My Football Summer

• After three years of relentless effort, in the final match of the summer at the National Middle School Games, everyone gave it their all! Not just the boys from Hualien Meilun Junior High, but countless other kids striving for the very same dream. As for champion versus runner-up, you truly have to experience the film to feel the tension woven by the director's editing and musical score! In short, I was in tears. When the graduation hymn sounded and everyone went their separate ways, that final match in the pouring rain captured the entirety of those three years.

• Winner of Best Documentary at the 2006 Golden Horse Awards. Even more moving than the film itself was director Yang Li-chou sharing how he encouraged the boys on the tour bus after the premiere to keep chasing their football dreams, even while feeling deep unease inside because football offered little future in Taiwan. Only when four of those kids later stepped onto the pitch for World Cup qualifiers did he finally feel some relief. You can tell Director Yang is a tender and thoughtful soul. But whether they continued playing football isn't the point; if those boys took away anything to carry for a lifetime, it was the power of perseverance.

• Perhaps the definition of a miracle is different: what they possessed was three shining years. On a poorly maintained pitch, in cramped and untidy rooms and showers, they forged their own memories with toil and sweat, cultivating a craft that receives little recognition while pouring their hearts into matches hardly anyone knew about. A player once said that trophies are a source of pride, but they just sit there—the scars on their bodies are the true keepsakes. The summer miracle does not stem from applause, trophies, or promised futures, but simply from standing on the pitch, kicking the ball shoulder-to-shoulder with their teammates in this very moment.

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