Annabel the Hong Kong football girl who dreams of playing for Manchester City
- German Swiss International School pupil is already a member of the city’s junior team
- Now she has written a book to encourage other girls to take up the sport she loves
Annabel Yue was six years old when she saw her older brother playing football and has fallen in love with the sport and dreams of playing for Manchester City one day.
Now, the nine-year-old, who was picked for the Hong Kong Under-10 girls football team last year, can be found bursting down the right wing, or scoring goals of her own.
“I was very excited,” Yue says of the moment she learned she had been selected to join the team. But when she went on to the pitch for the first time, the German Swiss International School pupil became nervous as she did not know any Cantonese, and did not understand the drills coaches were running.
However, that did not stop the young football player from pursuing her dreams.
For whatever she lacks in linguistic abilities, Yue, who studies Mandarin three times a week at school and understands basic Cantonese now, more than makes up for with a good attitude, says her coach, Kay Fung Nga-kei.
“We teach primarily in Cantonese, so she has difficulties understanding, but she overcomes it by observing the body language of the coach and remembering some Chinese terms,” Fung says.
