Shanghai Harbor has officially announced Wu Lei's return to the team, and with the return of Wu Qiu Wang, there is no Chinese player in Europe's five major leagues. This also fully reflects the gap between Chinese football and the first-class level in Asia, because Japan and South Korea have a large number of foreign players who play in the five major leagues!
After Wu Lei left, there were no more Chinese players in the five major leagues
Before Wu Lei, Zhang Yuning had been to West Brom and Bremen, and Zhang Xizhe had been to Wolfsburg, but had not made any appearances. The question arises: Who was the last Chinese player to play in Europe's top five leagues? Zhang Chengdong!
On the last day of 2015, Vallecano lost 0-2 to Atletico, and Zhang Chengdong came on as a substitute in the 82nd minute to make his La Liga debut, becoming the first Chinese player to appear in La Liga. Unfortunately, that was also his only La Liga appearance,
Further back, on 23 April 2011, Ha Joon Min made his last appearance in the Bundesliga for Schalke 04. In the 1713 days in the middle, there have been no Chinese players on the field of the five major leagues in Europe!
So after Wu Lei, who will be the next Chinese player to play in the five major leagues? How long do we have to wait? I don't know, I'm afraid it may not appear in a short period of time.
Japan has a large number of foreigners, covering four major leagues
In contrast, the player with the most players in the five major leagues in the Asian powers is Japan.
The Premier League is effective for giants Arsenal's KenYang Fu' and Brighton's three-legged player. La Liga has a Barca youth academy, formerly playing for Real Madrid, and now plays in Mallorca.
A large number of Bundesliga people: Itakura Tsuki, who joined from Manchester City to Borussia Moncheng (assisted in the first round of the new Bundesliga); Europa League champions Eintracht Frankfurt's twin stars Daichi Kamada and Makoto Hasebe, Berlin United's Genki Haraguchi, Bochum's Takuma Asano, Freiburg's Don Yasuru (who scored in the first round of the new Bundesliga season), Stuttgart's Endo and Ito Hiroki, Ande Yoshida 04's Maya Yoshida.
In Ligue 1, there are Takumi Minamino, who has just moved from Liverpool to Monaco, Junya Ito of Lance, Adao of Toulouse, and Nariko Kawashima, goalkeeper of Strasbourg.
It can be said that from the goalkeeper to the defense, from the midfield to the forward, the Japanese players who stay in the five major leagues can completely form a starting lineup, and even the bench is almost full.
South Korea is not as numerous as Japan, but it has one asian brother
In terms of the number of players in the five major leagues, South Korea is not as good as Japan, but the quality is not inferior. In the Premier League, Son Xingyu, who flourished at Tottenham, is already a well-deserved "Asian brother", and is even considered by many to be the best player in Asian history. In addition, his national team forward partner Huang Xican played for Wolves.
In La Liga, there is Mallorca's "Korean Messi" Lee Gang-in. In the Bundesliga, there are Li Dongjun of Hertha Berlin, Zheng Youying of Freiburg, Lee Jae-sung of Mainz, and Lee Dong-jiong of Schalke 04. Serie A has Kim Hyun-jae, who moved to Napoli this summer, who once played in Beijing Guoan and has now landed in the five major leagues, becoming Koulibaly's successor.
It is worth mentioning that there are no Korean players in Ligue 1, and there are no Japanese players in Serie A.
In other Asian countries, there are also players from the top five leagues
In addition to Japan and South Korea, some other Asian countries also have players who play in the five major leagues. For example, Iran has Azmun in Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga and Gudos in Brentford in the Premier League. Uzbekistan has Roma center Shomurodov, and so on.
Even the Philippines, who plays for Holtmann in the Bundesliga in Bochum, played a wonderful play in the Bundesliga last season after scoring after five consecutive players, and also played against Bayern. In June, Holtman accepted the naturalization of the Philippines and made his debut in the Asian Cup qualifiers, only to beat his opponent with a debut goal in stoppage time!
Iraq has Midfielder Zidane Iqbal, who plays at Manchester United, whose skills are excellent, having made his Champions League debut and making several appearances for the Red Devils in pre-season this summer.
In short, with Wu Lei leaving Espanyol, the gap between the Chinese men's football team and the Asian strong team is getting bigger and bigger, although the next World Cup is expanding, but if there is no "escort" of the five major leagues and even the mainstream European leagues to stay in the foreign players, I am afraid we will not be able to qualify.