like to play football in China and women players led a hard life due to lack of funds.
"Chinese women soccer players are in the recovering stage," said Zhang Jianqiang, director of CFA women's department.
"Compared to women's soccer in America and Europe, we are still backward in training and management. The future for Chinese women soccer players would be hard if good environment and funds cannot be guaranteed," noted Zhang.
Source: Xinhua/Agencies
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