At dusk, on a football field in Side Park in Beijing's Chaoyang District, a group of eight-year-old children are playing football.

"Yes sir!" Against all expectations, these Chinese children respond together in English to a tall and athletic man. He is their Zimbabwean coach Walter Musanhu, who can only speak very basic Mandarin. You may wonder how they could understand each other. But as Musanhu put it, football is a multilingual and universal sport that mixes cultures and brings people together. In fact, it is his passion for sport and the desire to change the face of football in China that brought him to the country four years ago.

Enduring passion

Born in 1987 in Zimbabwe, Musanhu started playing football at a tender age of three and grew up in a football family where his brother Chamunoda Musanhu is a former Zimbabwean national team defender. With his inspiration and mentorship, Walter Musanhu became a professional footballer at the age of 16. Four years later, he was signed by an Austrian football club and moved to Europe.

Unexpectedly, just a few months later, due to leg injury, he had to make the difficult decision of going back home. Within four months, Musanhu recovered not only from his leg injury, but also from the emotional slump.

He returned to the field and won several gold medals with his team. However, because of injury problems, he retired from professional football in 2008.

But his passion for football kept him in the field. He was involved in junior grassroots development in Zimbabwe and ran a foundation which concentrates on young kids to prevent them from engaging in antisocial activities.

Later, Musanhu learned about Chinese children's love for football by chance, and he was deeply touched by this finding. In 2016, he came to China and coached a famous youth football club in Beijing.

Soon after, he noticed something. "Chinese kids are talented and passionate about football. But they are swamped with other responsibilities and have less time for training. This slows down their development," Musanhu told ChinAfrica. "However, China has more facilities and resources compared to my country and it's a matter of time before it catches up." That made him even more determined to help China's football grow.

Bringing new flavor

After his stint with that youth football club, he launched his own club in Beijing in August 2019. "[Running a football club] has always been my dream. I wanted to create a system I could shape and directly use modern coaching techniques for the talent development in China," noted Musanhu.

He named it "Jadel," which, according to him, means to be courageous, honest, determined, and original and always prospering in intellectual and professional fields. Thus, he set the mission to cultivate outstanding talents with strong physique and sound personality.

He didn't waste time putting these ideas into action. As the proverb goes, "The first step is always the hardest." At the beginning, Jadel had only three young trainees. But soon after, the club began to grow rapidly through word of mouth.

Zhang Haiyan is one of the parents whose kid has played in the club since its establishment. Her son, Zhou Naikang, 8 years old, began to learn football from an English coach in China's Taiwan Province when he was only 3 years old. After they moved to Beijing, the mother wanted to find a foreign coach for her son and Musanhu was her final choice.

To her relief, it proved to be a wise decision. "He is diligent, patient and very nice to the kids. He gets the training facilities ready by himself before each training session," said Zhang. She can see her son make progress very quickly. He practices at least twice a week, whatever the weather is.

"Walter treats us like friends. He taught us not only the skills, but also team dynamics, motivation and even moral values. I feel happy and relaxed every time I play with him," said her son.

For parents like Zhang, Musanhu's heartfelt love for children and his professionalism in teaching make him a reliable coach. Today, his club comprises almost 50 kids who are divided into three groups according to their age: U6, U8 and U10. It is a melting pot of children from China, Germany, Australia and even Africa. And more and more girls are joining.

To help communicate with these kids, Musanhu has two assistant coaches. But he insists on coaching in English. "They can practice English by doing what they enjoy the most. Isn't it an efficient education process?" he said.

From club to academy

The COVID-19 pandemic halted all football activities and it also affected Jadel's development. But even during this dark period, Musanhu kept pursuing his goal.

On September 25, one year after its establishment, Jadel Football Club was rebranded as Jadel Football Academy. For Musanhu, a football academy is a grassroots program for grooming players and catching them young, and the objective is to teach skills at an early age without emphasis on winning or competitiveness. "Academy works more on basic skills while club is more concerned with winning and tactics. Our aim is to spot talent," he explained.

For grooming young talents, Musanhu adopted modern training ideas which are influenced by sports science. He uses, for example, testing, measurement and evaluation for checking progress in players and also uses these results to set up training programs to address any deficiencies.

Musanhu and his assistants adapt their training strategy to the conditions of kids who are divided into the three levels of skill acquisition: the cognitive stage for beginners, the associative stage for the ones progressing well and the autonomous stage for the outstanding ones. Each stage has different level of difficulty.

Such systemic training methods have already seen some results. During a junior football tournament held in early October in Beijing, Jadel's teams won several individual awards.

In the meantime, Musanhu runs a football academy in Zimbabwe. He is planning to rebrand and relaunch his Zimbabwean branch.

"As soon as everything comes back to normal, our academy in Zimbabwe will be participating in several tournaments in China as part of our exchange programs," said Musanhu with hope. 

(Print Edition Title: Bonding around a ball) 

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