In the two Asian World Preliminary Tournaments that ended on January 27, 2022 and February 1, Beijing time, the national football team lost to Japan and Vietnam with scores of 0-2 and 1-3 respectively, and these two losses made the national football team's voice evaluation among domestic fans to the minimum, especially in the face of the defeat of the Vietnamese team, which was the first time in the history of the national football team to lose to the Vietnamese men's football team, so many fans borrowed the words of former international Fan Zhiyi to criticize the national football team: "Face is not needed!" In these two games that are not about qualifying but about dignity, Wu Lei, who was once able to occupy the top of the Yashi pre-scorer list, played poorly, basically almost invisible, and his performance in the round of forty was like two people, becoming one of the players who were intensively criticized by fans. And Wu Lei is not only in the national team, in La Liga Espanyol club, the situation in the past two seasons has also deteriorated, from the beginning of the start to the substitute, and then from the substitute to now playing time to a pitiful marginal figure, Wu Lei seems to have a lot of stories. Why the "king of the beach" fell to this point, and how to get out of the predicament to save his career, we may wish to explore.
With the Chinese Super League champion and the strongest earth cannon business card in Yangyang, Wu Lei's first season was full of aura
In the 2018 Chinese Super League season, when Guangzhou Evergrande was still at the end of its peak, Wu Lei led Shanghai SIPG to win the Chinese Super League championship for the first time in the world, although the core figures most relied on in the team were the Brazilian duo Oscar and Hulk, but Wu Lei in the absence of a penalty score, forced many big-name foreign aides to win the Golden Boot of the Chinese Super League that season, which can also be said to be the greatest contribution. Relying on such a wonderful performance, Wu Lei not only won the Golden Ball Award of Chinese football that year, but also joined the Espanyol club in La Liga in the middle of the season. There are many people who think that a large part of the reason why Wu Lei was able to join Espanyol was because of the Chinese background that the club had, but soon, the Wu Ball King punched everyone in the face with his performance. Wu Lei, who joined the team in the middle of the season, played sixteen games for Espanyol in his first season, twelve of which started, not only scored three goals and one assist, but also helped Espanyol, who was once ranked ten at the time, to finally rank seventh in La Liga, achieving a rare European qualification. At this time, Wu Lei, not only sat firmly in the team to start, but also loved by fans at home and abroad, is truly worthy of the title of wuqiu king, called the first person in domestic football.
In the second year of staying in Yang, the storm suddenly changed, chose to renew the contract, and fought with the team in the West B
In the 2019/20 season that followed, the situation between Wu Lei and Espanyol took a sharp turn for the worse, and all of this had to start with the departure of the meritorious head coach Ruby, who led the team to the Europa League last season. At the beginning of the season, under the temptation of high salaries, Ruby decided to jump to the Real Betis club in La Liga, not only that, the coach also very unauthentically instructed Real Betis to forcibly poach Iglesias, the thickest frontcourt thigh in the Espanyol team at that time, and the Spaniard had not yet started his season, and even suffered a heavy blow. At the beginning, espanyol appointed B coach Gayego to replace Ruby, and as a result, only eight games passed, and Gayego, who led the team with a poor record, was overshadowed, and then the incoming Ma Chin was also unable to save the building, achieving an even worse win, two draws and seven losses in ten games, and was also fired in the middle of the season. The third manager to take office that season was Abelardo, who suffered severe blows on all fronts during his tenure, except for the league high and low, the Copa del Rey stopped in the round of sixteen, the Europa League was eliminated by Wolves in the Premier League, so he was also sacked by the team. In the end, after several head coaches, the team's sporting director Rufit was appointed to the line, and he led the team until the end of the season, failing to change the fate of the team's eventual relegation to the La Liga.
After the team has tossed and turned several times, with the deepening of the season, Wu Lei's position in the team has also dropped again and again, from sitting firmly in the starting line to the regular main force, vaguely he has encountered some career crises, but it is also in this season that Wu Lei has left a classic moment in la Liga to play as a substitute to draw with La Liga giants Barcelona, so he is still considered an important member of the team. After this failed season, Wu Lei, who has had transfer rumors with other Chinese teams such as Wolves in the Premier League, chose to keep his promise, renewed his contract with Espanyol until 2024, stayed in Barcelona in difficult times, and did his best to help the team return to La Liga.
In the La Liga season, he completely lost trust and returned to La Liga to become a water dispenser administrator
Wu Lei's move to renew the Spaniard's contract at the trough was praised by the outside world, but from the perspective of Zhuge Liang in hindsight, Wu Lei's approach at that time was wrong. In the La Liga season, Rufit no longer served as the team's manager, and the team instead hired Moreno as the head coach, and under the leadership of this coach, the Spaniard won the La Liga title in 2021/22 and successfully returned to La Liga. However, it was in this La Liga championship season that Wu Lei gradually lost his place in the team, and under Moreno's delicate play of emphasizing passing, Wu Lei, who was known for his speed, lost his usefulness, and he made thirty-one appearances for Espanyol this season, including only eight starts, averaging only thirty-four minutes per game, and only two goals and two assists in the entire season. At that time, domestic fans were worried and shouting for Wu Lei, who knew that in the first season of returning to La Liga, that is, the current 2021/22 season, Wu Lei did not even have an average of thirty-four minutes of playing time per game. As of now, the Spaniards have experienced twenty-two league games, of which Wu Lei has played twelve times, started three times, and the average playing time per game is only twenty-four minutes, and in the recent rounds of leagues, Wu Lei has not fished for a minute, completely reduced to a water dispenser administrator.
The club was frustrated, and the Wulei national team also went high and low, falling into a downturn
Not only in the club, Wu Lei also fell into a downturn in the national team. During Li Tie's coaching of the national football team, Wu Lei's world preliminary round goals can reach twelve, once ranking first in the Asian world preliminary tournament top scorer list, it can be said that the national football team is the only row during the entire top twelve, and in the last few rounds of the previous forty rounds, Wu Lei carried the team forward with thigh-level performance, goals, assists, and points, which was highly praised by foreign media. After Li Tie left class and Li Xiaopeng took office, in the last two matches against Japan and Vietnam, Wu Lei almost did not show any eye-catching performance, and in the case of the team as a whole being suppressed by the opponent, Wu Lei lost the threatening performance of facing Syria and other teams in the past. Such a contrast, we have to suspect that Wu Lei will be in a state of flux because the club lost its position and now completely lost confidence.
The Spaniard period has completely failed, and Wu Lei needs to recognize the reality and save his career
Objectively speaking, the reason why Wu Lei has become a complete marginal person in Espanyol is that he himself constantly wastes opportunities on the field and cannot integrate with his teammates, at the beginning of the season, Moreno once gave Wu Lei several opportunities to play, and Wu Lei wasted more than one single knife opportunity, so that he was no longer trusted by Moreno and even by his teammates. In the previous Copa del Rey game against Pomferradina, the lonely scene of Wu Lei standing alone next to the queue in the penalty shootout completely showed the fact that he had wandered outside the dressing room. Now, Wu Lei is in the golden age of a professional athlete, in order to save his career, Wu Lei must recognize and accept his failure in Espanyol, and then accept another period of foreign career, since the transfer rumors of Alaves have become empty talk, Wu Lei should actively look for other teams after the opening of this year's summer window, even if it is like Li Lei to go to the European leagues outside the five major leagues, after all, the level of competition in these leagues is higher than that of the Chinese Super League. And being a workhorse in these low-level leagues is better than wasting time on espanyol's bench. As the saying goes, people go to high places, but sometimes, people may not be wrong to go down.