Small team with a huge dream
Plucky Xinjiang-based side aiming to emulate Manchester United, both on and off the pitch
URUMQI — By day they work as a vegetable vendor in the bazaar, a herder on horseback, a dance director in a theater in the remote town of Tacheng.
But every evening when the clock strikes 8, the motley crew trades in their work clothes for blue soccer shirts and head to the pitch.
In the eyes of many people in this underdeveloped border town in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, Tacheng United is as famous as Manchester United.
Despite their paunchy bellies, amateur skill sets and the fact that they’re going nowhere near the World Cup, the little team is dreaming of founding a club as great as the English giant.
Sowing the seeds
Team captain Bao Yin, 37, works as a mail clerk in a local hospital. To him, soccer is more than a hobby. It saved him from the darkest time of his life.
Bao was orphaned in 1993 when his parents succumbed to disease, so the 12-year-old boy had to move out of town to live with his uncle in the countryside.
In his new home he was depressed and weak, so his uncle suggested he start playing soccer. When he took to the pitch, Bao made new friends and soon began feeling much better.
A year later, watching his first World Cup on television, he looked on with awe and disappointment when Italy superstar Roberto Baggio missed the decisive penalty in the final shootout against Brazil.
Sharing Bao’s passion, around 50 others were drawn to form a team. While Tacheng United has yet to win any accolades in its five-year history, the players are well known in the town for their charity work. They play the beautiful game, but they also want to make their community beautiful.
The club helps build playing fields for local students and organizes exhibition games for disabled children. At an exhibition game earlier this month, some hearing-impaired children used sign language to cheer the action.
“Serving the community is always important to the team,” Bao said.
Diao Jiankai, a teacher from a local special-education school, was quick to praise the team’s community outreach efforts.
“On the field they are not as good as Manchester United, but off the field they have contributed to their neighborhood no less than the Red Devils. They have become the pride of the town,” said Diao.
But the players aim much higher than that. They want to mold their amateur team into a professional club in order to promote the development of the sport in Xinjiang.
Soccer enjoys considerable popularity in Xinjiang, with local authorities estimating about 100,000 youngsters in the region play it on a regular basis. Many of them are happy to play in the alleys or on the dusty ground with garbage cans for goalposts — a similar scene to street soccer in Brazil.
But development of the sport across the region is impeded by the sputtering local economy. Most top Chinese clubs are based in the developed coastal provinces in the eastern and southern regions. Many talented players in Xinjiang lack professional training and a platform to prove themselves.
“Local children have enough passion for the sport ... all they need is some proper coaching,” said Bao, adding that their planned professional club will provide youngsters with top-notch training facilities.
The players are ambitious, but they must cope with many challenges. Deep-pocketed sponsors are in short supply in this underdeveloped town, and finding enough professional personnel to manage the different departments of the club is also proving difficult.
The local government has called for support in the fields of scheduling, administration and groundskeeping.
“If we don’t try, we will never win,” said Guo Jiehua, a founding member of the team.
Bao is keen to emphasize that some of today’s illustrious names came from more humble beginnings.
“A group of British railway workers founded a team called Newton Heath LYR Football Club, 140 years ago,” he said. “At that time, who would have thought that it would become the famous Manchester United! We sow the seeds of hope here. Maybe the next Chinese star will come from Tacheng United.”
Common language
The team is a reflection of the town, according to Bao. With a population of 170,000, Tacheng is a melting pot of 25 ethnic groups.
“The starting 11 are from six ethnic groups — Han, Uyghur, Kazakh, Daur, Mongolian and Hui,” said Bao, who is a Daur. “This is true Tacheng style.”
On the field, players might shout tactics in Kazakh, while off the field they usually speak Chinese.
“Football is our common language,” said Bao.
Before forming the team, Bao loved playing matches against local amateur teams on weekends, but he was quite concerned by the fact that every team was comprised almost exclusively of players from the same ethnic group.
What bothered Bao most was that sometimes a victory would be regarded as proof of one ethnic group being superior to another.
“A game is a game; it has nothing to do with ethnicity,” he said. “This is not Tacheng style. I grew up playing football with kids from different ethnic groups. I think Tacheng should have a football team like that.”
So it was that he founded a new team along with 16 fans in 2013. They called it “Tacheng Multi-ethnic Youth United”, or “Tacheng United”.
With an average age of 30, the players come from all walks of life, with doctors, police officers, porters, civil servants, herders, teachers and market vendors.
Bringing all these people together is never easy. Different educational backgrounds, work experiences and folk customs have always given rise to misunderstandings or even conflicts. Unlike professional players who usually settle their disputes in the locker room, Tacheng’s differences usually spill over onto the pitch.
Impetuous Mongolian striker Bayan Dagla used to argue with other players so much that Bao thought about dismissing him.
“I used to be a professional player so I know better how to play. So I was too impatient with others,” Bayan said.
In the end, it was the recipient of Bayan’s ire who convinced Bao to let the Mongolian stay. Bayan also learned to moderate his temper.
In the process of learning to get along with each other, the players have created chemistry out of conflicts.
“Some players have improved a lot. Now we have a more stable squad,” said Bao.
Off the field, the diversified team is like a family. It has become a tradition to go to players’ homes to enjoy various ethnic specialties after a game. They hold parties to celebrate the Spring Festival, Obo Festival, Corban Festival and other important ethnic festivals and holidays.
“Establishing the team is like a dream come true for me,” said Bao. “We have devoted all we had gained from the sport to our team — love, teamwork, endeavor, tolerance and sharing.”