Football in the Dark

In the morning， the fresh smell of the meadow surrounding the football pitch of Xi’an City Sports Park lingers in the air. Gou A’le sits aside the field leaning forward to hear the sound of a rolling football.

The sunlight’s increasing strength makes others begin squinting， but not Gou A’le – he was blinded at age seven in a traffic accident.

“Hey！” sounds constantly echoing from the court come from his teammates， who all play for the Shaanxi Province Football Team for the Blind. Every player is a student at the School for the Blind and the Deaf in Xi’an， with ages ranging from 10 to 18. According to head coach Zhang Yi， the team is the only football team for vision-impaired youths in China and one of the first for the blind ever in the nation.

They use a specially-designed ball which is smaller and slightly heavier. The ball has an internal mechanism to produce sound when it moves. When defending， players shout “hey” to each other. This is a special rule in football for the blind： Defenders must let offensive players know where they are， and staying quiet will result in a penalty.

Zhang Yi thought of blind football when he first came to the School for the Blind and the Deaf in Xi’an as a teacher in 1998. His initial goal was just some simple fun for the students by participating in sports. The ball they first used was not technically a football – they rolled newspapers in the shape of a ball and wrapped it in a plastic bag to increase the sound. Back then， neither teachers nor students had ever heard of ‘football for the blind.’

A five-man game， the sport originated in Europe and became an event at the 2004 Athens Paralympics. About a third of the size of a normal football pitch， the playing field is surrounded by meter-high walls. Each team fields four blind players and a goal-keeper who can see. Whether players are attacking or defending， they must constantly make themselves heard to reveal their location. A match consists of two halves lasting 25 minutes.

In 2004， Zhang Yi and his team reached the first Championship of the Football for the Blind hosted in Hainan Province. Their first match resulted in an 11-0 pummeling. After the game， coaches realized they needed to better learn the game and give their young players more professional training.

Because players can not ‘watch’with their eyes， they can only learn new moves by touching the legs and feet of their coaches， even when adjusting one’s center of gravity. Learning this way， the moves are different and easily forgotten. For example， the crossover takes only a month or two to learn for a sighted person， but takes blind kids over a year to master， with some practicing it for several. Zhang Yi admits that his patience sometimes wears thin， but ultimately he finds ways to persist.

In September 2013， at the 4th National Championship of Football for the Blind， the team reached the top eight， a historic moment for them. After the game， the kids lifted Li Yu onto their shoulders for scoring the winning goal. Veteran player Hu Menglong burst into tears while hugging Coach Wang.

Both coaches and players know that they will never make careers out of football， but when they race across the pitch， the darkness they perpetually face fades away. “For me， scoring a goal feels like seeing a light，” exclaims Liu Bo， who has been blind since birth. “It’s not just light， but also heat！’