By Simone McCarthy and Fred He, CNN
Fuping county, China (CNN) — Soccer players in red jerseys jump up and down, spraying their cheering teammates with champagne, as confetti and streamers cascade around them and crowds capture the jubilation on their phones.
This isn’t Spain’s World Cup victory, clinched Sunday in New Jersey, but a win celebrated a day earlier, some 6,000 miles away, in Fuping county, a mountainous and rural part of northern China’s Hebei province, at a stadium lined with Communist Party slogans.
This game is one of many taking place across the country, as teams battle for a place in the national “Village Super League” finals. The amateur tournament has become a phenomenon in China, attracting millions of spectators across the country – and making for a colorful alternative to the World Cup that hasn’t seen a Chinese men’s national team compete for more than two decades.
“Standing in the spotlight like this – it’s not something I normally get the chance to experience,” Tong Zehao, a dentist-turned-defender for Baoding Lianchi told CNN ahead of his team’s clash with hometown contender Fuping Luotuowan village. “Before the Village Super League, there really wasn’t a (local) tournament with this level of attention.”
From a single league in a rural county in one of China’s poorest provinces, the format has expanded to include some 60 leagues and hundreds of teams in rural towns and smaller cities across the country.
The idea is simple: everyday guys working normal day jobs form teams and compete in local leagues for a chance to play in a national championship – drawing fans to carnival-like events throughout the season.
Local government officials have played a key role in orchestrating the competition’s spread, eying the boost for businesses in a domestic economy beleaguered by weak consumption.
But the Village Super League has also emerged as an antidote for fans irked by years of entrenched corruption and mismanagement in professional soccer, which are widely seen as having stymied the country of 1.4 billion from producing a men’s team capable of making it on the global stage.
“Since our country didn’t qualify for the World Cup, watching our local soccer (here in Fuping county) is more interesting,” said Liu Jiaping, a 21-year-old college student, who also declared herself a fan of the World Cup star, French player Kylian Mbappé.
“Coming out here lets us experience soccer in our country – and that’s much better than sitting home on your phone,” she said from the stands, where she, her aunt and sister fanned themselves with pieces of cardboard in the dry, July heat.
‘We now lead a good life’
Thousands of spectators packed the stands of a local vocational college stadium for the Fuping county league final on Saturday night – a big deal for a county with a population of roughly 200,000 that’s better known for growing fruits and nuts than hosting sporting events.
“Probably half of Fuping county is here,” quipped one 20-year-old who was attending with her boyfriend and said they just came to “join the excitement.”
A cavalcade of horseback riders launched the game’s opening parade, followed by colorful cohorts of fan-wielding performers; local businesses repping their enterprises; tool-wielding farmers and workers, and a dance troupe showing off boxes of local apples, jujubes and chestnuts.
Hundreds of local children joined a carefully choreographed opening ceremony and halftime show, which celebrated the county’s revolutionary history that draws tourists to the region.
Outside the stadium gates, dozens of vendors