Centennial School Cup | The Ambition of Campus Football Behind the Foreign Coach Showdown

Linyi No.2 High School Head Coach Alexander

Chen Yong, Nan Nan reporting from Qingdao At 3 PM on July 31, the first matchday of the third "Centennial School Cup" (Men's High School Division), the match between Linyi No.2 High School and Hangzhou High School Qiantang Campus was notable not just for the fierce contest but also for the duel between the two foreign coaches. In today's rapid resurgence of Chinese youth football, campus football is gaining strength, supported by the influx of more excellent coaches, including foreign ones, into the campus football arena, as well as the full cooperation between campus football and social youth training institutions.

Standing before the Linyi No.2 High School bench were two Kazakh coaches: Kuznetsov Alexander and Kurmanov Azat, with Alexander serving as the head coach. Both coaches have outgoing personalities. They patiently guide the team during tight moments but exaggerate with stomps when a lead is squandered. For the typically reserved children from the Yimeng old area, their temperament can provide more emotional drive and motivation.

Alexander (left) and Azat (right)

Alexander holds a UEFA PRO license and previously served as the youth academy director of Jiesjilan Football Club, then as head coach of the Kazakhstan U17 national team, sports analyst for the Kazakhstan Freedom Youth Football League, and head of the football center, assistant coach, and head coach of the Karaganda Miner Football Club's first team. With extensive experience in youth development and stints as assistant and head coach at top professional clubs, he is particularly well-suited for roles as a youth academy director and head coach of youth teams, especially older age groups. Azat holds a UEFA B license, specializing in goalkeeper training.

These two foreign coaches come from Shandong Scout Football Club, Linyi No.2's partner institution. The club was founded in Shanghai in 2007 by Professor Liu Yu, a Linyi native who previously worked with first teams of CSL clubs like Henan Jianye and Tianjin Quanjian, and returned to Linyi to run youth training in 2016. The club's first team has competed in the China Champions League and China Beach Soccer Championship for five consecutive years, and this year will also take part in the National Five-a-Side Youth Football Championship. With a well-established U9 to U19梯队 system, the Linyi No.2-Shandong Scout team not only reached the finals of this year's China Youth Football League (Men's High School) but also advanced to the final 32. In this "Centennial School Cup," Linyi No.2 is widely regarded as one of the strongest teams.

Opposite Alexander stood the team led by Japanese exchange coach Akatsuka Kyosuke, from Hangzhou High School Qiantang Campus. Akatsuka's squad finished third in the high school division of the second edition of the tournament. He has been coaching the team for several years, consistently infusing Japanese advanced football concepts. In the previous tournament, Hangzhou High Qiantang impressed participating teams with their excellent ground passing and game tempo control.

This is the second consecutive year that Qiantang High School has participated in the Centennial School Football Elite Exchange Tournament. Although the school was founded only five years ago, it has completed a "triple jump" in football specialty development in just a few years: in 2020, the school was designated a Hangzhou Municipal Football Specialty School and simultaneously established boys' and girls' varsity teams; in 2022, both the boys' and girls' teams won city championships in Hangzhou, and the boys' team advanced to the top four of the Zhejiang Provincial Middle School League in 2023; in 2023, the school was named a Zhejiang Provincial Football Specialty School; and in April 2025, it was selected as a National Youth Campus Football Specialty School, becoming a "golden brand" of sports-education integration in Hangzhou.

In the view of Zhu Wenjun, Director of the Art and Sports Center at Hangzhou High Qiantang and a National Campus Football Excellent Instructor, consecutive participation in high-level tournaments has significantly benefited the team's improvement. After gaining ample experience at last year's second Centennial School Football Elite Exchange Tournament, Hangzhou High Qiantang showed notable stability in city-level competitions and gradually integrated the strengths of various playing styles into their own approach.

In this year's opening match, Hangzhou High Qiantang faced a strong opponent in Linyi No.2. Under the pressure of aggressive high pressing, the ground-passing style that Akatsuka Kyosuke had meticulously built encountered considerable difficulty. Of course, for Coach Akatsuka, losing the game is less important than how the players can learn from the defeat. "The Centennial School Cup is a competition where the exchange value outweighs the competitive result. We want our players to encounter and learn from different styles by facing opponents they rarely meet, which is crucial for their growth," said Akatsuka Kyosuke.