Inspiring The Next Generation

Xiaoxin, Beijing

Xiaoxin is originally from Beijing and currently a PE teacher and football educator. He is also a freestyle footballer and very active on TikTok, creating educational and youth football content.

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your football life?

My name is Xiaoxin. I am currently a physical education teacher, and I mainly teach kids from 4th and 5th grade. I teach them a variety of physical activities and sports but focus on football. I am also an influencer/blogger on TikTok because I enjoy filming short videos about freestyle football and sharing them online. I think it is also a great idea to include my students in these videos, recording the happy moments of them playing football.

What were your early football memories?

When I was a kid, there was always a group of kids that liked to play together in every community. At that time, we always played hide & seek and football. There were so many different communities around my school, and kids from each community naturally formed their own teams. We all knew each other. At that time, we would always go to play pick-up games against other teams representing our communities.

Everyone knew the rules, so there were no referees, no age restrictions, and often mixed matches. The losing team had to buy the winning team a soft drink. At that time, there were more than 10 kids on my team, and we shared that one bottle of soft drink among us. Even though each of us got only a little bit, I always felt extremely good at those moments because we won.

What does football mean to you?

Football is important to me. Since I was a kid, I have always been very interested in football, because I feel like there were always surprises and great moments along my football journey. A lot of people have told me that it is not easy to be as persistent as I am, playing football and doing jobs that involve football. But I think being persistent is not the key here, because I am just so passionate about football, a sport that brought me so much happiness. It is simply natural to keep doing it.

What is the future for football in China?

I am thankful that I was introduced to football when I was young and beyond grateful that I was given a childhood with football in the era I grew up in. Therefore, right now I simply want to introduce what I played and enjoyed so much to the next generation.

Even if it might seem a bit ideal, I always feel like kids nowadays lack that pure childhood happiness that I experienced before (due to school pressures and the competitive environment in China). I think it is not as important to teach them how to master football, it is far more important to teach them how to play and simply have fun.