The news that Li Lei will stay in the Swiss Grasshopper Football Club has been around for a long time, and finally this afternoon the new and old owners will officially announce that he will officially join in January next year to start his career in The West.
Li Lei plans to fly from Shanghai to Zurich after New Year's Day, and the top two of the many goals for staying in the ocean are to be able to keep up with confrontation training and communicate in simple German. In other words, Li Lei can also play for Beijing Guoan in the remaining three Chinese Super League matches this month, which is a preview of the farewell. As a non-title-contending favorite team in the championship group, Guoan, who should not have pressure, pushed itself into the whirlpool after yesterday's match with Guangzhou City.
On the social platform, Beijing Guoan sent Li Lei a message such as "Desperate Sanlang must retain the background of desperation". At the age of 29, at an age when peers are seeking stability, he chose to accept the unknown challenge of a foreign country. This brave step taken by Li Lei is not only to seek possibilities for himself, but also to explore a new way for Chinese football, and the background of "Desperate Sanlang" is more intense.
If the Chinese players' plan to stay abroad came earlier, the younger Li Lei would certainly be on the list. In April 2010, Li Lei, who was not yet 18 years old, made his debut in the Chinese Super League, when he represented Nanchang Bayi Hengyuan, the predecessor of Shanghai Shenxin.
In the era of no u23 policy, the young Li Lei was able to gain the trust of Zhu Jiong, the head coach of the Nanchang Bayi Hengyuan team at the time, entirely by virtue of his own ability. In 2013, Li Lei transferred to Henan Jianye for two years, and joined Beijing Guoan in 2015.
Shanghai was the starting point of his top league career, and now he will fly from the city of Shanghai to a new career.
It is gratifying that the men's football line of the Chinese players' plan to stay in the West has taken another step forward, but there is still a little regret in the joy, which comes from the lack of consideration for optimizing the age structure of staying in the West. As far as the age of "staying in foreign leagues" is concerned, it will inevitably make their competitiveness in the team decline, which invisibly increases the degree of hardship they have to stay in the ocean.
Previously, along with Li Lei, zhang Yuning (Beijing Guoan), Guo Tianyu (Shandong Luneng) and Zhu Chenjie (Shanghai Shenhua) were also sent out with the news of staying in the west, and now there is no follow-up for the time being.
The Football Association must first understand that in the object of Chinese football to be studied, there can be no strange phenomenon of "ten years ago and ten years later, the main force on the field is still the same group of people". The frequency of replacements and elimination rates in international football is very cruel, and people will care about Mbappe, who is celebrating his 23rd birthday today, who has scored 198 goals in his career so far, more than Mero combined in the same period; but also about all the efforts Barcelona have made to keep the 17-year-old demon star Garvey.
Recently, it has been reported that the leading group for Chinese football preparation led by the General Administration of Sports is about to land, and Gou Zhongwen, director of the General Administration of Sports, may directly serve as the leader of the group, and is equipped with deputy team leaders including the deputy director of the General Administration bureau and Chen Shuyuan and Du Zhaocai. The issue of naturalizing international footballers that everyone is concerned about and the promotion of Chinese players' plans to stay abroad will be under the direct jurisdiction of the General Administration.
Speed is needed on the football field to create breakthrough possibilities, which is just as reasonable as the plan to stay in the ocean. If you don't hurry up, the candidates who are interested in this round of staying in the West will change from "recruit eggs" to "the year of the Chinese Super League".