le-A affiliate, who interviewed for the job when Hale was hired.Another potential candidate could be Red

BEIJING -- As coaches take notes, teenagers dribble footballs through a course of cones on Ritan Middle Schools gleaming artificial field in eastern Beijing, part of a massive program to promote soccer as a pillar of Chinas rise to global prominence.The 14-year-old boys and girls were being scrutinized under a newly added section of Beijings high school entrance exam, which beginning this year includes an elective football skills test in addition to such standards as Chinese, math, and English.While the skills tests comprise only a small part of the placement exam, the fact education officials tweaked a notoriously rigid standardized test is one sign of how thoroughly China is mobilizing under President Xi Jinpings drive to overhaul the game domestically and turn the Chinese team into a World Cup winner by 2050.The football revolution spans from schoolyards to the top professional league. Local officials tout how thousands of high schools are becoming government-designated football priority schools. Cities announce hundreds of football complexes being built every week.Chinese clubs are paying record fees to woo stars away from Europe and boost interest in the domestic league. And in the past year alone, Chinese investors have spent a staggering $3 billion to buy stakes in European clubs, with the stated aim of bringing football know-how back to China.Weve talked about football under several top leaders but until now, there has never been this will, said Pang Xiaozhong, former director of the Institute of Sport Science, an arm of Chinas state sports program. Its unprecedented.Boosting Chinas standing in the game is part of Xis push to raise Chinas global prestige. With the national mens team ranked No. 78, a turnaround would be nothing short of cathartic. While the womens team has often found international success, Chinas men have qualified for only one World Cup, bouncing out of the 2002 competition without scoring a goal.Decades after Chinas government successfully created a Soviet-style sports juggernaut, emphasizing highly technical disciplines such as diving, the question is whether the sports-by-diktat approach can work for the worlds most popular game. Unlike sports such as gymnastics, in which elite state academies develop selected prospects from a young age, commentators say football success will require a huge player base and vibrant, structured youth leagues -- all of which China is trying to create practically from scratch.In May, the cabinet issued a 50-point plan that called on local and provincial governments to promote football by setting up school programs, creating amateur leagues, offering tax breaks for pitch construction and recruiting foreign coaches with the goal of establishing 70,000 new fields and producing 50 million school-age players by 2020.In a top-down system under which the ruling Communist Party still issues five-year economic plans, this state-led mix of infrastructure investment and mass grassroots mobilization is precisely what Beijing sees as needed to bring home a World Cup trophy.In China, the role of the government is always the biggest and most effective, Pang said. Football is something we can grasp if were methodic.Although the government has not released cost estimates for its development plan, analysts say hundreds of millions could be spent over the next five years on facilities alone.What has been made public, however, is the $300 million this year that Chinese Super League clubs have splashed out recruiting stars such as Ramires, Alex Teixeira, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Jackson Martinez and former Arsenal striker Gervinho. And that does not include the wages on offer at Chinese clubs, which are now some of the highest in the world.Clubs have also splurged on high-profile coaches, including ex-Real Madrid and Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini, former Brazil boss Luiz Felipe Scolari and one-time England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson.Jonathan Sullivan, director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham, said theres no reason to doubt China could become a regional football superpower. But he warned there were similarities with the governments approach to economic planning that, despite its successes, can lead to inefficiency or graft. One example is the wave of interest that followed the 2002 World Cup run, which quickly fizzled out when the domestic league was hit by rampant corruption scandals.The leadership sketches a hugely ambitious and yet ambiguous vision and people lower down the chain -- government bureaus, provincial governments -- and those hoping to curry favor, especially in business, pick it up and run with it, Sullivan said. The problem is everyone often runs in different directions.Chinese football investors are already scrambling to buy into storied clubs such as Inter Milan and AC Milan, sometimes speaking of those deals as patriotic buyers.In a recent interview, Jiantong Tony Xia, who took over Englands Aston Villa in May, said a main objective was to eventually field Chinese players and establish academies.Its been proven that buying foreign firms with know-how and then bringing that back to the domestic industry has been the most efficient route, Xia said.As Chinas most powerful leader in decades, Xis personal influence on the promotion of football has been enormous.The president makes no secret of his love for the game which he picked up as a child playing alongside the scions of other Communist Party leaders at the elite Beijing 101 Middle School.A 1983 exhibition match between China and English club Watford was said to have left a particular impression on Xi. China was then just opening up to the outside world after decades of Maoism, and when Watford trounced the Chinese national team, Xi left the Beijing Workers Stadium fuming, childhood friend Nie Weiping recalled in an interview years later with state media.He felt hurt watching the match, Nie was quoted as saying. But hes continued to always follow Team China.Those presidential concerns appear to be having a direct effect at the grassroots.On the leafy Ritan Middle School campus, extracurricular director Xu Fuxing described how the public schools budget has risen 25 percent since Xis administration made sports an educational priority.The campus recently resurfaced an artificial field and Xu has hired youth football academy Huawen to train its students. Aside from offering traveling competitions that barely existed a few years ago, Huawen employs coaches such as Juan Varela, a former trainer with Atletico Madrid who moved to China earlier this year and works with help from translators.Speaking over Varelas cries of Spread out! Spread out! as eight-year-old kids swarmed after loose balls, Xu said the national plans key element is to encourage the formation of clubs and leagues to offer competitive experiences to young players.Even small measures such as Beijings new football exam have encouraged kids to try the game and, as Xu said, It symbolizes much more to come. New Balance Shoes Canada . The Vikings announced Thursday that Priefer will be one of seven holdovers from the previous staff, along with offensive line coach Jeff Davidson, wide receivers coach George Stewart and others. 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The Indians are roaring toward October. Giambi belted a two-run, pinch-hit homer with two outs in the ninth inning to give Cleveland a shocking 5-4 win over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night, keeping the Indians up with the lead pack in the AL wild-card race. PHOENIX -- Mike Hazen seemingly had the perfect job, working in his hometown as the general manager of the Boston Red Sox.One aspect was missing: Final say in baseball decisions. That belonged to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.So even though Arizona is on the other side of the country and the franchise has been stuck in a rut, Hazen jumped at the chance to become vice president and general manager of the Diamondbacks.There are some great players here and my job is to help bring this franchise to the next level, Hazen said during his introductory news conference Monday. Its an enormous responsibility and were here to make a commitment to the fans. First and foremost were here to win a championship.With the addition of Hazen, Tony La Russa will shift from chief baseball officer into an advisory role. He had been in charge of the Diamondbacks baseball operations since May 2014.I have 50 years of teaching and developed credibility and trust, La Russa said. If I left after the season we had, I couldnt live with that the rest of my life.Arizona was searching for someone with a blend of traditional baseball evaluation skills and analytics after firing GM Dave Stewart a day after the 2016 season end.The 40-year-old Hazen fits those skill sets.He was a two-time All-Ivy League player at Princeton and played two seasons in the minors after graduating and being drafted by the San Diego Padres in 1998.Hazen spent five seasons with the Cleveland Indians, working in scouting and player development, before moving to Boston. He worked 11 seasons with the Red Sox, winning World Series titles in 2007 and 2013 while making the postseason five times.Hazen was involved in every aspect of baaseball operations in Boston and spent four seasons as assistant GM before being promoted to vice president and general manager before the 2016 season.ddddddddddddes been a part of championships, hes been a leader, hell be a leader here and will, without a doubt, outwork us all, Diamondbacks managing general partner Ken Kendrick said.Hazens first order of business will be to replace manager Chip Hale, who was fired the same day as Stewart.He could turn to Phil Nevin, the manager of Arizonas Triple-A affiliate, who interviewed for the job when Hale was hired.Another potential candidate could be Red Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo, who has a good relationship with Hazen.In my opinion, he is ready to be a major league manager, Dombrowski said from Boston. Whether he would be their top choice, I cant say. We would not stand in his way.After that, Hazen will begin reshaping an organization that has had only brief periods of success since winning the 2001 World Series.Arizona won the 2011 NL West title, but followed that with five straight non-winning seasons. The Diamondbacks went 79-83 in their first season under Stewart and Hale, but took a step back this season (69-93) despite adding pitchers Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller.I want to help in any way possible in my role to make this a great franchise -- it is a great franchise -- to take it to another level, Hazen said. It will be my goal every day I come to work, itll be the goal of all those who work beside me and Im excited to start doing that.---AP Sports Writer Jimmy Golen in Boston contributed to this report. ' ' '