Special correspondent Liu Xiangyu Auxerre reports In Auxerre in winter, it is difficult to see the sun, and rain is a frequent visitor.

On Saturday afternoon, Yassin and a few of his friends watched with interest as a rain fight. On a standard 11-a-side artificial turf field, AJERRE U12 teams are playing against an U13 team from other regions. At this age group, the one-year difference is evident on the pitch, with Auxerre players in white and blue jerseys generally being a head shorter than their opponents.

Yasin's son was the youngest, and both father and son had dark eyes and black curly hair. 'I used to play but now it looks like he's going to play better in the future.' Yassin said with a smile. He now runs a car shop at Auxerre, selling a variety of brands, but he is even more proud of the fact that his son is now the captain of Auxerre's Under-12s at full-back.

For the French, football is something that is in their blood, and Auxerre has a football tradition of more than 100 years, and being able to enter the elite echelon of the Auxerre Football Association is the dream of every Auxerre child and the first step to the professional stage.

AJJ AJ was founded in 1905 and is now 120 years old. AJ Auxerre have won Ligue 1, won the French Cup three times and won the European Toto Cup. Auxerre's legendary coach Guy Roux is a defining figure in French and European football as a whole. Currently, AJ Auxerre is in 11th place in Ligue 1.

The full name of AJERRE is "AJ Auxerre", and it is not difficult to see from the name that they attach great importance to young people, and it is their youth training that AJERRE has always been most famous for. A string of familiar names such as Cantona, Cisse, Mex, Sagna and so on are all from the Accerre youth system. In the Gambedra Cup, known as the "Youth French Cup", Auxerre topped French football with 7 championships and 2 runners-up. In 2024, AJERRE Under-19s made it all the way to the final of the national championship, only to lose to Paris Saint-Germain, and the team is currently competing in the UEFA Youth League.

Although Auxerre's youth training is not among the top in France in terms of scale, their long history and extremely high success rate are enough to make them the benchmark of French youth training.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Ousterre is the founder of the French youth training model, they took the lead in building their own youth training center, and recruited young players, adopted a centralized management model, combined football and education, and cultivated batch after batch of high-level football talents.

The Auxerre Football Base is located on the banks of the Jonne River, just a 20-minute walk from the city centre. There are a total of 9 fields, including natural grass, artificial grass and an indoor court named after Cantona.

Auxerre's home stadium is a 18,000-seat English professional football stadium located in the club's base, and it is also one of the most attended stadiums in all of Ligue 1. A few steps away from the home stadium is AJERRE's academy centre.

The Youth Training Center is a three-storey building with a glass façade, which is small in size but fully functional. On the first floor, various trophies of Auxerre's youth training are displayed, and historical photos are hung in the stairwell; The second floor is the office of the youth staff, and the coaches of each echelon work in a large office every day, which is convenient for communicating the situation between the personnel of each team, and the advantage of working here is that they can directly see the training ground.

The coach can see the pitch, as can the players who have recovered from injury. There is also a gym and rehab room on the ground floor of the academy, where injured players can see their teammates training through the glass, which also motivates them to recover and return to the pitch as soon as possible.

AJJ AJ has three teams, Reserves, Under-19s and Under-17s, with players from all three teams living in the Academy, each with its own dressing room and training pitches adjacent to the centre.

Centralized management also means that the youth players eat, live, train, play and learn in the base. On the third floor of the youth center is an educational institution called Acadomia, which is the chest advertising sponsor of Auxerre. Players are required to attend classes here every day and eventually take the French college entrance exam.

AJ Auxerre's talent selection channels mainly come from two sources, one is the Auxerre Football Association. The association and the club are two parallel systems, and the teams below the U16 level belong to the association, and most of the children registered in the association are children of Auxerre and surrounding towns. For a nominal fee (about 100 euros) per year, the children receive a set of jerseys and equipment from Auxerre, as well as the guidance of the association's coaches, and the elite teams of all ages are selected to become the talent pool of Auxerre. Yasin's children are among them.

Another channel is satellite clubs, Auxerre has more than a dozen cooperative satellite clubs throughout France, and the youth training center regularly holds open day activities, so that children from all over the world can visit Auxerre and play a "selection match", from which Auxerre's scouts will select their favorite seedlings. Some of them will come to AJERRE and join the ranks of the association, and then enter the AYERRE system.

After AJERRE created this youth model, Ligue 1 clubs are now following suit and setting up their own youth centres.

Most of the coaches of the Auxerre echelon come from the Ausell system, they are familiar with the culture here, and they have the same Oxerre genes.

The training here is far from as easy as expected, and the daily training volume is very large, almost rain or shine. The younger echelons will do basic training every week, such as kicking the wall and practicing heading. In addition, the club also has special technical training for individual players. The high quality of the training has ensured the success rate of Auxerre's youth training.

The coach is not only responsible for the training of the players, but also manages the life. Auxerre's youth culture is focused on football, and the coach recently confiscated game consoles from several players' dormitories, "Players have regular play time and can play games in the activity room, but I don't want them to spend time in the room all day. Youth director Jores said.

In addition, there is an unwritten rule at the Auxerre Club: every morning when you meet for the first time, you must shake hands and say hello. Even visitors have the same "treatment". Etiquette is also part of AJERRE's football culture.

Auxerre legend Cisse is currently a member of the first-team coaching staff. He regularly comes to the echelon to coach the team's strikers and, more importantly, as a star of Auxerre's development, Cisse can convey Auxerre's philosophy and culture to young players.

As a civilian club, Auxerre's size is hardly comparable to that of the giants, but Auxerre's deep heritage has made them an evergreen in French football. In addition, AJERRE's youth training philosophy and facilities are also in line with the world, with state-of-the-art equipment in the indoor courts to assist players in reaction training, which is regularly used by each team.

Being able to play for AJ Auxerre is the dream of every kid in the city, "Playing here is not about money, the most important thing is to see if you can get a place for yourself. Yassin said he was proud that his son was able to stand out from it.

A day earlier, Auxerre and Saint-Etienne had played a thrilling 90-minute battle here that ended in a 1-1 draw. Yassin and his son were watching the game on the spot, and they couldn't win down their old enemies Saint-Etienne, and both father and son were a little depressed. BUT YASSIN IS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE OF AUXERRE: "ZHOU (ZHOU YUNJIE, THE CHINESE OWNER OF AUXERRE) IS A SIMPLE PERSON, AND APART IS A SIMPLE CITY, WHERE THERE IS ALMOST NO PASTIME OTHER THAN FOOTBALL. He knows AJERRE and he knows football. He's been doing the right thing. ”

The arrival of Chinese merchants did not change Auxerre's DNA, but quietly integrated into the historic city like the Jonne River, becoming an inseparable part.

"It looks like we're going to lose today." Yassin looked at the field, and the Auxerre echelon, which had beaten big with a small fight, did suffer a little, but he was not disappointed. "For the kids, it's not about losing games, it's about learning to face difficulties." Yassin said it was a legacy of AJ football.