The Green Fields of Dragon City

The Jiangsu Provincial City Football League is a high-level amateur competition for teams from cities across the province.

In its first year, the Longcheng team was hastily assembled from office workers, students, and old football buddies who had not played regularly in years. The team barely had time to gel and was repeatedly crushed by strong youth teams from other cities in the province. For a long time, they could not score a single goal. The locker room was filled with frustration and self-doubt, and some players started thinking about quitting.

To break the deadlock, the team raised its own funds and traveled to another province for training. Through monotonous extra practice and intensive scrimmages, they finally scored the first goal in the club's history midway through the league and earned their first point. But the deficit from the early games was too large. At the end of the season, Longcheng did not have enough points to qualify for the playoffs.

Failure did not drive everyone apart. The core management team and several key players resolved to tear everything down and rebuild.

In the second year, the team changed its approach, scouting promising young players across the city to strengthen the lineup. Once the news spread, online debate erupted. Many local fans questioned the decision: the local veterans were being pushed aside, and players were being brought in from elsewhere for money. This Longcheng team had become a “mercenary team.” The abuse and accusations continued without pause.

The whole team stood firm under the pressure, kept up high-intensity training, and worked through the conflict between football and their day jobs. They overcame injuries, a shortage of funds, disagreements over the team's direction, and countless other obstacles. They steadily advanced through the regular season and made it into the playoff quarterfinals. They fought their way through the quarterfinals, narrowly beat a powerful opponent in the semifinals, and made it all the way to the final.