Feature: Ronaldo announces soccer academies across China

Four years after his retirement, Ronaldo Nazario, the Brazilian soccer legend, showed he still has what it takes to wow a crowd in downtown Beijing on Monday.

He did not come as part of a professional team, but to help children play the beautiful game.

Dozens of sports reporters and hundreds of fans fixated their cameras and reverent gazes on the star as he announced a plan to open 30 soccer schools in China, with the first three located in Beijing, Shanghai and Mianyang in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

"I'm ready to help China realize its football dream. I think China can be a major player on the world stage," Ronaldo said at a press conference held at a meeting hall at the Beijing Workers' Stadium.

He did not hide his expectation that China will have its own Ronaldo one day.

His "Ronaldo Academy" will train youth 6 to 18 years old in general education and football skills.

"We have designed specialized curricula for the children for different ages," said Paulo Swerts, CEO of Ronaldo Football (China) Co., Ltd.

The academy employs 12 full-time Brazilian coaches. In the future, about 100 more coaches will come to China.

"We trained them for one month in order to help them learn about Chinese children and their football level," said Swerts.

The academy hopes to establish a system to find and nurture talented players. "They will have the opportunity to study abroad," Swerts said. "We promise to recommend outstanding ones to American institutions."

The CEO does not expect many professional footballers to come out of the academy in the future. "We just hope they will understand the real meaning of teamwork, self-confidence, and perseverance."

It is an ambitious plan. The Chinese men's national team has failed to impress in recent years, though improvement has been made at the club level, with the Guangzhou Evergrande winning the AFC Champions League in 2013.

Though more and more Chinese parents have started sending their kids to football clubs, few of them dream of raising professional players.

Ma Shaoxiang, an eight-year-old primary school student in Beijing, attends football training every weekend with another 50-plus children of his age. His parents pay an annual fee of 8,000 yuan (1,255.6 U.S. dollars) for the training, not counting the amount spent on shoes and jerseys.

"Kids nowadays have many choices, and even if the child does not show much ambition and extraordinary skill, playing for fun is enough," said Ma's mother, adding that he also goes to a baseball training club on the weekend.

Like many Brazilian footballers, Ronaldo came from the streets. Growing up in the poorest neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, he joined his first football club in Brazil because he did not have to pay a fee.

After that, he played for European football powerhouses including FC Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain, Inter and AC Milan in Italy, and PSV in the Netherlands from 1994 to 2008. During this period, he received numerous honors, including being named three-time FIFA World Football Player, and winning the Ballon d'Or twice. In 2002, he helped the Brazilian national team win the World Cup.

"All I have now in my life has been provided by football," the legend said. "I have been considering giving back to society since retirement."

The press conference did not reveal the academy's tuition amount, but the school promises to help kids from poor families reach their soccer goals. The academy will team up with the China Children and Teenagers' Fund to recruit no less than 10 percent of its students from poor families.

China's central reform group kicked off a plan in March this year to revive soccer in the country, a sport that embarrasses the nation despite it having roots in an ancient Chinese game.

Of the 50 reform measures in the plan, only school football programs were required to set a timetable. By 2017, 20,000 primary or middle schools specializing in football should be operating.

Ronaldo hopes to help with this. He did not specify how his academy will be different from the other soccer schools popping up around China, saying only that kids will be taught football techniques based on his demonstrations.

He promised to come back to China again.

Shen Sheng is one of many Ronaldo fans in China. He has spent over 100,000 yuan collecting the legend's boots. "Ronaldo has retired from the professional field, but he is an important part of football memories for the generation born after the 1980s in China," Shen said.

"Football is the best treasure in Brazil. And Ronaldo played the most Brazilian football," Brazil's ambassador to China, Roberto Jaguaribe, said during the press conference. Endit