Word: soccering
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...much for a sophomore slump. In just his second season at the helm of the Harvard women’s soccer team, head coach Ray Leone guided the Crimson to a 10-3-5 record, which earned his squad its first Ivy League championship since 1999 and its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2004.The third Harvard coach in as many years when he took the job before the 2007 season, Leone has brought stability and a standard of excellence to the program. “It was nice to have consistency,” co-captain Nicole Rhodes said...
...sprawling residential suburb of Huilongguan, northwest of downtown Beijing, the neighborhood soccer league is in the middle of its championship game. The audience, most of them the wives and children of the players, shout encouragement as two teams of men of all ages and sizes dressed in bright yellow and red run across the grass pitch on a college campus. Wang Yuyu, a 32-year-old former amateur athlete, cheers as the Tornadoes beat Meteor Garden 3-1. Wang has only missed a few matches in the past six years, and more than anything, he wants to see the league...
...Chairman Wang, as some of the league members jokingly call him, runs the Huilongguan Super League, China's most influential grassroots soccer league. Huilongguan's members first met each other in 2002 through a classified ad posted on the suburb's community website. "We thought we'd have a kick around, but over 70 people showed up," Wang chuckles. The weekend kick around soon turned into eleven-a-side, and by 2004, nine teams and about 180 players competed in Huilongguan Super League's first championship. (See pictures of street basketball in China...
...Soccer - referred to here as football - has been slow to catch on in China. When the Republic of China was founded in 1949, authorities took control of the development of all sports and turned them into yet another political project to achieve international recognition. Almost all resources for sports development went to élite sports schools that serve as talent pools to represent China in international sports events. Amateur sports, with little political significance, have been largely ignored. China established its first professional football league in 1994, following the example of European leagues. The system, however, never fully embraced...
Read about how amateur soccer is catching on in China...