Chapter 6: The Hurdling King
Xu Genbao indeed lived up to his reputation, he said he would treat Gao Jun as an equal, and he really did. After signing the contract, Gao Jun was assigned to live in the players' dormitory, without any special treatment at all. Although the Xu Genbao base is not wealthy, due to Xu Genbao's dedication and support from the local government, the hardware conditions are still quite good domestically, almost second only to Shandong Luneng Football School, which has the most reputation in China. Take the dormitory for example, usually 4 young players share a room, if they develop physically earlier or are older, two people will occupy one room. It's easy to guess that as a newcomer, Gao Jun's assigned dormitory room must have been previously unoccupied, and his roommate is only one person...
The one who lived with Gao Jun was actually the goalkeeper from the same team in the previous match. Born in 1990, he had a baby face but his height exceeded 1.6 meters, so he was assigned to share a room with two others. As it turned out, there were only three tall students, so this guy had no choice but to occupy one dormitory alone before. Although it was spacious, for a 10-year-old kid, it was inevitable to feel lonely. Therefore, Gao Jun's arrival made him very happy. Before Gao Jun could even make his bed, he took the initiative to take out the snacks (Coach Xu forbade young players from eating snacks) hidden under the bed and share them with Gao Jun. He also greeted enthusiastically, "You're Gao Jun, right? I'm Xie Wenjun. You're really awesome! We've never won a game before!"
Gao Jun's heart skipped a beat after hearing this, "Xie Wenjun? This name sounds familiar. When I think of it in relation to the Chongming base, the feeling becomes even stronger. Could he be some kind of celebrity later on? But I don't remember any good players named Xie Wenjun..."
Xie Wenjun didn't know if he was being stifled or not, but after getting a new roommate, he started talking nonstop. From his mouth, Gao Jun learned that Xie Wenjun was born into an athletic family, his mother was a sprinter and his father was a basketball coach. It wasn't until then that Gao Jun suddenly remembered who this Xie Wenjun was. This guy had changed careers later in life, but his reputation wasn't small at all, because at one point Xie Wenjun was thought to be China's second "hurdling king" after Liu Xiang...
At this time, Xie Wenjun finally had someone to pour his heart out to and began to vent his frustrations to Gao Jun. It turned out that he never liked being a goalkeeper, a position that always got shot at. When the team was formed, because of his height, the coach assigned him to this position. Moreover, in the 90-age group, due to their young age and weak strength, they often lost matches within the base, so Xie Wenjun frequently had to pick up the ball from the net, making him the most frustrated one. As a result, he who initially loved football now didn't want to stay in the base anymore...
"That coach is simply a pig!", Gao Jun couldn't help but scold in his heart, once again lamenting the poor quality of China's grassroots youth coaches. They actually arranged positions based on height at that time, even in the youth team, and forced away Xie Wenjun, who could have made great progress in football. Don't they know that height is not everything for a young player, and goalkeepers need more than just height?
It is well known that hurdler's 100m speed will not be slower, taking Liu Xiang as an example, his 100m speed when participating in short-distance running competitions can reach 10.5 seconds, while Xie Wenjun later on the hurdles project did not reach Liu Xiang's height, but this is because he had congenital spinal fracture and could not do more waist-bending movements, which affected the training effect and the smoothness of the action during the hurdles, but in terms of absolute speed, he was obviously faster than Liu Xiang, 100m speed should be able to run within 10.3 seconds, or even possibly faster.
This speed may not be comparable to that of the top domestic professional sprinters, but if put on a football field, it would be absolutely breathtaking. To know that at this time, the most famous "fast horse" Hao Dapao's 100m speed was only 11 seconds and 3...
Moreover, it must be noted that the 100m speed of track and field athletes measured on the competition field is all electronic timing, which is not only more accurate than the manual timing method commonly used to measure football players' speeds, but also generally larger. Generally speaking, if the electronic timing 100m speed is 10 seconds 3, then the manual timing can reach 10 seconds 2 or 10 seconds 1. If the stopwatch is a bit worse, it may even measure out a terrifying score of 9 seconds 8...
That is to say, those famous speedsters in Chinese football history, if measured with electronic timing for 100m speed, probably not many can run under 11 seconds 3, and even in the world of football, an electronically timed 100m speed of 10 seconds 3 or less would definitely be ranked among the top few in history (Note 1)......
"The world's martial arts, only fast and not broken." The same is true for football. As long as the speed reaches a certain level, even if other abilities are mediocre, one can still score easily, at least in China and Asia's lower-level football leagues, it's hard to defend against, unless the opponent deliberately retreats and defends, making it impossible to attack. However, when a player excels in one aspect and forces the opponent to change their tactics, this already illustrates the importance of speed.
Moreover, unlike professional sprinters, hurdling requires high physical coordination to achieve good results. People with excellent physical coordination will not be lacking in flexibility and balance, and as long as they are willing to put in the effort, ball control techniques can almost be practiced out.
Even if specializing in football, the absolute speed may not reach the level of being a hurdler in history, but it will still be no problem to be within 10.5 seconds. After all, hurdles are not purely sprinting. An athlete with a hundred-meter speed within 10.5 seconds, who can easily change gears and direction, and has good dribbling skills, at least in Asian football, can walk horizontally, this is the potential value of Xie Wenjun in Gao Jun's eyes.
In fact, there was also an excellent hurdler in history who almost kicked the ball. That is the son of Qi Wusheng, the head coach of the national football team in 1997, Qi Zhen. At that time, he was only 18 years old and his speed in the 100 meters had already reached 10 seconds 4, and because he came from a football family, he also had some technical foundation, so he was favored by Lade, the head coach of the national Olympic team at that time, who wanted to recruit him directly into the national Olympic team. Qi Zhen, who liked playing football since childhood, naturally sought after it. However, when his father Qi Wusheng found out, he became furious and threatened his son with an iron rod, saying that even if he broke his legs, he would not let him play football...
Note 1: Here I would like to sigh again at the "Son of the Wind" Carneglia**, he was 10 seconds and 07 in electronic timing, when he was still an athlete, he created the South American youth record for the 100m, which is still there, and no one has been able to break it so far...
