Start Off the List

When he was fifteen years old, Li Zhiyuan participated in a professional youth training test. After the morning training, the list of candidates for the next stage is posted on the wall. He read it from beginning to end and couldn't find his name. He started too late, has average health, and has no youth training experience. Everyone believed that the door that had just opened between him and professional football had been closed again. A few years later, he became an ordinary student at Shanghai International Studies University. Taking classes, taking exams, participating in the school team, and occasionally playing games with his roommates - it seems that he has accepted the life without football. Until a down-and-out old scout found him in an amateur game and offered him an opportunity to try out at a low-level professional club. No promises, no special favors, no number for him. What awaits him is a contract worth 4,000 yuan before tax, a game roster that is always short of one name, competition from regular youth training players, his first serious injury, and a career dream that is considered unrealistic by almost everyone. He must start from the lowest level of the league, catch up with others' ten years of training, learn to wait on the bench, stand up again after injuries, and control himself after fame, fortune and doubts come. At the same time, coaches, teammates, family, lovers, agents and fans will all lead different lives because of his choice. This is not a story about a genius emerging out of nowhere. This is the story of an also-ran who breaks into professional football and still has to fight for the next spot again and again. Because being on the list never means you already have a spot. And Li Zhiyuan's career will start outside the list.