This is a story full of inspiration, it is more inspiring for Chinese football than ridicule, the protagonist of the story was once regarded as a star of hope, but driven by various reasons, he had no choice but to leave his hometown and embark on an alternative journey to stay in the ocean, creating his own "paradise" in a completely unfamiliar environment, and becoming the only candidate for The World Footballer of the Year in Chinese football so far; the "Liuyang Series" of this issue of "Football Personalities" brings you the former "Taciti Ball King": Gong Lei.
Gong Lei
Player profiles
Name: Gong Lei
English translation: Lei Gong
Birthday/Age: October 15, 1965 (age 56)
Nationality: Chinese
Place of birth: Beijing
Position: Striker
Height: 177cm
Weight: 65kg
Dominant foot: Right foot
Nickname: King of the Tassi Ti ball
Relationships: Gao Hongbo (club/national team teammate), Dong Yugang (club teammate), Zhao Xudong (club teammate), Zhang Yan (club teammate), Tao Wei (club teammate), La Yi (club teammate), Raymond Terme (club teammate), Mak Jian (national youth team leader), Zhang Zhicheng (Beijing youth team/national youth team coach)
Youth Training Team: Beijing Municipal Engineering and Sports School (China)
Career trajectory: Beijing Workers' Sports School, Beijing Youth Team, Beijing Municipal First Team, China National Youth Team, AS Pillay (Tahiti League), Paris Saint-Germain (Ligue 1/Trial), Toronto Bobcats (MLS), Hong Kong South China (Hong Kong League), Toronto Olympic Team (MLS), Beijing Kuanli Team (A B)
Major Honors: 7th place at the World Youth Championship, 1 Asian Youth Championship, 1 National League First Division, 1 FA Cup, 1 National Games Runner-up, 5 Tahit league titles, 4 Tahiti Cup winners, 2 Tahiti doubles, 6 Tahiti top scorers and best player
Technical features
Player era
Gong Lei in the player era mainly plays forwards, its position is closer to the shadow front of today's modern football differentiation, similar to Sanchez or Dybala, compared with gao Hongbo, a partner who is good at hammering the final sound, Gong Lei's advantage lies in threading the needle, and his retreat strategy and organizational ability in the midfield often become the nightmare of the opposing defense; next, we will enter the football world of Gong Lei together.
Will be the door tiger
On October 15, 1965, the protagonist of this article, Gong Lei, was born in a family with a strong football atmosphere in the capital Beijing, Gong Lei's father Gong Qixiang was a member of the national team and a classmate of The famous Chinese football star Nian Weisi, and the second uncle Gong Qirui was a member of the old Beijing team and the famous coach Jin Zhiyang was a teammate; however, the stagnation of the country for ten years made countless Chinese sports people have to slow down their pace, but the fire of football has always been silently burning in Gong Qixiang's heart.
Son is Gong Qixiang to realize his football dream of hope, from the age of 4, Gong Lei began to contact football, the innate sense of ball let the father shine, in 1975, 10-year-old Gong Lei in the father's recommendation smoothly entered the Beijing Engineering Sports School to practice football, with more systematic training guidance, Gong Lei's football talent can be fully released.
Born for football
With the advent of reform and opening up, Chinese sports ushered in the spring, Gong Lei also became the first time to enjoy the fruits of development of a new generation of young athletes, more fortunately, Gong Lei also met his own football career "BoLe", then the head coach of the Beijing Youth Team Zhang Zhicheng guidance.
Under the careful tutelage of Zhang' guidance, Gong Lei's football skills and tactics quickly stood out among players of the same age, and in 1984, he and his good brother Gao Hongbo were jointly promoted to the Beijing adult team to form the "Golden Double Gun", which won a national first-class league championship and an FA Cup championship, and created a new pattern of domestic football with Liaoning.
Shock the world and find a different path
Also in 1984, the mentor Zhang Zhicheng took charge of the Chinese National Youth Team, a young guard army with the Beijing team and the Liaoning team as the team was born, as Zhang Zhicheng's mentor's beloved disciple, 18-year-old Gong Lei had the honor to lead the team to the 24th UAE Asian Youth Championship as the captain.
Captain of the National Youth Team
In the tournament, the national youth players all the way through the thorns and thorns of the Asian giants, of which the forward combination of Gong Lei and Gao Hongbo was even more eye-catching, in the final match with the Thai youth team, it was Gong Lei who assisted Gao Hongbo to score the winning goal to help the team win the Gold Cup 2-1, ending the embarrassing situation of Chinese football not winning the Asian championship for thirty years.
In 1985, the Chinese national youth team dressed in the "gorgeous cloak" of the Asian champion stood on the stage of the World Youth Championship, in the higher level of the competition, the Chinese national youth players still dare to fight, Gong Lei even in the group stage victory over England and Paraguay two European and American teams successively made goals, helping the Chinese team to successfully break through the group as the second place.
Gong Lei assisted Gao Hongbo in his strike against Paraguay
1/4 final, the national youth team encountered the host former Soviet Union team, after 90 minutes of fighting, the Chinese team lost 0-1 to the opponent and did not have the opportunity to qualify, but also locked their final ranking in the seventh place, creating the best result of Chinese football in the world-class competition and maintaining it so far, to know that the results of the Klauchen national youth team, which was once known as the "super platinum generation", were only tenth in the 2005 World Youth Championships.
After the 1985 World Youth Championship, the emergence of Gong Lei and Gao Hongbo made the world football scene a great cheer, and many international mainstream media used large texts to introduce the wonderful play of the Chinese double star in the World Youth Championship, and even the brazilian coach Taylor Santana praised the two as the absolute top strikers in the future Asian football.
Gong Lei killed England
However, fate seems to have made a big joke with Gong Lei, in the 1987 Sixth Games, the Beijing team that combined the old and the new returned home, the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in preparation for the Seven Games six years later, all the 65-year-old players were adjusted out of the team in one go, although as a meritorious player, Gong Lei was left in the team by exception, but was plagued by knee injuries, Gong Lei's competitive state was not as good as before, which made him feel that he was walking on thin ice in the front of the Beijing team.
At the end of the 1980s, Chinese football has not yet carried out professional reform, in the absence of a transfer system, once the player leaves the local team, it means the end of football life; rather than sit still, it is better to find another way, under the influence of China's first wave of going abroad, the forward-thinking Gong Lei made a bold decision.
In 1989, the 24-year-old Gong Lei went through the "retirement" procedures in the Beijing team and got a student visa to Canada, and since then he has embarked on his own alternative journey to stay abroad.
Tassiti is a candidate for the World Footballer of the Year
Stay in the Tahiti League
Time back to 1988, when Gong Lei, who was still playing for Beijing at the time, had the honor of following the team to Tahiti for a football invitational tournament, in which Gong Lei stunned the local Tahiti fans and coaches with a wonderful goal; when he learned the news that Gong Lei was "hanging up his boots" in China, the local Tahiti team AS Pillay Club immediately threw him an olive branch.
The age of 24 is the golden age of a football player, at this time Gong Lei has been unable to return to the country to continue to play football, and the decision to go to a foreign country was originally unwilling to give up the football dream in his heart, in the face of Tahiti's active invitation, Gong Lei is naturally warm and difficult, at the end of 1989, Gong Lei arrived in Tahiti and signed a contract with the local team AS Pillay.
Let's first learn about Tahiti, the largest island located in the windward archipelago of Polynesia in the South Pacific Ocean, belonging to the Overseas Territory of France, the island has beautiful scenery, pleasant climate, is a world-famous tourist attraction, known as "the closest place to paradise", and domestic tourism enthusiasts prefer to transliterate Tahiti as Tahiti.
The closest place to heaven: Tahiti
Tahiti's level of football, in the words of Gong Lei in an interview many years ago: "I think the top 6 of their league can be roughly equivalent to the level of 10 to 14 in our Chinese Super League now, and compared with the teams in Asia, it should only be considered third-rate, slightly stronger than Malaysia, Vietnam (more than Vietnam and not Vietnam), and Thailand on a horizontal line." ”
Back to the truth, as far as the situation was concerned, the sensational effect of Gong Lei joining as THE Pillay team was the same as the big-name foreign aid landing in the Chinese Super League in the Golden Yuan Era, and Gong Lei also proved with practical actions that he was indeed the existence of "Thanos" in the Tahiti League, winning the league or cup championship 9 times, winning the best scorer and the best player's wonderful performance, so that local fans gave Gong Lei the reputation of "ball king".
It is worth mentioning that Tahiti, as an overseas territory of France, its annual league and cup champions are eligible to participate in the following year's French Cup, in the 91/92 season, AS Pillay team reached the top 16 of the French Cup, a feat that caused quite a stir in France, as the core of the team Gong Lei also received trial invitations from many professional clubs such as Ligue 2 Le Mans and Guingamp.
Trial training for Paris Saint-Germain
However, the biggest surprise was the invitation of Ligue 1 giants Paris Saint-Germain, at the end of 1992, Gong Lei flew to Paris to start a six-month trial training, and in the days of training with the Paris Saint-Germain reserve team, Gong Lei really experienced the competitive pressure from the top five giants of The five major leagues in Europe.
"At that time, the Bosman Act had not yet been passed, and only 5 foreign players were allowed per team in Ligue 1 at that time, and when I tried, there were 10 Brazilian players in the Paris Saint-Germain reserve team who trained with the team like me," Gong Lei said as he recalled his short and unforgettable career in Paris.
1993 is the peak of Gong Lei's career, after experiencing the accumulation of Paris Saint-Germain trials, Gong Lei, who has seen the world, first returned to China to help Beijing team compete in the National Games and won the runner-up, returned to the Tahiti League and then scored 36 goals, against the sky performance even made the Taciti Football Association move the idea of naturalizing Gong Lei, but ultimately failed to make the trip for various reasons.
The only Chinese player to be nominated by The World Footballer of the Year
At the same time, in the 1993 World Footballer of the Year selection, the head coach of the Tahiti national team resolutely voted for the Chinese player: Gong Lei, so that Hu Gong Lei became the only Chinese player to be nominated by FIFA World Footballer of the Year.
Versatile celebrities
In 1997, due to family reasons, Gong Lei tearfully bid farewell to the AS Pillay club that he had played for for seven years, and it was even more regrettable that due to communications and diplomacy and other reasons, Gong Lei, who had killed all four parties in the Tahiti League, had never been able to get the call-up of the Chinese national team.
In the following four years, Gong Lei, who has passed the age of establishment, has successively played for many professional clubs such as Toronto Bobcats (MLS), Hong Kong South China (Hong Kong League), Toronto Olympics (MLS), etc. In 1999, Gong Lei was invited by his old teammate Dong Yugang to join Beijing Kuanli to compete in Jia B, a full decade after he was forced to "retire" and leave his hometown beijing.
In 2001, the 36-year-old Gong Lei announced his official retirement, ending his 17-year-long playing career; of course, the guidance of Gong Lei Palace after hanging up his boots was obviously more well known by the majority of fans, coaching Gansu Tianma to coach Gascoin, leading Guizhou Renhe and li chopping Guangzhou Evergrande to win the FA Cup, serving in Jiangsu Suning and Inter legend Sanetti exchanging shirts, etc., which are even more enjoyed by Chinese fans.
What is more worth mentioning is that the special label of Gong Lei's guidance of "versatile big coffee" is also amazing: first of all, Gong Lei's guidance has the qualification of AFC lecturer, he is the main speaker of the B-level coach training class; secondly, since 2002, Gong Lei's guidance has been invited to serve as a football commentator on the CCTV Sports Channel and left behind classic words such as "Little Kanter" and "65 to 78 minutes is the peak period for football matches"; in addition, the special identity of Gong Lei's guidance of "football lottery experts" has also become the "bright light" for many fans to participate in the lottery ”。
epilogue
Best wishes
Looking at The entire career trajectory of Gong Lei, the main theme of "not abandoning, not giving up" has always run through it, from young and promising to bad luck, from the mountains and rivers to the paradise, Gong Lei used his own practical actions to enlighten a new path to the domestic players who are now immersed in the gentle countryside and cannot extricate themselves: instead of sitting still in the environment of unpaid wages, it is better to go to a foreign land to open up their own piece of paradise; sincerely wish Gong Lei to guide the future life of smooth sailing!
(Lanling TCFB)