Former Viral Soccer Star Coaches Yi Children on Mountain Pitch in Sichuan

In Ze'e Village, perched at 1,300 meters in Sichuan's Daliangshan region, 24-year-old Jifu Lama coaches children from six neighboring Yi ethnic villages on a pitch carved from a former cornfield. The area's rural per capita income is approximately 12,700 yuan ($1,770) annually, and most parents work as migrants in distant provinces, returning only for the Yi New Year. Children are raised by aging grandparents in multi-sibling households with few structured activities.

Lama's path to this role began with a middle-school obsession with soccer that led him to drop out of vocational school and train alone in a wooden hut at 2,000 meters altitude. Videos of his solitary drills went viral, earning him hundreds of thousands of followers and up to 6,000 yuan monthly. FIFA noticed him before the 2022 World Cup, but Lama grew uncomfortable monetizing his passion, feeling it betrayed his love for the game.

Professional tryouts followed his online fame, culminating in a 45-minute appearance for fourth-tier club Jingchuan Wenhui in May 2023. The experience revealed what Lama described as an insurmountable gap in technique, tactical understanding, and physical confrontation. He returned to Ze'e Village instead of pursuing further trials.

Now an unpaid coach at two local primary schools, Lama runs training five days a week and drives a minivan on weekends to transport children. He implemented a point system where attendance earns gear — one girl, Hu Feifei, obtained her jersey, socks, and boots this way. A corporate sponsor moved by the team's story funded an artificial turf pitch that Lama says surpasses facilities in the county town.

Lama views soccer as a developmental tool in a region with sparse educational resources. He visits skeptical parents to argue that the sport teaches manners and drive rather than distracting from studies. Four of his sixth-grade students recently passed specialized sports exams, securing places at a superior middle school in the county town.

Financial sustainability remains a challenge. Internet revenue has dried up, and Lama is considering a modest 1,200 yuan annual fee for new recruits this fall, though he worries about excluding the children who need the program most. His long-term goal is to establish a registered professional club named Leke — the Yi word for plowshare — though he acknowledges he has only just begun that journey.