Godfather of Chinese Football: A Seventeen-Year Game of Chess

An accident on a rainy night brought Chen Feng’s frustrating, unsuccessful coaching career to an end.

Fate gave him another chance, sending him back to a small meeting room at Spanish Segunda Division club Levante, seventeen years in the past.

In his previous life, he had no influence. No one listened to his advice, and his tactical insights became a laughingstock among the team.

Returning with seventeen years of regrets and experience, this time he refuses to stay silent.

Seeing through the limitations of domestic youth training, he lays the groundwork for a seventeen-year football master plan: using Levante to build a dedicated youth development pathway for Chinese players, sending a steady stream of young talents from China to Spain to hone their skills and adapt to the intensity of European football.

As the years pass, the children who went abroad grow up, reaching the peak of their careers in 2026.

By then, Chen Feng has returned to China to take charge of the national team, surrounded by top domestic players who have been tempered in La Liga.

After seventeen years of painstaking planning, his efforts finally pay off. He leads this new-look national team past every obstacle and onto the highest step of the World Cup podium, creating a footballing legend without precedent in Chinese history.

The world calls him the godfather of Chinese football. Only Chen Feng knows that he spent seventeen years playing this long game, all to make up for the regret of failing to save a footballing dream back then.