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She is a phenomenal figure in Chinese women's football, and is Sun Wen, a women's football player known by countless fans as the "sonorous rose".
After retiring from the army, she had a promising job, but she resolutely resigned, and then went abroad for her overseas Chinese boyfriend, who had been in love for many years.
What was her upbringing? Why did she quit her decent job at the Shanghai Sports Bureau? How was her life after returning to her family?
The bloom of sonorous roses
In December 2000, Chinese female soccer player Sun Wen and American athlete Ackles won the Best Women's Soccer Player of the 20th Century Award issued by FIFA. The gold content of the award is very high, which is enough to show Sun Wen's excellence.
At this time, Sun Wen was just 27 years old, but she had already won many large and small awards in football competitions at home and abroad.
Many domestic football lovers like to call the women's football team of Sun Wen's era "sonorous rose", and there were very powerful players such as Sun Wen and Shui Qingxia in the national team at that time.
Sun Wen was first known to domestic fans at the first Women's World Cup held in Guangzhou in 1990.
At that time, Sun Wen was just 17 years old and was a young player who had just been selected for the national team. Because she is still young and has not participated in any major competitions, Sun Wen looked a little nervous before the competition.
Soon the group stage of the World Cup began, and in the second game, Sun Wen hit the goal with a long-range shot on target from outside the box, and she scored her first World Cup goal amid loud cheers from the fans.
Sun Wen's kick also opened up a new situation for the game, and the girls found their own form for a while, and quickly equalized the score with Denmark.
Unfortunately, although the performance of the Chinese women's football team was remarkable, they still lost to Sweden in the final four and missed future matches.
After the World Cup, although Sun Wen regretted the defeat in her heart, she and her teammates were not discouraged, but worked harder to train and prepare for future matches.
In 1994, Sun Wen and her teammates once again represented China in the second Women's World Cup in Sweden, and finally finished fourth in the second Women's World Cup.
What made Sun Wen's rose bloom and be known to the public was the Atlanta Olympics held in 1996.
The competition was held in Atlanta as scheduled, and the team members with tacit understanding went all the way through five levels and six generals, from the group stage to the final. The girls' path seemed to be going very well, but they also encountered many strong opponents in the middle.
The Chinese team met the winning Brazilian team in the semifinals, and Sun Wen led the team to stage a very classic match.
At that time, Sun Wen's teammates included Liu Ailing, Shui Qingxia and Fan Yunjie, etc., these are very powerful players, which now seem to be a very luxurious "all-star team".
After the start of the game, both teams played very cautiously at the beginning, and China's Sun Qingmei contributed the first goal of the game. Morale soared after seeing their teammates score, while the Brazilian players were on the defensive throughout the first half.
The Chinese women's football team entered the second half with a 1-0 lead.
But at the beginning of the second half, the intensity of the Brazilian team's approach suddenly increased by a notch, coupled with Sun Wen and others began to make some small mistakes frequently, and the Chinese team could not find a good time to attack for a while.
In the second half, we kept behind, but the Chinese team did not respond passively, but constantly looked for the flaws of the Brazilian team.
Finally in the 83rd minute, Wei Haiying kicked the ball again with a cross with the assist of Liu Ailing. The score came to 2-2, the game returned to a very anxious situation, and everyone left the suspense for the end.
At the end of the game, when everyone thought that there was a penalty shootout, the calm Sun Wen withstood huge pressure to pass the ball to Wei Haiying outside the box, and Wei Haiying locked the score at 3-2 with a powerful volley.
At the end of the game, the Chinese women's football team defeated the Brazilian team and entered the Olympic finals in an upset.
Although they lost to the United States by one goal in the final that followed, it was already very exciting for the Chinese women's football team to finish runner-up. Countless domestic fans know that the future of Chinese women's football can be expected, and this Olympic Games has also become a stepping stone for women's football to go international.
In 1999, the third World Cup was held in the United States, Sun Wen led the players to still rush out of the group stage with a strong momentum, and swept Ghana 7-0 in the group stage, and Sun Wen scored three goals in this hearty victory.
The semi-final was against old rivals Norway, this time against the Chinese women's football team played a 5-0 victory, although they lost to the United States again in the final, but the girls' results were still excellent.
After the game, she was hailed as the "top scorer" and "best player", and won the Golden Ball and Golden Boot awards, becoming the first player in history for a non-champion team to win the Golden Ball.
In November of the same year, Sun Wen led the team to continue to participate in the 12th Women's Asian Cup and won the championship. If Sun Wen shined alone before, this is the shining moment of the entire Chinese women's football team.
Later, Sun Wen was also named Miss 20th Century Football, and everyone called her "Maradona in a skirt".
At this moment, Sun Wen has won the award and got soft, and she seems to be glamorous and standing on the world's top podium, but in fact, there is a lot of unknown hardship and sadness.
The sadness behind the flash
Before Sun Wen competed in Atlanta in 1996, she had to have her meniscus removed due to a serious injury, but there were only five months left after the surgery.
But Sun Wen was unable to walk normally for a month after the operation, and even her legs could not bend normally.
At that time, many people around her advised her not to rush to participate in this competition, the most important thing is to maintain her health, after all, 5 months of recovery time is too hasty for a professional athlete.
In the face of the persuasion of the people around her, Sun Wen never had the idea of giving up in her heart, she said that there was only one thought in her head at that time, that is, believing that miracles would happen to her.
It is precisely because of her strength to believe in herself that everyone can see the strength of Chinese women's football.
Between 1995 and 2003, Sun Wen's Shanghai women's football team won a total of eight national league championships. Sun Wen not only has superb breakthrough skills, but also has a super capture of goal timing, and every game has her own highlight moment.
Her role on the field is not just a good striker, but the "soul" of the entire team.
The coach said that Sun Wen is born with an invisible appeal, when she is on the field, the players can instantly twist into a rope, she is the soul of the entire team, can lead everyone to win together.
However, Sun Wen's superb ball skills did not come in vain, and all her achievements came from her uninterrupted hard training since childhood.
In 1973, Sun Wen was born in a hospital in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, she was the second child in the family, and she also had an older sister named Sun Qian.
His father, Sun Zonggao, worked in Shanghai all year round, while his mother worked as a teacher at a school in Fuzhou. The husband and wife are thousands of miles apart, and often they can't see each other several times a year.
When Sun Wen was one and a half years old, her father took her to Shanghai to live with her grandparents, and only every year during the Chinese New Year would her father take her to Fuzhou to reunite with her mother.
In 1983, Sun Wen's mother was able to transfer to Shanghai to become a teacher at a primary school. Therefore, although Sun Wen was born in Fuzhou, she is a girl who grew up in Shanghai.
His father, Sun Zonggao, is a complete football fan, and when he is fine, he likes to watch football games or play football with friends, and likes to take his daughter Sun Wen with him.
In this way, under the influence of her father, the young Sun Wen gradually began to contact and understand the sport of football.
In 1985, Sun Wen had just graduated from primary school, and she loved playing football very much on weekdays, and when she applied for junior high school, she applied for Shanghai Datong Middle School and Shanghai Junior Sports School.
The former was because her parents very much wanted her to go to this middle school, and the latter because she already had a football dream in her heart at a young age.
The excellent Sun Wen received acceptance letters from these two middle schools that summer, but holding these two pieces of paper made it difficult for their family.
Although the parents are very supportive of cultivating their daughter's hobby of football, they have not thought about whether football can become the direction of their daughter's development in the future. So they still preferred to let their daughter go to Datong Middle School to attend junior high school, but at this time, Sun Wen had already made up her mind to go to a sports school.
Seeing that their daughter was so stubborn, and it was difficult to force her wishes, the parents agreed to let their daughter go to a sports school but must get the top three results in every exam.
Sun Wen naturally happily made a guarantee after seeing her parents' consent, and reported to the sports school on time after the start of school.
In addition to training football every day, she also has to learn some necessary cultural lessons during her days at sports school. When they calculate the total score at the end of the period, it is the football score plus the culture class score.
Sun Wen grasped both grades, neither of them fell behind, and finally fulfilled her promise to her parents, and each time her results were in the top three of the sports school.
With Sun Wen's talent and hard work, she quickly became an excellent football student in the sports school. In 1988, the Shanghai women's football team came to Shanghai Sports School to select football seedlings, and Sun Wen, who performed very well on weekdays, naturally became one of the students recommended by the school.
Sun Wen, who is just fifteen years old, is also full of confidence in herself and looks forward to being selected by the coach every day. But in the end, she was unexpectedly not selected, which shocked her and her parents.
The reason given by the coach is that Sun Wen is only one meter sixty-three tall, a little short compared to professional players, and may not be very good at results in the future, so she was not selected.
However, this reason made Sun Wen even more regretful, she thought that her strength was not enough and there was room for improvement, but the height problem was something she could not change.
After losing the election, Sun Wen's mood dropped to freezing point, and she even called her parents and cried while saying that she didn't want to practice football.
The parents were naturally very distressed when they saw their daughter's loss, and hurriedly rushed to the sports school to persuade their daughter not to give up halfway. Because if Sun Wen suddenly drops out of the sports school at her current age, the situation will be very embarrassing, because there will be no more middle schools to accept Sun Wen.
But Sun Wen, who was shocked, listened to her parents' bitter persuasion, and planned to give up football and not stay in the sports school.
Seeing this, the parents had to constantly appease Sun Wen, but what the three did not expect was that just when they were discussing the future direction of their daughter's life, the Shanghai women's football team suddenly changed their minds.
After the coach went back, he repeatedly watched the video of Sun Wen's training at school, and found that this girl was not tall but had full explosive power, and she had a talent that could not be underestimated in terms of shooting accuracy.
So they temporarily changed their minds and decided to recruit Sun Wen into the team and let her come to the team for training as soon as possible.
In 1990, at the age of 17, Sun Wen was selected by the national team for her excellent performance in Shanghai, and it was not long before she participated in the first Women's World Cup in Guangzhou.
It was also after that that female footballers such as Sun Wen, Shui Qingxia and Liu Ailing jointly created the pinnacle of Chinese women's football. In Sun Wen's heart, learning endlessly is not only football, but also some things outside the football field.
Life after retirement
Sun Wen once said that the domestic football atmosphere in her era was far less than it is now, and their income from playing football was even less.
But Sun Wen believes that there are many things that cannot be measured by money, and she remembers the cheers and recognition of the audience, which she said is the most precious thing that nothing can replace.
In the 2003 Women's World Cup, Sun Wen was once again in charge, at this time she was already a 30-year-old veteran, as an athlete, some new injuries and old injuries on her body were limiting her performance on the field.
But Sun Wen did not disappoint the fans, scoring a goal in the opening game to give China a 1-0 victory over Ghana, but China still stopped in the quarterfinals because of the loss to Canada.
With the end of the last game, Sun Wen also announced her official retirement to the media.
She explained that her body was overwhelmed by the intense games and tasks she was doing, and she chose to leave her mission to the younger generation of players.
Fans expressed their understanding and respect for the curtain call of this "sonorous rose", and Sun Wen has left a brilliant enough mark in the history of Chinese women's football.
After retiring to the front line, Sun Wen did not leave her football career, and after retiring, she chose to work as a sports reporter at the Xinmin Evening News, using her professional knowledge to interview and explain on the field.
During her time as a sports reporter, Sun Wen watched many games. She had already retired when she saw other women's soccer girls running on the field, and the soccer flame that had not been extinguished in her heart was ignited again.
So at the end of 2005, Sun Wen chose to continue to participate in the training of the national team, but this attempt also completely lit up her body, and she chose to retire again a year after her comeback.
In November 2006, Sun Wen was elected as the deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Football Association and the deputy director of the management center, but she was not used to this decent but boring job, and thought that she did not have excellent management skills, so she voluntarily left her post after working for a period of time.
At this time, Sun Wen was 33 years old, but she was not married, which worried her parents, who often whispered in her ear that she should care more about her lifelong affairs.
But Sun Wen is not in a hurry about this matter, Zhang Dexiang is Sun Wen's friend, and is currently serving as the editor-in-chief of Shanghai Wednesday.
Seeing that his friend's marriage has not yet settled, he put her information on the blind date section of the magazine just launched after obtaining Sun Wen's consent.
As soon as this news came out, many fans talked about Sun Wen's personal situation for a while. Everyone is speculating about the reason why Sun Wen has been unmarried, and even some rumors have begun to become more and more outrageous, saying that she is going to become a monk.
But Sun Wen was unmoved, because in her heart, there was one more important thing than getting married, and that was to complete her studies that she had delayed for years because of competitions and training.
In the 2006 graduation season, Sun Wen also successfully obtained a bachelor's degree from Fudan University, and she completed a dream in her life plan.
It was also at this time that an old friend of Sun Wen got in touch with her again, not so much a friend as a suitor of Sun Wen for many years.
This man is an overseas Chinese who stayed in Shanghai to work after graduating from graduate school, and it was also in Shanghai that this man met and fell in love with Sun Wen.
He is not a figure in the sports circle, and he even knows nothing about football, but he is deeply fascinated by Sun Wen. He expressed his affection to Sun Wen early, but Sun Wen repeatedly rejected him on the grounds that he was busy with his studies.
But he recently heard the news of Sun Wen's graduation, so he hurriedly contacted Sun Wen again, hoping that she could give him a chance.
Sun Wen, who has now completed her studies, thought that he had chased him for so many years and had always been very attentive to himself, so she decided to try to start this relationship.
After the two officially fell in love, although they were not in one country, they would tell each other their thoughts through the Internet every day. The exotic relationship did not stump the two of them, but made the relationship more testable.
In 2009, the two had been in love for 3 years and got married in Shanghai in November.
Except for a marriage contract, the two did not make a big deal about their own wedding. Because they all feel that marriage is their own business, and they don't need to do something meaningless for others to see.
"Getting married is not a game, it's a private matter for two people, and there is no need to show it to others."
At this time, although Sun Wen was still paying attention to the football career, she had already focused her life on her family, and she devoted more time to accompanying her husband and running her marriage.
In 2010, Sun Wen was invited to be the head coach of the Shanghai women's football team, but three years later she chose to quit her job at the Shanghai Football Association and follow her husband to live in Canada.
In 2017, Sun Wen, who had been married for many years and had no son and a half daughter, chose to return to the motherland and served as vice president of the Chinese Football Association in 2019.
Now Sun Wen is almost 50 years old, although she and her husband are separated, the relationship between the husband and wife has always been very good, but unfortunately the two have never had children.
The first half of Sun Wen's life can be said to be full of legends, and the Chinese women's football team she led has not only become a memory for a generation but also made great contributions to the cause of Chinese football.
After retiring from the army, it is also a good choice for her to return to her family and live well with her husband every day.
Although there are still regrets in Sun Wen's life now, she has a successful career and a harmonious husband and wife, and we believe that her future life will become more and more complete!
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