Shanghai

WANG Shijie, 11, is a rising star among the nearly 3,000 students at Guangzhou Evergrande's huge soccer academy in south China. He wants to join the national team and help achieve President Xi Jinping's dream of winning the World Cup.

In schools like this around the country, China is training an army of young players it hopes will help the nation shake off its lowly place on the world's football ladder: 84th out of 209 countries, just above Qatar and below teams such as Jordan, Montenegro and Gabon.