WHEN asked about how he became so obsessed with soccer, Bao Zhikun makes no bones about admitting his desire for fame.

“As soon as you score a goal, the spectators erupt in loud applause. You become a sort of celebrity. Everybody knows your name and pays attention to where you are from,” he explains.

Bao, a 43-year-old farmer from Longnai Village in Cangyuan Wa Autonomous County of China’s mountainous Yunnan Province, knew nothing but herding his cattle, a fate passed onto generations of the locals.

But a soccer game in his middle school opened up a whole new world for the teenager. “Everyone on the soccer field was simply chasing the bouncing ball, which is so much more fun than grazing animals,” he recalled.

Tucked away in deep mountains, Longnai is not easily accessible and remains obscure to outsiders. Bao aspired to bring fame to his native village by representing it successfully on the soccer field and had practiced resolutely to hone the craft of the game.

Being from a modest financial background, Bao had to face various obstacles. He had no sneakers, so he just played barefoot. There was not a single soccer in the village, prompting the smart teenager to ask for pig bladders whenever a local family slaughtered pigs. “Fill it with air, and the bladder turns into a ‘soccer’ that the kids can play with all day long,” Bao explained.

After he was enrolled in the local high school, the soccer fanatic joined the school soccer team and went out for soccer matches with his friends almost every weekend.

Zhao Aijun, the village’s Party secretary, said resignedly that his own son enjoyed playing soccer with Bao at the time. Though parents were strongly against the sport and turned up their noses at the game as a waste of time for the students, no one could stop the little soccer lovers.

Despite objections from their parents, teenagers in Longnai always enjoyed playing soccer together on a secluded, flat strip of grass surrounded by cornfields and tea gardens.

Bao played soccer for a few enterprises and clubs in the county after he graduated from high school, earning nothing but a decent soccer jersey in exchange. Three years of experience led him to consider starting his own soccer team.

In 2003, the first and only soccer team of Longnai was established and Bao was appointed as its captain while all the other members were his childhood playmates.

Due to a lack of funding, they had to do odd jobs such as laboring in a stone quarry to raise money for soccer competition entry fees. The team often arrived at the game venues on their tractor or simply walked there on foot. Sometimes, a bottle of drinking water was a luxury for the dogged soccer team.

Bao seriously injured his left leg while carrying hefty rocks in 2008, and some team members were forced to give up their dreams once they began to shoulder their own family responsibilities as adults.

The amateur soccer team didn’t manage to rise to great fame under Bao’s leadership. Finally, Bao had to leave his beloved team, and he handed over the captaincy to Bao Aigai, who had enjoyed watching Bao Zhikun’s soccer games as a child.

The long-awaited miracle appears to be happening now. Under the leadership of the new captain, the Longnai soccer team won the Cangyuan Wa Autonomous County title in 2019. Bao Zhikun was invited as their representative to the dais, where he held the championship trophy with pride and joy.

The victory also sparked confidence in Longnai. In 2020, the local government built a standard futsal pitch for the village. A growing number of locals have taken up the sport, and some have even installed outdoor lights so they can play longer after a day of farming.

“Now that our living standards have improved, we have more spare time for our hobby,” said Zhao Zhiyang, a local villager.

Bao Zhikun is very optimistic to see an increasing number of children in the village taking an interest in the sport. “Who knows, a national team player may hail from our village one day,” he said. (Xinhua)