CFB's championship quickly dominated headlines and social media discussions across China. On Sina Weibo, the victory topped the trending list on June 2.
"Is this how it feels to support a top-flight football team?" a Weibo user from Liaoning Province named Hu Adi commented.
On June 3, the State-run broadcaster CCTV News shared a 21-second video showing Meng's decisive penalty kick and the team's celebration. The clip got nearly 2.3 million views by July 15.
The excitement came amid years of disappointment surrounding Chinese soccer. The ranking of the Chinese men's national team has fallen from 53rd in 1993, when FIFA introduced its rankings, to 91st in 2026. In 2025, the team dropped as low as 99th after losing 1-0 to Indonesia, then ranked around 118th in a crucial Asian qualifier for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Plagued by match-fixing scandals, corruption and inadequate training, both the men's national team and the Chinese Super League have struggled to win public trust.
The team of 12-year-olds has reignited hope among Chinese soccer fans.
To celebrate the achievement, real estate tycoon and businessman Li Xiaohua hosted a banquet in Beijing on June 27 for Dong and the young players. "I spent a lot on this banquet not only because I admire their championship win, but also because I have been moved by Dong's efforts over the past nine years," Li said at the event.
This is not the only corporate support CFB has received.
On July 9, smartphone maker Honor sponsored Dong's club, giving each of its young players one of its flagship phones, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Several days later, beverage company Nongfu Spring extended its sponsorship agreement with CFB from three years to five, according to Zhejiang Daily's Tide News.
"Previously, none of our sponsorships lasted more than three years," Dong told NewsChina.
Dong said over the past nine years, player training and international competitions cost 58 million yuan (US$8.6m), a major chunk coming from sponsors like automaker BYD.
Dong distributed the tournament's 50,000 euro (US$57,100) winnings equally among the 14 players.
Despite its humble beginnings and criticism over Dong's lack of coaching credentials, CFB has grown from a controversial experiment into a youth training program that has earned rare recognition from mainstream Chinese soccer.
In its early years, the club had no permanent training ground. Players recruited from schools and clubs across China gathered for intensive sessions on rented pitches only days before competitions.
A breakthrough came in 2019, when Dong partnered with the Ma Yuehan Athlete Class at Tsinghua University High School in Beijing, allowing around 20 CFB players to train regularly at the school's facilities for four years.
But the school did not renew the contract. "I was devastated because it felt like all my efforts had disappeared overnight," Dong said. "What consoled me was seeing these players develop."
More than a dozen have gone on to join club programs in Spain or youth teams in China, such as with Beijing Guo'an.
Last year, eight of CFB's former players were starters on Beijing's winning U16 men's squad at the 15th National Games, including captain and defensive midfielder Li Dongchen, winger Chen Junhan and forward Zhao Songyuan, who scored the opening goal to defeat Hubei Province 3-1.
The Sigismondi Cup was not CFB's first success in Europe. In 2018, the club's U10 squad won the Wide Star Cup finals, a tournament held in Germany organized by Chinese companies Shandong Wide Star Sports and Beijing Lebo Football. Seven of the eight participating teams were European.
However, the team's 4-1 victory over Germany's Borussia Dortmund U9 squad attracted limited attention. It came during the final years of China's "golden yuan" soccer era, when billions of yuan from real estate companies and other investors fueled overseas projects and heavy spending on foreign players and coaches.
The investment brought short-term success, including Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao FC's two Asian Football Confederation Champions League titles in 2013 and 2015 under head coaches Marcello Lippi and Luiz Felipe Scolari. But the era was also marred by corruption scandals, match-fixing and misused funds.
At the time, youth development received far less attention than immediate results. Now, CFB's rise represents a path focused not on buying success, but on developing young players from the ground up.
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