Chengdu, Sichuan steadily advances the high-level comprehensive reform of campus football——"June 31" explores the way for the integrated training of football talents

This newspaper (reporter Chen Chaohe) "Run!" Accompanied by the coach's slogan, a pair of football shoes stepped on the turf vigorously, and every time they turned around, they rolled up tiny grass chips. Recently, the women's football players from Chengdu No. 18 Middle School in Sichuan Province were trained in the 2025 Women's Football Seedling Summer Camp "Zhifu Football·Glimmer Light Action" held in Butuo County, Liangshan Prefecture, and trained in concentration with more than 200 players from Liangshan, Sichuan and Bijie, Guizhou, and ran under the blue sky and white clouds.

In recent years, Chengdu No. 18 Middle School has deeply participated in the "Glimmer Light Action" in the Butuo Campus Football Special Project in Liangshan, Sichuan, and helped Butuo County establish the first Yi women's campus football team in the country. During the assistance, batches of local students entered the school. Wachamori is one of them. Since joining the junior high school team, she has grown into the main force of the school’s women’s football team. In this summer camp, she participated in the development of the old and the new.

"The school uses campus football as one of the breakthrough points for implementing quality education, adheres to the development model of integration of sports and education, and uses football to strengthen the body, promote intelligence, nourish morality, and advance to education, and give full play to the comprehensive effect of football education." Chen Qi, vice principal of Chengdu No. 18 Middle School, introduced that the school has established a "369" work model for sports training", with the three parties of the Education Bureau, the Sports Bureau, and the school participating, and the school, parents and athletes working together to establish a six-year training and talent development model for junior and senior high schools, and provides guarantees in nine aspects, including training-based teaching and home-school cooperation. At present, a 100-member women's football team in the junior and senior high school echelon has been formed, and the team has won awards in provincial and municipal competitions many times.

Using football as a medium to strengthen the effectiveness of people, Chengdu No. 18 Middle School’s model of sports people is a vivid footnote to Chengdu’s city in promoting the high-level development of youth campus football. In 2024, Chengdu was identified by the Ministry of Education as one of the first batch of high-level comprehensive reform pilot zones for youth campus football in the country. Then Chengdu began to establish a "631" football talent integration training system, that is, to carry out pilot work on the integrated training in 6 primary schools, 3 middle schools and 1 high school. It has begun to show results and plans to widely promote and replicate the "631" model in 2026 in districts and counties with conditions in the city.

In order to further broaden the channels for players to become successful, Chengdu has set up men's and women's football classes in 9 ordinary high schools across the city, recruiting football talents from junior high schools across the city, and enrolling a total of 141 students in 2025. Chengdu No. 18 Middle School is one of the schools selected for this program.

Now, more and more students have become the protagonists on the green field and the stars in campus competitions. According to a relevant person in charge of the Chengdu Municipal Education Bureau, Chengdu encourages all districts and counties to explore the path of training reserve talents. Among them, Chenghua District implements the "Chenghua Primary School + No. 5 Middle School" primary school jointly builds a campus football team model, carries out campus football player skills testing, and explores and promotes the system for students with special sports students to go to school. Jinniu District fully utilizes the professional advantages of social youth training institutions, enriches campus football technical strength, and mobilizes the enthusiasm of social youth training institutions to participate. Tianfu New District has created a "Sports Teacher Sharing Center", formed a team of nearly 200 football basic course faculty, and attracted 10 retired football players as full-time shared teachers to "schedule classes and go to schools and teach in multiple points" throughout the district... This municipal-level coordination and district-county innovative model has brought continuous development momentum to Chengdu football. The sports talents selected by

need to improve their competitive level through perfect competitions. At present, on the basis of carrying out class, school, district (county) campus football leagues, Chengdu focuses on improving the municipal event system, and has built a sequence of municipal campus football events that connects popularization, improvement and selection, as well as a multi-level youth campus football event system such as the Chengdu Youth Football Championship and the Chengdu Football Association Cup.

"The campus has formed a sports atmosphere from 'passive participation' to 'active love'." Chen Qi said that sports activities have become a fulcrum for leveraging educational change. Nowadays, the school’s “champion list” promoted by the school from the sports meet is popular with teachers and students. "Sports has become the 'golden key' to shape students' sound personality and promote students' physical and mental health, allowing students to move and become sunny." Chen Qi said.