In recent days, the first Jiangsu City Football League, affectionately known as the "Su Chao" by netizens, has been fiercely contested. Gaochi, the main striker and "prospective college student" of Suqian team, has surpassed all the other players and temporarily ranked first on the league's top scorer list with his impressive performance of scoring 5 goals in 4 rounds of matches. This young man who walked out of the "dirt playground" in a small village in northern Jiangsu has written a growth legend with sweat and persistence, from pursuing dreams in the mud to shining on the field. At the football themed exhibition hall of Daxing Central Primary School in Suyu District, Suqian City, a yellowed photo captures the starting point of Gaochi's football dream: more than 10 children with dusty faces stand on the bumpy mud, surrounded by a trophy and laughing heartily. The one on the far left of the first row who wasn't wearing a jersey was me, "Gao Chi pointed to the photo and recalled." At that time, I had just joined the team and didn't even have a team uniform. I was training and playing games with my big brothers in ordinary clothes. "Around 2012, this rudimentary" dirt playground "became a gathering place for nearby children to play soccer. Daxing Central Primary School attempts to make football a distinctive feature of its education and gradually establish a youth training system. There is a hard criterion for school team selection - the ability to hit 20 or more balls. Unfortunately, during my first interview, I didn't meet the standard, "Gao Chi joked. He set a goal for himself and practiced alone after school every day. Eventually, he successfully met the standard and put on his dream team uniform. The conditions for the school team during the start-up period were extremely difficult. Guo Tangqing, the head of football at Daxing Central Primary School, still remembers that the children were wearing ordinary sports shoes and training against the goal made of welded steel pipes. Despite the scarcity of resources, Gao Chi's passion has not been extinguished. He is particularly hardworking, arriving at school one hour early every day to practice, and still playing extra games at his doorstep after school. This persistence and tenacity were fully explained in a rainstorm training. It rained heavily that day, and the 'dirt playground' became muddy. The team members ran away to take shelter from the rain, but only Gao Chi persisted in training on the field, "Guo Tangqing recalled. In 2015, a turning point in fate arrived. Wang Chuansong, the former director of the youth training and technical department of Jiangsu Suning Football Club (later renamed Jiangsu Suning Football Club, now dissolved), was attracted to 12-year-old Gao Chi while watching the game. The boy thus ushered in a turning point in his life. After 10 years of diligent study and practice, the "Su Chao" started with the sound of gongs, and Gao Chi transformed into the "Su Chao Shooter King": he scored two goals in the first round, scored a lightning goal in the first four minutes of the second round, and ranked first on the shooter list after four rounds of fighting. The good news returned to my alma mater, and the campus was boiling with excitement. Recently, Gaochi returned to the newly renovated Daxing Central Primary School, where the former "dirt playground" has been replaced by six standardized sports fields and a training team of 12 professional coaches has been formed. We have not only trained 18 players on the 'Su Chao' field, but also nearly 40 national level athletes, including one World University League champion, "said Wang Qiang, principal of Daxing Central Primary School. Now, Gaochi has been admitted to the Sports Training major at Kunming University of Science and Technology through a football solo recruitment, and will start his college career this autumn. Behind him, his alma mater has been accumulating strength and taking off on a brand new field for many years. (New Society)