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A group of passionate Chinese girls from different parts of the country and from different professions have joined an amateur football team, where they experience shared happiness and gain a sense of self-worth with their youthful energy and devotion.
At an outdoor football field in Beijing, a fierce competition was underway against the evening chill. The Mianbei Women's Team has been organized by a dozen netizens who love football. The team now includes high school and college students and those who work in various sectors.
Seventeen-year-old He Wenqing is the youngest member of the team. She's a high school student in Beijing and has been playing football for ten years.
According to He, the team offers her a unique opportunity to play with other girls.
"I had always played football with boys until now in here. I have been a pretty good player. I can keep playing in the boys' team and leveling up. I think that's enough to prove myself," she said.
Lin Peirong, 23, comes from Fuzhou City in east China's Fujian Province. She's working at an institution serving people with rare diseases. She said playing football creates a new possibility for her life.
"Actually, I think many girls don't want to play football because they don't really understand the soccer sport, so they would never think that they themselves can also do it. Playing football is a possibility. When you discover a possibility in yourself, you can embrace more possibilities," Lin said. Ji Yang, also in her 20s, is a postgraduate student at Beijing Jiaotong University. Her hometown is the far-flung Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Sichuan Province. She once felt lost after moving to the large city. By chance, she joined the football team with her roommate, and changes happened.
"When playing football, Coach Xu often tells me to be confident and give me more opportunities to play in an important position such as forward. In fact, there is a very simple way to have good performance. We only need to gather the most competitive players. The purpose of our team is never to win, but to see everyone's progress," Ji said.
Xu Zhibin, 37, has engaged in football training for more than ten years. Since September last year, he has formed two amateur women's football teams and coached them for free. He said the special experience taught him a lot.
"For me it's an alternative channel that is immeasurably rewarding. It allows me to better feel and understand other people's feeling and have empathy with them, which is growth for me. I used to be a very, very ordinary and shy Chinese boy. The change football has brought me is that I feel I have more energy to influence other people. This is a great change," said the coach.