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DOHA, Qatar — A little more than a decade ago, Andreas Bleicher, then a director of one of Germany’s Olympic training centers, arrived in the tiny gulf nation of Qatar, wooed there by its royal family to help turn the hopeless national soccer program into something worthy of the world’s respect.
卡塔尔多哈——大约10年前，安德烈亚斯·布莱谢尔(Andreas Bleicher)来到了小小的海湾国家卡塔尔。布莱谢尔当时是德国一家奥林匹克训练中心的总监，而卡塔尔王室想要获得他的帮助，让希望渺茫的卡塔尔足球在世界上赢得一席之地。
There were plenty of reasons this would be difficult — the country hardly has a tradition of soccer excellence, and its record of producing premier athletes in any sport is sparse. But there was one problem that seemed insurmountable.
这个任务很艰巨，原因相当多——卡塔尔不仅足球水平历来不高，而且在任何体育项目上都鲜见顶尖运动员。但是，有一个问题看似特别难以克服。
With a native population of only 300,000, Qatar simply did not have enough young players to form a team that could hope to compete with the likes of Brazil, Argentina and Germany.
卡塔尔仅有30万公民，根本没有足够多的年轻球员来组成一支能与巴西、阿根廷和德国等球队较量的队伍。
“We were trying to build a national program with a talent pool the size of one you might find in a small United States city,” Bleicher said.
“我们当时试图建立一个全国性的足球体系，但人才库的规模和一座美国小城差不多，”布莱谢尔说。
One of his early hires was Josep Colomer, a former youth scout for F.C. Barcelona generally credited with discovering Lionel Messi, perhaps the best soccer player in the world, when Messi was a boy in Argentina.
在他最早聘用的人员中，有曾经担任过巴塞罗那足球俱乐部(F.C. Barcelona)青训球探的何塞普·科洛梅尔(Josep Colomer)。人们普遍认为，当初就是科洛梅尔发现了阿根廷少年利昂内尔·梅西(Lionel Messi)。梅西或许是当今世界上最优秀的足球运动员。
Colomer was known in soccer circles for his unorthodox ideas, and soon he began talking about importing talent to Qatar, from Africa, where even children in the most far-flung villages grow up playing the game.
在足球界，科洛梅尔素有剑走偏锋的声名，很快他就想出了把非洲人才引进到卡塔尔的点子。在非洲，即便是最偏远的村庄，孩子们也从小就开始踢足球。
“Many of the players there, they don’t have any chance to be seen, to be discovered,” Colomer said.
“那里有很多球员，他们完全没有机会被人看到，被人发现，”科洛梅尔说。
The possibilities were tantalizing. What if Qatar could send expert scouts throughout Africa on a mission to identify young, talented boys and offer them scholarships to come train at Qatar’s Aspire Academy, the new, glimmering sports institute that was bankrolled by the royal family?
这条路的前景颇为诱人。如果卡塔尔把球探专家派遣到非洲各地，去发掘有潜力的年轻男孩，并为他们提供奖学金，让他们前来卡塔尔的Aspire运动精英学院(Aspire Academy)，会发生什么事呢？Aspire运动精英学院是一所亮闪闪的新体育学院，由卡塔尔王室出资修建。
From that simple premise unspooled a wildly ambitious plan that reached from the dusty fields of Senegal and Kenya to the cloistered royal palaces of Qatar to a rundown stadium in a sleepy corner of rural Belgium.
从这个简单的前提出发，他们展开了一个雄心勃勃的计划，从塞内加尔和肯尼亚尘土飞扬的场地，到卡塔尔远离喧嚣的王室宫殿，再到比利时某个僻静乡村的一座破旧体育场。
Let other countries start small. In the first year alone, Qatar screened nearly 430,000 boys in 595 locations across seven African countries. More than seven years later, Aspire has screened 3.5 million young athletes across three continents and cherry-picked the most promising boys for odysseys that have spanned the globe.
让其他国家去小打小闹吧，卡塔尔要大张旗鼓。仅在第一年，卡塔尔就在七个非洲国家的595个地方测试了近43万名男孩。在之后的七年多时间里，Aspire在全球东奔西跑，测试了三大洲的350万年轻运动员，精心挑选出其中最有前途的男孩。
A Soccer Deadline
最后期限
As for its soccer ambitions, Qatar has a deadline to deliver a team that looks as if it belongs on the world stage: the 2022 World Cup, which Qatar will host.
谈到卡塔尔在足球上的雄心抱负，它需要在最后期限之前组织起一支看上去属于世界舞台的球队。这个期限是2022年世界杯，其主办国就是卡塔尔。
When Qatar won its 2010 bid to host that tournament — a process tainted by accusations of rampant bribery — it earned the host’s privilege of an automatic berth at the games.
2010年赢得赛事主办权时，卡塔尔也获得了自动获得参赛资格的东道主特权。有人指责，申办过程中行贿现象猖獗，污点重重。
It will most likely be Qatar’s debut in the World Cup. The Maroon, as the team is known, sits at 100th place in the latest world rankings, between Zimbabwe and Moldova.
这有很可能是卡塔尔队在世界杯上的首次亮相。这支球队被称为“绛衣军团”(The Maroon)，在最新的世界排名中列第100位，处于津巴布韦和摩尔多瓦之间。
Bleicher and Colomer insist they have sought out the best young African athletes as a way to provide high-level competition for Qatari boys, and not, they maintain, so that African players can suit up en masse for Qatar’s national team. But there remains a possibility, albeit a remote one, that some African players could represent Qatar in 2022.
布莱谢尔和科洛梅尔坚持表示，他们找来最优秀的非洲年轻运动员，是为了给卡塔尔青少年提供高水平的竞争激励，而不是要让非洲球员集体加入卡塔尔国家队。但一些非洲球员仍然可能会身披卡塔尔球衣参加2022年的世界杯，虽然这种可能性并不大。
“Could it happen?” Bleicher said. “I suppose maybe some of the players feel like they would want to represent Qatar, because Qatar helped them when their home countries did not.”
“会发生这种事吗？”布莱谢尔问道，“我想，也许有些球员希望能加入卡塔尔队，因为卡塔尔为他们提供了自己国家没有给予的帮助。”
But naturalization rules make it difficult — requiring players to live in the country for five continuous years after age 18. Bleicher said he believes it is more likely that the African athletes end up representing their native countries, where their success would then reflect back on Qatar and its training program. A number of the boys have already played for their home nations. “If we naturalize a few players, what will happen?” Bleicher said. “Everyone will kill us. Everyone will see. We are not stupid, and neither is anyone else.” Critics, though, have long been skeptical of Aspire Football Dreams, the name of the international recruitment program.
然而，根据卡塔尔的入籍规则，要做到一点很困难。规则要求，球员年满18岁之后，应在该国连续生活五年。布莱谢尔说，他认为更有可能发生的情况是，这批非洲运动员最终会代表自己的祖国参赛，而他们获得的成功，将反过来为卡塔尔及其培训计划提供助益。很多青少年队员都已经为自己的祖国出场。“如果我们让几个球员入籍，会发生什么事？”布莱谢尔反问。“大家会杀了我们。大家都会看在眼里。我们不傻，别人也不傻。”不过，对于这个名为“Aspire足球之梦”(Aspire Football Dreams)的国际招募计划，批评者长期以来都心存疑虑。
Some believe Qatar will ultimately attempt to naturalize some of the boys. Others have suggested that the program was designed to curry favor with the FIFA panel that awarded the 2022 tournament. And some fear that the boys, selected at 13 years of age, are being exploited.
有些人认为，卡塔尔最终会尝试让一些青少年球员入籍。另一些人则指出，该计划的目的是要讨好国际足联的委员会，从而赢得2022年的杯赛主办权。还有些人担心，这些在13岁时被挑选出来的男孩被利用了。
Yet Qatar maintains there is a higher purpose, a humanitarian impulse to aid a largely beleaguered region even as it helps to rebrand the emirate, which has been criticized by human rights groups for abusive treatment of migrant laborers.
然而，卡塔尔坚称，他们的目标更远大，出于人道主义，他们渴望帮助一个普遍陷入困境的地区，虽说此举也有助于重塑卡塔尔的形象。人权组织一直批评卡塔尔虐待外来劳工。
Start of Aspire Africa
Aspire非洲的开启
In April 2007, Aspire announced that it was embarking on an international talent search called Aspire Africa. The original plans called for scouts to be dispatched to seven African countries — Morocco, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.
2007年4月，Aspire宣布，它将开展一项名为“Aspire非洲”的国际人才搜寻活动。最初的计划是派遣球探到七个非洲国家——摩洛哥、喀麦隆、加纳、肯尼亚、尼日利亚、塞内加尔和南非。
In that first year, the tryouts were heavily publicized, on television and radio and on posters in small villages. The project was supported by Nike, as well as Bonus Sports Marketing, a consulting firm founded by Sandro Rosell (who later became the president of F.C. Barcelona).
在第一年里，这项选拔活动通过广播电视和贴在小村庄的海报进行了大量宣传。项目获得了耐克公司(Nike)以及桑德罗·罗塞尔（Sandro Rosell，他后来成为巴塞罗那俱乐部的主席）创办的BSM咨询公司(Bonus Sports Marketing)襄助。
From the start, the program was marketed as a chance for young African boys to have a shot at a new life, one that could drastically change the possibilities for them and their families and even their communities.
从一开始，这个计划就被宣传为一个机会：让年轻的非洲男孩尝试一种新的生活，可以彻底改变他们自己、他们的家庭，甚至他们的社区。
“In the beginning, the people in Africa, they didn’t believe we were coming,” Bleicher recalled.
“一开始，非洲人不相信我们真的会来，”布莱谢尔回忆道。
When the scouts arrived, driving through the villages in S.U.V.s, they were often mobbed by young boys hoping to catch their attention.
当球探们抵达非洲，开着越野车经过大小村庄时，经常会被希望能吸引他们注意力的年轻男孩团团围住。
Aspire originally planned to offer scholarships to only three finalists, who would then come to Doha to live and train. But once the scouts saw the wealth of talent on display, they scaled up their ambitions, allowing for scholarships for up to two dozen boys, many of whom would live and train at a satellite academy opened in Saly, Senegal.
Aspire原本打算只给前三名入围者提供奖学金，让他们去多哈生活和训练。但是，当球探们看到这里的人才资源之丰富时，他们的胃口就变大了。最后，他们把奖学金提供给了20多名男孩，其中许多人会在塞内加尔萨利的分院里生活和训练。
According to an internal concept document shown to The New York Times, Aspire executives initially saw the Senegal academy as a place to develop a potential “talent pool” for Qatari football clubs and to enhance Aspire’s “image as the world’s best talent pool.”
《纽约时报》看到的一份内部概念文件显示，Aspire的高管最初把塞内加尔的那所学院当作一个为卡塔尔的足球俱乐部打造潜在“人才库”的地方，同时强化Aspire作为“世界上最优秀人才库的形象”。
“We realized that the level of the players was huge,” Colomer said. “And we could organize an academy with these players to give them a hope and a chance to grow to the high levels.”
“我们意识到，球员的水平很出色，”科洛梅尔说，“我们可以用这些球员组织一个学院，给他们提供一个提升到很高水平的希望和机会。”
A Tough Transition
艰难的过渡
In the years that followed, Aspire Africa was rebranded as Aspire Football Dreams, its scope expanding to as many as 17 countries, including three in the Americas (Guatemala, Costa Rica and Paraguay) and two in Asia (Vietnam and Thailand). By bringing the boys to the academies in Qatar and Senegal at such a young age, Aspire shouldered responsibility for their development not just as soccer players, but as people. The transition has not always been easy.
在随后的几年里，Aspire非洲演变为“Aspire足球之梦”(Aspire Football Dreams)，范围扩展到多达17个国家，包括三个美洲国家（危地马拉、哥斯达黎加和巴拉圭）及两个亚洲国家（越南和泰国）。让这些年纪轻轻的男孩进入位于卡塔尔和塞内加尔的学院，Aspire 肩负的责任不只是发展他们的足球运动员生涯，还要把他们培养成人。这个过渡有时候很不容易。
“They come from the mud huts in Africa to this spaceship,” said one former Aspire coach, who wished to remain anonymous because he still works in soccer.
“他们从非洲的泥屋来到这艘宇宙飞船上，”Aspire计划的一位前教练说。由于仍然在足球领域工作，他不愿具名。
There are language differences, and players get homesick. Some inside Aspire also expressed concerns that the boys were being trained too much, and that they were hiding injuries for fear of being sent back.
语言上的差异是个问题，而且球员们也会想家。Aspire的一些内部人士还表示，他们担心孩子们训练过量了，而且还会因为害怕被遣送回国而隐瞒自己的伤情。
“We were afraid,” said Franck Cedric Tchoutou, a Cameroonian who was among the early scholarship students who lived and trained in Doha. “Most of us, we came from poor families. Being in Qatar or being in Aspire was a great experience. It was a great opportunity. So we walked around there and we were always afraid to lose our opportunities.”
弗兰克·锡德里克·楚土(Franck Cedric Tchoutou)来自喀麦隆，是早期获得奖学金并在多哈生活和训练的学员之一。“我们很害怕，”他说，“我们多数人家里都很穷。能来到卡塔尔或进入Aspire学院是一次了不起的经历，也是一次很棒的机会。所以我们小心翼翼的，总是害怕失去我们的机会。”
Bleicher acknowledged that a scholarship away from home can be trying, but he said that Aspire offered its players more than most academies in terms of medical care, education and training.
布莱谢尔承认，远离家乡训练的日子会非常难捱，但他表示，在医疗保健、教育和培训方面，Aspire为学员提供的资源比其他学校多。
According to an agreement reviewed by The Times, a Football Dreams scholarship offered room and board and training and schooling, a few hundred dollars per month in spending money, as well as tickets for the boys to travel home and for parents to visit. The families also receive as much as $5,000 per year, a sum that in many cases would be several times a family’s annual income.
根据《纽约时报》阅读过的一份协议，足球之梦项目提供住宿、餐饮、训练和文化课，还有每月几百美元的零花钱，以及这些男孩子回家探亲或父母前来探望的机票。他们的家人每年还能拿到多达5000美元，对他们当中的许多人来说，这是全家年收入的好几倍。
At the start of 2014, there were about 70 boys living at the Senegal academy. Last year, Aspire brought Lionel Messi to its Senegal campus to announce plans to distribute 400,000 mosquito nets and place a medical official in every African town where Football Dreams operates.
在2014年初，约有70名学员住在塞内加尔校区。去年，Aspire学院把梅西请到了塞内加尔校区，宣布将向每一个有足球之梦项目的非洲城镇发放40万顶蚊帐，并配备一名医疗官员。
“I believe we can use football and the inspirational power of sport,” Messi said at the event, according to an Aspire news release, “to really make a difference.”
根据Aspire的一份新闻稿，梅西在活动中说，“我相信，我们可以利用足球，以及体育运动鼓舞人心的力量，带来真正的改变。”
Despite Qatar’s insistence that Football Dreams was always intended as a humanitarian mission, the program drew intense criticism almost as soon as Aspire’s scouts set off in search of African talent. The unease was due in part to Qatar’s recent history of paying to import foreign athletes to represent it in international competitions.
尽管卡塔尔坚称，足球之梦一直是当做一项人道主义项目来开展的，但是Aspire的球探刚一开始搜罗非洲的人才，这个项目就招来了激烈的批评。之所以产生这种不安，一定程度上是因为在并不久远的过去，卡塔尔曾经斥资引进外籍运动员，让他们代表卡塔尔参加国际比赛。
Yet some in Doha have apparently pondered the question of whether it is worthwhile to recruit foreign soccer players to become Qatari citizens.
然而，多哈的一些人似乎考虑过招募外国足球运动员，并允许其加入国籍是否值得的问题。
One former Aspire executive said that, in private meetings, influential Qataris wanted to know why they should not be able to naturalize the imported players — Qatar had trained them after all — and in that way bolster the national team.
Aspire学院的一名前高管说，卡塔尔一些有影响力的人物在私下交谈中都曾问过，为什么不能让外籍运动员入籍，并通过这种方式壮大国家队——毕竟卡塔尔对他们进行了培训。
“For them, they pay for it,” the former executive said. “Other people have a big chance to have an easy life sponsored by the Qataris.”
“对他们来说，他们已经买单了，”这名前高管说。“而其他人也有很大机会过上由卡塔尔资助的轻松生活。”
Bleicher acknowledged that at the beginning of the project, the question of “whether some participants could one day play for Qatar” was “raised, but dismissed.”
布莱谢尔承认，在项目初期，“有人曾经提出过有朝一日一些学员能否为卡塔尔队效力”的问题，“但最后不了了之了。”
“It did not align with the purpose of the project and the values of Aspire,” he said.
“这与项目的目标，以及Aspire学校的价值观不符，”他说。
An Asset in a Cup Bid
申办世界杯的资本
Even if, as Bleicher and others insist, the boys do not play for Qatar in 2022, some saw the international recruitment program as a piece of Qatar’s multipronged effort to win the World Cup bid.
即使像布莱谢尔和另外一些人坚称的那样，这些青少年不会代表卡塔尔参加2022年世界杯的比赛，有些人仍然认为，这个国际培养项目是卡塔尔赢得世界杯申办权的综合行动中的一部分。
In interviews, Qatari officials and Aspire executives denied this was the case, emphasizing that Football Dreams was a costly program meant to help needy nations and that it provided minimal benefits for Qatar.
卡塔尔官员和Aspire学院的高管们在接受采访时否认了这种说法，他们强调说，足球之梦是一个成本很高的项目，目的是帮助贫困国家，不会为卡塔尔带来什么好处。
“Honestly, the amount of times that we mentioned it were minimal,” Hassan Al-Thawadi, the chief executive of Qatar’s bid committee, said, referring to the notion that Football Dreams played a key role in the 2022 campaign.
对于足球之梦在申办2022年世界杯的过程中扮演关键角色的说法，卡塔尔世界杯申办委员会的首席执行官哈桑·塔瓦迪(Hassan Al-Thawadi)表示，“老实说，我们提到它的次数极少。”
Documents reviewed by The Times suggested otherwise. During the summer of 2009, Aspire Academy’s marketing and communications department drew up a proposal that detailed precisely how Aspire Football Dreams could help Qatar’s bid for the World Cup.
但《纽约时报》阅读过的文件显示，情况并非如此。2009年夏天，Aspire学院的营销和公关部门起草了一份计划书，详细地叙述了Aspire足球之梦可以怎样帮助卡塔尔申办世界杯。
A number of news stories have raised claims that Qatar, separate from Aspire, attempted to rig the bidding process with money. Qatar has denied the allegations, and FIFA is investigating.
数篇新闻报道中还提出了其他的说法，称除了Aspire学院之外，卡塔尔还试图撒钱来操纵申办流程。卡塔尔否认了这些指控，FIFA正在展开调查。
Of the 24 nations with delegates on the FIFA executive committee, five were countries in which Aspire Football Dreams was operating, the proposal explained. Some in Aspire thought this would bolster Qatar’s chances for the World Cup. “
计划书中解释说，在FIFA执行委员会代表来自的24个国家中，足球之梦正在其中的五个国家运营。Aspire学院中的一些人认为，这会加大卡塔尔赢得主办权的可能性。
Success and Tension
成功和紧张
In January, Aspire Academy’s campus was buzzing as the final game of the Al Kass Cup approached. Elite youth teams from around the world were in Doha for an all-expenses-paid tournament. The Aspire squad, made up of Qatari boys, finished in eighth place, and the under-16 team from Aspire Football Dreams — featuring boys from Senegal, Cameroon and Ghana — reached the title game versus Real Madrid, a global powerhouse.
今年1月，随着艾卡斯杯(Al Kass Cup)决赛的临近，Aspire学院的校园里一片兴奋。来自世界各地的青少年精英球队齐聚多哈，参加这次由主办方承担所有费用的足球联赛。全部由卡塔尔学员组成的Aspire学院队取得了第八名的成绩，而来自Aspire足球之梦的U16球员组成的球队——主要是来自塞内加尔、喀麦隆和加纳的学员——将在决赛中对阵世界强队皇家马德里(Real Madrid)。
Jean Jules Sepp Mvondo, a 15-year-old Cameroonian, was the captain of the Football Dreams squad. A few years earlier, Jean Jules (known as Jiji) was among the hundreds of thousands of 13-year-old boys screened by Aspire scouts when they came to Africa.
今年15岁的喀麦隆男孩让·朱尔·塞普·姆冯多(Jean Jules Sepp Mvondo)是足球之梦队的队长。几年前，卡塔尔球探来到非洲后，测试了成百上千名13岁的男孩，而绰号吉吉(Jiji)的让·朱尔就是其中之一。
“Football Dreams is a big thing in Cameroon,” said Jiji, who has four sisters and three brothers. He described how he cried when his father told him that he had gotten the call that he made it.
有四个姐妹和三个兄弟的吉吉说，“足球之梦在喀麦隆可是一件大事。”他回忆道，父亲说自己接到了电话，通知他入选了，听到父亲的话，他哭了。
Another boy, Jalilu Haruna Mola, a 14-year-old from Ghana, explained how his father died when he was 5, leaving him behind with his mother and older brother. His mother sells rice for a living, Jalilu said, and his scholarship has allowed her to pay for his older brother’s university education. “She always tells me she’s proud of me,” Jalilu said.
贾里鲁·哈鲁纳·莫拉(Jalilu Haruna Mola)是一名14岁的加纳男孩。他解释说，父亲在他五岁时去世了，自己和母亲、哥哥相依为命。母亲靠卖大米为生，由于他拿到了奖学金，母亲才给哥哥交上了大学学费。“她总是对我说，她为我骄傲，”贾里鲁说。
Even if they are not wearing Qatar’s maroon jerseys, the players will bring Qatar the international respect the royal family has so far been unable to establish on its own soil.
即使他们没有穿着卡塔尔队的绛红色球衣，这些球员仍然能为卡塔尔带来国际荣誉，正是卡塔尔王室迄今未能在国内建立起的那种声誉。
“The next World Cup,” Bleicher said, “will be ‘our’ World Cup.”
“下一届世界杯，”布莱谢尔说，“将是‘我们的’世界杯。”
