At 62, Qin Hanzong is a billionaire hiding in plain sight. He has loved soccer all his life, yet grieved over the deep-rooted ills of Chinese soccer. After retiring, he took his immense fortune on the road, traveling across 22 provinces and cities and spending five years recruiting 25 “misfits” with extraordinary talent: a barefoot 15-year-old striker from an orphanage, a defensive midfielder with Shaolin lightness skills, a center-back fresh out of prison, a midfielder returning from overseas, a food delivery worker turned winger, a defender with depression, a gay designer turned midfielder, and more. With wildly different backgrounds and clashing personalities, they were a “rabble” when they first came together. They set a record with an 8–0 thrashing in a single match, brawled on the pitch, and became mired in scandals off it. Leaked intimate photos, alcoholism, suppression by the Football Association, and match-fixing vendettas followed one after another.
Qin Hanzong is both a hard-nosed coach and a warmhearted mentor. He pays medical bills for players in need, helps players with depression work through their troubles, stands up to the Football Association to protect his team, and uses homespun wisdom to expose corruption. From a string of losses and the bottom of the table to an unbeaten run in China League One, from winning five straight matches against the national team to breaking through in the desperate final stages of World Cup qualifying, these “outcasts” hone their skills together on the pitch and save one another in life. At last, under the name Dawnbreakers, they make it to the World Cup, score a stoppage-time winner against Germany, and lift the World Cup trophy!
This is more than an underdog tale of grassroots talents rising to the top. It is a rousing epic about Chinese soccer breaking free of its constraints and moving toward the light. Dreams don't belong to the system; they live at the feet of every ordinary person who refuses to give up.
