On August 5, Beijing time, Dalian football star Zhu Yuanbao released the news of Gai Zengjun's death through Weibo, deeply expressing his condolences. Gai Zengjun was a member of the Chinese football team in the 1980s, and like Zhu Yuanbao, he was from Dalian and died at the age of 70. This is also another bad news for Dalian football after the death of Chi Shangbin in March.
Born in Dalian, Gai Zengjun is the third oldest of the famous "Gai's Four Tigers" in Chinese football. The "Four Tigers of Gai's" is a football family highly respected by fans, and Gai Zengsheng, Gai Zengxian, Gai Zengjun and Gai Zengchen were once called "saints, sages, kings and subjects". In addition to Gai Zengjun, the eldest brother Gai Zengsheng was also an international footballer of the older generation, and in the early 90s of the last century, he first proposed the idea of creating a football special zone.
Gai Zengjun's second brother Gai Zengxian once played for the football team of the Ministry of Public Security, and his younger brother Gai Zengchen was clear-headed, tactically aware, and paid attention to passing and receiving skills, and was an introverted player. He was also selected for the national football team and participated in the 7th Asian Cup. After retiring from retirement, he transformed into a coach and successively coached many teams such as Guoqing, Liaoning, and Jinde. It is worth mentioning that his son Gaiyang is also quite athleticistic, and the French Football Club of Marseille signed Gaiyang in 2004, making it the first Chinese to "hold hands" with the Ligue 1 giants.
After Gai Zengjun bid farewell to the field, he also embarked on the road of coaching like several brothers. In 1995, Gai Zengjun was officially appointed as the head coach of Dalian Wanda, becoming one of the founders of dalian football's glorious era. However, his coaching path at Dalian Wanda was not smooth, and he was "dismissed" in less than a season, replaced by Chi Shangbin, who led Dalian Wanda to create a record of 55 rounds of unbeaten league games after Chi Shangbin took office.
After leaving Dalian Wanda Football Team, Gai Zengjun successively served as the head coach of Bayi Team, Shenzhen Jinpeng Team, Guangzhou Songri Team and so on. In 2000, he led the Bayi team back to A, and during the top ten competitions the following year, Gai Zengjun was hired as the head of the technical research team to collect opponent information for the national team coaching team. In 2008, Gai Zengjun led the team to the top of the Central League during his tenure as the coach of Dalian Yiteng Team. After leaving Yi Teng Team, he successively served as the coach and acting head coach of Dalian Shide Echelon.
Because of its high prestige in Chinese football, the Chinese Football Association once hired him as a lecturer, mainly responsible for the training of some junior and intermediate coaches. In Gai Zengjun's football career, he has more than 20 years of coaching experience and rich coaching experience, which makes him know the Chinese league very well. He has made great contributions to Dalian football and Chinese football, and Zhu Yuanbao praised him as "the coach who won the most championships" in a tribute post.