The Chinese Super League in the era of Jinyuan football once presented a false prosperity scene, and the addition of big-name foreign aid and foreign teachers made the Chinese Super League once praised by fans as the "sixth largest league in the world".
However, the booming Chinese Super League has not brought any help to improve the level of Chinese football, but has dragged the national team's hind legs. It is an indisputable fact that Chinese men's soccer has now fallen to the third-rate level in Asia and continues to decline.
Under such circumstances, Chinese players who can now play in Europe's high-level leagues are rare. In addition to Wu Lei, who played for Espanyol in La Liga, only Former Guoan defender Li Lei, who just joined the Swiss Super Grasshoppers this year, is left.
As an active international, Li Lei can be regarded as a left-footed defender at the top of Chinese football today. The defender player who had not been reused by coach Jia Xiuquan in henan finally ushered in a career explosion after the transfer to Guoan.
In the second season of joining the Guoan team, Li Lei gradually became the main left defender from the team's substitute, and fully played his physical fitness, strong running ability, fast speed and accurate cross footwork, firmly occupying the position of Guoan's main left-back.
Because of his outstanding performance in the league, Li Lei was also called into the national team by Lippi in 2017, and the Italian coach has always been very appreciative of Li Lei's ability, and even wanted to poach him to his old club Guangzhou Evergrande.
However, Li Lei, who was selected for the national football team in 2017, did not make his national team debut until March 2019. This is not because he is not capable enough, but because he has been plagued by leg injuries before.
In the 2017 season, in a match between Guoan and Hebei Huaxia Happiness, Li Lei was shoveled by his former teammate Zhang Chengdong with scissors and feet to shovel the knee joint of his left leg. Since then, Li Lei's knee has become his "Achilles heel." Every season, he missed a large number of national security and national team games due to knee injuries.
Despite this, Li Lei on the field still does not change his true color of "desperate three langs", as long as he can play the game, he will pay 100% efforts, such a professional attitude to the game, but also let Li Lei won the unanimous recognition of Beijing fans.
At the end of last season, the 29-year-old Li Lei did not renew his contract with Guoan Club, but chose to pursue his dream and play in the Europa League at a higher level, and the next stop of his career was the Grasshoppers in the Swiss Super League.
Soon after joining the Grasshoppers, Li Lei relied on good physical fitness and excellent personal skills to become the team's main left-back. In the last round of the Swiss Super League, Li Lei, who started the game, used his outstanding performance to help the Grasshoppers win 1-0 away to opponents Selvet, ending the previous four rounds of no winless.
As the most outstanding player in the team's defender line, Li Lei sent 21 long passes in this game, 13 of which were successful. From this data, although Li Lei has just joined the Grasshoppers, he has become the core player of the Grasshoppers' backline to launch an attack, which is really rare for a Chinese player.
Li Lei's performance in the team has also been recognized by the coaching staff of the Grasshoppers. It is believed that with Li Lei's current state, he can continue to become the main force of the Grasshoppers in the last few Swiss Super League games of the season. Here, we also wish Li Lei to be able to play every next game under the premise of ensuring his physical health, and use his excellent play in the league to win glory for the Chinese people!