An Analysis of the Training Mode of Sports and Education Integration for Youth Football Reserve Talents
—A Case Study of Ya’an City ()
1. Introduction
“Integration of physical education” is a new vital measure to strengthen school physical education under the new historical background, to continue to promote quality education, to promote the physical health of young people, and to cultivate and train high-quality workers and outstanding reserve sports talents for the cause of socialist construction. It is also a reserve talent cultivation strategy implemented by integrating education, sports and other social resources, fully reflecting the cultivation direction of the new era of physical education. It can be seen that the cultivation of football reserve talents is inseparable from amateur youth training and campus football, and they promote each other (Richards, Collins, & Mascarenhas, 2012) . Campus football can serve as the basis for the cultivation of reserve talents and provide many students for the cultivation institutions of football reserve talents. The cultivation institutions of reserve talents can use their advantages and resources to cultivate excellent student-athletes. This is not only a supplement to campus football but also can promote the development of campus football and improve the campus football atmosphere (Li, 2018) . Without systematic training and a healthy environment, it will be challenging to grow into an excellent football player.
Apart from campus football, the Yucheng area, the main urban area of Ya’an city, currently has only three qualified and a particular scale of football reserve talent cultivation institutions. By March 2021, Ya’an City has yet to send athletes to the national teams at all levels, the Sichuan National Games team, the Chinese Super League, the Chinese League A and the Chinese League B clubs. So far, athletes have yet to be selected as the best team in Sichuan Province. Yucheng District of Ya’an is defined as a weak area in the cultivation of reserve football talents, because it failed to win the right to qualify for the football team in the recent Provincial Games and the football Championship of middle school students in Sichuan Province. This paper analyzes Ya’an City’s current problems and proposes solutions. Based on the concept of the integration of sports and education, we hope to integrate the advantages of the youth sports school, the vigorously developed campus football in recent years, the growing football association and the social training institution club, and integrate the resources of all sides, and healthy competition, for Ya’an city constantly cultivates high-quality football reserve talents (Harwood, 2008) .
2. A Review of the Research on “Integration of Physical Education”
“Combination of physical education” focuses on the reserve talents of competitive sports. The central government put forward the “deep integration of physical education”, which mainly refers to the physical exercise of young students in universities, primary and secondary schools nationwide, to cultivate students’ awareness of lifelong physical education (Beauchamp, Harvey, & Beauchamp, 2012) . In this context, in 2012, the CPC Central Committee and The State Council issued the Notice of The General Office of the State Council Forwarding the Opinions of the Ministry of Education and other Departments on Further Strengthening School Physical Education (Chen, 2021) , and in 2016 The General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions of The General Office of the State Council on Strengthening School Physical Education and Promoting the All-round Development of Students’ Physical and Mental Health. In August 2020, the Ministry of Education and the General Administration of Sport issued the Opinions on Deepening the Integration of Sports and Education and Promoting the Healthy Development of Adolescents, emphasizing “deepening the integration of sports and education and cultivating all-developed socialist builders and successors”. In October 2020, The General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving School Physical Education Work in the New Era, which pointed out that General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech on education and physical education should be implemented, and great importance to school physical education should be attached to the work.
Since 2014 in our country in the national body teaching fusion to develop campus football, football reserve talents cultivation career into the rapid development, football characteristic school soared in the quantity, but uneven development, in this situation, how to ensure the quality of the football reserve talents cultivation steadily improve, has become the focus of the development of the current body teaching fusion. The quality of reserve talents contains many influencing factors. Only the continuous regulation and improvement of these influencing factors can ensure the continuous improvement of football reserve talent cultivation quality. “Teaching fusion” is the new historical background of strengthening school sports work, continue to promote quality education, promote youth physical health, for the socialist construction cause cultivating and bring up high quality workers and outstanding reserve sports talents of a new important measures, is the integration of education, sports and other social resources and the reserve talent cultivation strategy, fully embodies the direction of the new era of physical education career. Thus football reserve talents cultivation and amateur youth, campus football inseparable, promote each other, campus football can be used as the basis of reserve talent cultivation, can provide football reserve talent training institutions provide a large number of students, reserve talent training institutions using their own advantages and resources to cultivate outstanding student athletes, this is not only a supplement to the campus football and more can drive the development of campus football, improve the campus football atmosphere. If the reserve football talents are separated from the systematic training and healthy environment, it will be difficult to grow into excellent football players. Primary school is the initial stage of football, the critical period of enlightenment training, and the responsibility of selecting players and conveying reserve talents to the superiors. Therefore, the quality of football reserve talent cultivation contains many different influencing factors. Only by analyzing the current situation of the factors affecting the quality of football reserve talent cultivation, and continuously tracking and improving the cultivation process, can the quality of football reserve talent cultivation be continuously improved.
Universities, primary and secondary schools across the country should improve the education mechanism to open up channels for students to study and enter professional teams. Establish the common incentive mechanism of family, school, government and society; improve the sports competition mechanism and improve the talent cultivation system. Establish a three-level competition framework of school-level, inter-school and selective system of university, middle school and primary school. A national, provincial, municipal and district competition system will be established. Primary and secondary school construction teams, actively participate in regional and even national competitions; encourage schools, clubs and sports schools to cooperate in sports training and competitions to promote deep integration. Centering on the guiding ideology of teaching, frequent training and regular competition, gradually improve the mechanism of material selection, cultivation and competition, and build the transportation system, so that the middle school students who have obtained grade athletes can have the opportunity to enter the university high-level sports team for further study while continuing their sports career.
3. Current Situation and Analysis
3.1. Hardware Status and Analysis
Ya’an Football Association owns the cage football field of Ya’an Sports Center and the Lujiaba Football Park, jointly built with Ya’an Sports School in 2020 for teaching. Meanwhile, it conducts training in the Guanghua Campus of No. 4 Primary School in Yucheng District. The football club rented the Yucai Road football field of Ya’an Vocational and Technical College and Taiping Experimental Primary School joint training; The youth sports school now carries out regular training in Yucheng four small Xinhua campus. The four institutions have 7 football training fields to meet the current reserve talent training use. As shown in Table 1, the three institutions are equipped with sufficient essential training equipment to ensure the basic training requirements. Each student is equipped with a ball and team clothing during the training. There is enough conventional equipment, such as markers and obstacle barrels, but professional training equipment (inflatable human wall, shooting trainer) is lacking (see Table 1). It can be seen that the regional economy restricts the cultivation of reserve talents. Meanwhile, professional training equipment is often accompanied by new technology and new teaching methods, which also directly confirms the single and outdated teaching methods of local youth training (Strykalenko et al., 2021) .
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Table 1. Field investigation form of Yucheng District football reserve talent cultivation institution.
According to the survey form 2 (see Table 2), the funds for the cultivation of football reserve talents in the Yucheng District of Ya’an are all from the fees collected from the registration of training courses except for the funds allocated by the local sports bureau and Education Bureau for the youth sports school and public school. The local government still needs to provide financial support to develop social institutions (Li & Zhang, 2021) . There is also a lack of social support due to the current state of economic development and the overall football atmosphere. The application fee used for cultivating reserve talents in social institutions can only maintain the regular operation of the institutions, and the funding source is relatively single. Generally speaking, reserve talent cultivation is still restricted by insufficient funds. Football reserve talent cultivation institutions have a stable source of funds, which is an essential guarantee for talent cultivation. The reasonable use of funds determines football reserve talent cultivation's efficiency and sustainable development. Cultivating football reserve talents is a complex systematic project that needs a lot of material input and good logistics support. Using the limited funds effectively and allocating the funds is essential for cultivating football reserve talents (Christensen, Laursen, & Sørensen, 2011) . First, we should strive for social sponsorship and financial allocation; Second, we should strive to enter the campus and realize the integration of physical education through school-enterprise co-construction.
Suppose we want to win the government’s financial support and social sponsorship. In that case, we need a good football atmosphere and the improvement
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Table 2. Questionnaire of equipment statistics and fund source of football Reserve Talent Cultivation Institution in Yucheng District of Ya’an City.
of the football environment, and the environment includes many factors: politics, economy and values. At the same time, the cultivation of reserve football talents is also a gradual process; not to rush, do an excellent job in every link of the reserve talent work: training, event publicity, etc., gradually improve and create a good football atmosphere (Liu, 2021) .
3.2. Current Situation and Analysis of Coaches
This section will compare the educational background, principal occupation, coach grade, coaching years and other aspects of football talent training coaches in the region to explore the level of coaches. The survey data of coaches are shown in Table 3.
More than 75% of the coaches in reserve talent cultivation institutions work part-time, and the main job is physical education teachers.
As a result, the part-time coaches can only devote some of their energy to teaching youth training, thus unable to carry out detailed research and innovation in teaching methods and means, and challenging to make the most appropriate arrangement in the course setting and content (Larsen, Alfermann, Henriksen, & Christensen, 2013) . To some extent, it also affects students’ course experience and leads to outdated, repetitive and monotonous training methods. It is challenging to mobilize the training enthusiasm of the trainees, which results in a slight improvement of the training level of these football youth training students. It also reflects that the salary level of football coaches in this area needs to be improved.
More than half of the coaches of the four training institutions have a bachelor’s degree or above education background, which is the advantage of these training institutions. Coaches are not only limited to coaching but also educators (Gould & Carson, 2008) . A good educational background helps to build positive role models. They have a good education, psychology, physiology and basic cultural knowledge; high personal quality is also a favorable condition for cultivating reserve talents.
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Table 3. Questionnaire on the basic situation of the coaches of football reserve talent cultivation institutions in Yucheng district of Ya’an city (N = 18).
Due to the youth football population’s growth, reserve talent training institutions show a development momentum of a hundred flowers blooming (Peng, Houlihan, & Scelles, 2022) . Although hit by the epidemic, the overall development trend is good. In campus football, some school leaders focus on short-term results and ignore long-term planning, resulting in considerable differences in development between schools.
As the Chinese Football Association issued the youth training outline in 2020 and identified a group of qualified social youth training clubs, the Sichuan Football Association also awarded Ya’an Football Association as the youth training center. The education department made great efforts to develop campus football. Primary and secondary schools and even kindergartens began to explore a new way out, and a mode of jointly running training by football associations, clubs and schools emerged. With the campus interest courses as the popularization point, the school team and even high-level special teams will be built. The school will provide venues for recruiting special students, and the Football Association will provide technical support to select and train players and jointly cultivate reserve talents. Such as Chengdu foreign language school belongs to Lake and Chengdu football Association to build the echelon, Chengdu 7 middle school and Sichuan Province football Association to build a men’s football high-level team and football reserve talent base school, Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai Institute of Sport to build women’s football. Therefore, only the combination of the sports and education systems can achieve the best effect.
4. Conclusion and Countermeasures
4.1. Conclusion
The key problems faced by the development of campus football are as follows:
1) The hardware facilities basically meet the demand, and the source of funding is single. The economic aggregate of Ya’an city ranks behind in the whole province, which restricts the cultivation of reserve talents to a large extent, and the development of competitive sports must rely on the local economic development level. At present, the social institutions for cultivating football reserve talents lack government support, and most schools do not have special funds for football.
2) The level of the coaches needs to be improved. Ya’an rain city four football reserve talents cultivation institutions have certain qualifications and experienced coaches, but the junior sports school and Ya’an No. 2 Middle School only one led the team coach. Only by increasing the number of coaches can we give full play to our professional advantages in the cultivation of football reserve talents and effectively improve the training level.
3) The reserve talent base is too small, and the training amount is insufficient. The training base of youth football reserve talents in Ya’an city is relatively small, and more than 80% of the trainees are primary school students aged from 6 to 11 years old, but there are very few students in the 13 to 15 ages of the critical period of player development. These trainees arrived in the sixth grade of primary school, and the number of participants fell sharply. It is difficult for junior high school students to ensure routine training due to learning pressure, which is an urgent problem to be solved.
4) Parent support needs to be improved. Parents’ awareness of attending football training and games is relatively outdated. Combined with Ya’an football atmosphere, residents for football and football culture, and even there is prejudice, many parents have some financial means. They choose to send their children to relatively well-educated primary schools and urban secondary schools in Chengdu and Mianyang. This leads to a loss of quality students. Ya’an other district residents have chosen to work in Yucheng, settle down. However, there is a gap between their economic base and consumption concept and that of their parents. Some parents simply don’t want to pay for their kids to attend soccer practice. This is also one of the factors restricting the cultivation of local football reserve talents.
5) The competition system needs to be improved urgently. Relevant departments are not in place in the organization of youth football matches. Football back-up talent can’t find problems through the game. The competition lost its meaning and became formalism. And then improve the skills by training, and finally back to the game to test the training effect of such a scientific cycle. Competition system is not reasonable. Primary school competition is not divided into age group. The adoption of 8-person system in the junior high school competition in Ya’an city also lacks rationality, with the transition from 8-person system to 11-person system.
6) The reserve talent transmission channel has not yet been established. Ya’an city has not yet built the youth football reserve talent transmission channels and the way to study. Since there are almost no schools for regular training in junior high school, many students still practice their football training after three to four years of basic training in primary school. The junior high school stage is the golden period for the training of football reserve talents. No junior high school in Yucheng District of Ya’an city can recruit special football talents, and the football reserve talents cannot enter their favorite schools to receive education through their football specialties, leading to a serious outflow of reserve talents. In terms of talent transportation, because there is no professional football club in Ya’an city, there is no transportation channel for outstanding youth football reserve talents.
4.2. Countermeasure
Sports and education integration, training, team building. The direction and strategy of youth football reserve talent cultivation should be adjusted according to the changes in historical development. Under the background of education and sports in the new era, the combination of sports and education can give full play to the advantages of each system and promote the development of football reserve talent cultivation. Social institutions in Ya’an need to enter the campus, and strengthen the integration of sports and education, with primary and secondary schools as the main body, football associations, clubs and sports schools as necessary supplements, and the team can be arranged in more schools.
Strengthen the training and construction of the coaching team. In 2020, the Ministry of Education promulgated the Implementation Measures for Retired Athletes to Serve as Physical Education Teachers and Coaches in primary and secondary Schools. Primary schools in Ya’an city can comply with the policy and hire qualified coaches to teach in schools, starting from the integration of teachers. Education-related departments should forcibly stipulate that all primary and secondary schools in the area must have on-duty/full-time football coaches, and unqualified personnel are not allowed to register as coaches in the competition. Primary school coaches must need the qualification of Grade E coaches, junior high school coaches are encouraged to have the qualification of CFA Grade D coaches, and senior high school coaches are encouraged to hold the qualification of Grade C coaches. If the existing teachers of the school cannot meet the above conditions, they can sign a cooperation agreement with the Football Association or the club to hire qualified part-time coaches to teach in the school. Education departments can also organize on-duty teachers to participate in the training course for coaches held by the Football Association to train the existing teachers, and optimize the faculty by adopting the way of “inviting in and go out”.
Optimize the training methods and refine the cultivation program. Optimize the training methods and refine the cultivation program. Adhering to the primary school interest, the popularization of junior high school, senior high school professional development direction, the continuous development of each learning section. Adhering to the primary school interest, the popularization of junior high school, senior high school professional development direction, the continuous development of each learning section. In terms of training means, measures should be adapted to local conditions, innovate the training mode, integrate modern teaching skills into the training, and appropriately use modern video and audio equipment, scientific and technological teaching, so that young students can maintain positive enthusiasm for knowledge in football training, and finally make students develop comprehensively physically and mentally. Training courses should be planned and eliminate teaching without a teaching plan. Relevant departments should strengthen the supervision of the reserve talent training institutions, and improve the reward and punishment mechanism. Taking the youth training outline of the Chinese Football Association as the technical guiding principle of reserve talent cultivation, a comprehensive assessment and evaluation system is established.
Strengthen the construction of football culture and improve the social sense of identity to football culture. Strengthen the publicity of football culture, correctly guide students to understand football, strengthen students’ understanding of football projects, and let the reserve talents understand the function and significance of football while learning football. Ninety-two percent of the region's reserve football talents are trained in off-campus youth training institutions. If the school leaders can award awards to the football players in the whole school assembly after the game, it will greatly stimulate the sense of honor of the players, enhance the football atmosphere, create a good school football culture, and encourage more students to understand and contact with football. So as to expand the football population, and exert positive influence on parents, class teachers and school leaders, improve the enthusiasm and support of parents, so as to expand the selection of football reserve talents, and vigorously promote the cultivation of sports and education integration of football reserve talents.
Increase the opportunity of competition and communication, and encourage the enthusiasm of training and participation. We will continue to adhere to the integration of the Sports Bureau and the Education Bureau, share competition resources, and create more competition opportunities. In addition, the current competition system needs to be improved to adapt to the physical and mental development rules of adolescents at different ages. The reserve talent training institutions shall regularly publicize and communicate football with schools and relevant education departments. Through diversified communication activities to expand students “knowledge, broaden students” horizons. Let the reserve talents use different platforms to show themselves and also learn from others, learn from each other. Semester league or annual championships between schools and counties will be carried out on a regular basis, and corresponding honors will be awarded. Semester league or annual championships between schools and counties will be carried out on a regular basis, and corresponding honors will be awarded. From the league to explore the potential and love the football youth to form the school, district team.
Open up the channels for the football reserve talents to enter higher schools. The football association and the clubs should reasonably connect with the compulsory education schools, open up the transmission channels of the education departments and the sports departments, encourage the schools to recruit special students, and implement the integration of sports and education through both channels. The football association and the clubs should reasonably connect with the compulsory education schools, open up the transmission channels of the education departments and the sports departments, encourage the schools to recruit special students, and implement the integration of sports and education through both channels. The football association and the clubs should reasonably connect with the compulsory education schools, open up the transmission channels of the education departments and the sports departments, encourage the schools to recruit special students, and implement the integration of sports and education through both channels.
The most important thing to cultivate youth football reserve talents is to establish the concept of youth player development as the core.
The above theories and guiding countermeasures can also be used as a reference for other weak areas in the cultivation of football reserve talents, hoping to be helpful to their cultivation of football reserve talents.