XI'AN, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- In an ongoing charity football tournament in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Wang Shasha impressed the spectators not only because she was the only female player on the field, but also because she was one of the best players on the field.

The 30-year-old former professional footballer is now a teacher at Xi'an Sports Collage, a freestyle footballer, and an internet celebrity who has around 230,000 followers on Douyin, a Chinese video sharing platform under Tiktok's parent company ByteDance.

"I hope more and more young people, especially girls, will fall in love with football and seek a beautiful life through me sharing my story online," Wang told Xinhua.

Chinese women's football legend, Sun Wen has been Wang's idol since she was a little girl. Inspired by the "Steel Rose", Wang fell in love with sports and was urged to play football by her P.E. teacher when she was in third grade.

Wang won the hearts of the spectators in the stands with her outstanding performances, but she couldn't win the support from her mother, who believed girls should be elegant and focus on their academic studies. Wang only managed to convince her mother when she received an offer from a top high school because of her football talent.

At the age of 16, Wang was selected into the provincial youth team. Later she joined a professional club in Hangzhou city in east China's Zhejiang province.

Two years later, when Wang was all set to climb up the ladder and make it into the national youth team, she was held back by injuries.

"It was a difficult time for me. After thinking hard for almost a week, I decided to retire and go to college," Wang said.

Putting an end to her professional playing career didn't mean the end of her passion for the sport. On the contrary, it was a brand new start, as she became a football teacher after graduation.

"A professional player's career could be short, but in this way, football will always be a part of my life," she said.

Wang has tried many ways to promote football, including posting short videos. In the summer of 2018, Wang recorded some short videos when she played football in Xi'an. A video of her juggling under the ancient city wall has received 10 million views online.

To attract more teenage followers, Wang began to play freestyle football. She practices for three hours a day, and it takes another three hours to record and edit short videos every day.

"Football is my best friend. Although it's time-consuming to make the videos, my passion for the sport has driven me to keep on," Wang said.

Many people believe freestyle football is all about the performance, yet Wang believes practicing freestyle football can help improve ball handling skills for real games. She is also trying to design freestyle football training programs for her students.

"Freestyle football is attractive to the ordinary audience so it can help promote football," she said.

Along with her students, Wang staged her stunning freestyle football tricks in a gala for the celebration of the one-year countdown to the 2021 China's National Games on Sept. 15.

In the Shaanxi charity football tournament, Wang helped her teammates collect more than three million yuan (around 440,000 million U.S. dollars) to support the education of poor students in the province.

"I hope I can do good for the society. I also hope more talented girls can stand on the football court so that one day our 'Steel Roses' will return to their former glory," she said. Enditem

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