(Photo/CCTV)

When idling young souls have nowhere to get inspired, they find drugs - or soccer. 

Near the Myanmar-China border of Yingjiang County in Yunnan province, a grassroots soccer team, featuring players from both countries, is what binds people together and guides young people away from drugs.

The Integrated Farmers soccer team has over 70 players, most of who are farmers in Jiucheng Township. A few are Chinese nationals from Myanmar. The team has been running for over 20 years thanks to Yang Shanyong, its 38-year-old captain and coach.

Yang said the name of the team carries the wish of the players to be united and integrated, despite the fact that they come from different families and, in some cases, nations, according to Yunnan.cn.

Team leader He Chengnian said Yang used to work as a mechanic, and many of his apprentices were underage drug addicts. Their lives began to change for the better after discovering soccer, CCTV reported.

“Most of the players are the main labor forces of the village, mostly in their 20s. Their families all support their playing soccer … They know that soccer is a good way to keep them away from drugs and alcohol. The weekly training keeps them concentrated on a better cause,” He said.

As for the players from Myanmar, the team serves as a much-needed distraction for the residents of battle-torn regions, reported CCTV.

(Photo/CCTV)

The team’s weekly training sessions on Friday afternoons take place on the playground of Jiucheng High School, where the soccer field falls quite short of professional standards. When the team was first established, few of its players were equipped with professional sports gear.

“Many farmers had no soccer shoes. But they could still play barefoot,” Yang was quoted as saying by Yunnan.cn.

Yang is responsible for the costs of the team, from training to accommodations and transportation when they compete away from home.

Since 1999, a Spring Festival league has convened every year from the third to the 10th day of the first month of the lunar calendar. The league includes a total of five other grassroots soccer teams from Yunnan and Myanmar. The crowds that come to watch them play sometimes number in the thousands – above 5,000 at times, Yunnan.cn reported.

As the team has developed, its annual expenditure has risen from 50,000 to nearly 200,000 RMB. Apart from Yang’s own business revenue, the team is now also supported by government and other business partners.

According to He, every game outside the village initially felt like a huge challenge, sure to result in terrible losses. However, the team eventually discovered that the outside world was not as intimidating as they first anticipated.

Representing Yunnan, Integrated Farmers won second place in the southern division of China’s public soccer tournament in November. The annual tournament is held by the General Administration of Sports and Chinese Football Association. It is divided into four divisions, with division winners automatically qualifying for the finals. Qualifiers for division games are selected after many rounds of competition in cities and provincial regions.

“Chinese soccer will never go far if it counts only on a few people. I hope that one day, one of our players can become a national soccer player so more people see how we play soccer here,” Yang said. 

(Photo of Captain Yang Shanyong/CCTV)