Staying abroad has always been an unavoidable hot topic for Chinese football. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The earliest history of Chinese football in foreign countries can be traced back to the national team in the 50s, when the whole team studied in Hungary, a football power at that time, received advanced theories and training in the country, and even drew with its national team in the warm-up match.

Later, due to well-known special historical reasons, the Chinese Football Association announced its withdrawal from FIFA in 1958, and Chinese football basically lost communication with the outside world, and the history of Chinese football in foreign countries was interrupted for a long time. It was not until after that period of history passed that Chinese football slowly resumed international football exchanges.

With the support of then FIFA President Havelange, China put forward a desire to return to FIFA in 1979, and officially approved this request in 1980 (this gentleman is still very helpful to Chinese football, and it is also with his support that China hosted the first Women's World Cup in 1991, and I would like to remember this old friend of Chinese football who just passed away two months ago. ）。

In the mid-to-late eighties of the last century, a large number of Chinese players began to play abroad, and those players basically won the recognition of the trial club, including Xie Yuxin, who was the first to go out, when he was only 19 years old, he was invited to the Zvaru club in the Netherlands for trial, after half a year of trial, when he was about to sign a contract, because Xie Yuxin chose to return to China at the National Games, he could not officially enter the European arena.

But then players such as Gu Guangming, Jia Xiuquan and Liu Haiguang began to go to Germany and Yugoslavia to participate in European leagues, and Chinese players have official European competition records.

In 1990, Gong Lei went to Tahiti, a French territory in the South Pacific, and in 7 years, he helped the team win 8 league and cup titles, and he himself won the title of best player and top scorer 6 times. In 1993, Gong Lei was nominated as a candidate for World Footballer by the coach of the Tahiti team. At the same time, he was later nicknamed the "Tahitian Football King" by fans, and he was accompanied by Tao Wei, who later died suddenly and died young.

But the real start of formal overseas study will not be until after the formal professionalization of Chinese football. Starting with Yang Chen joining the Bundesliga Frankfurt team, in the short period from 1998 to 2001, Li Jinyu, Fan Zhiyi, Sun Jihai and other players joined the tide of staying abroad, setting off the first wave of overseas upsurge.

The second wave of Chinese players staying abroad occurred around the 2002 World Cup. In 2002, Sun Jihai transferred to Manchester City in League One for 2 million pounds, creating the highest value of an international transfer for a Chinese player at that time, and a year later he was promoted to the Premier League with the team, becoming the first Chinese player to score in the Premier League.

In addition to Sun Jihai, there were many Chinese players playing in top foreign leagues in those years, especially in the 2006-2007 season, a total of 13 Chinese players stayed abroad, and 6 played in the five major leagues, including 4 in the Premier League, Dong Fangzhuo and Sun Jihai represented Manchester United and Manchester City respectively, and Zheng Zhi and Li Tie played for Charlton Athletic and Sheffield United respectively.

During this period, Dong Fangzhuo won the Premier League and Champions League trophies with Manchester United, Sun Xiang won the Eredivisie championship and played in the Champions League, and Sun Jihai scored in the UEFA Cup...... The term Chinese overseas players frequently appears in the European media, representing a rare glorious moment in Chinese football, but unfortunately, it is gradually withering after a flash in the pan.

The last Chinese player to play in Europe was Hao Junmin, who returned to Shandong Luneng from Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga in 2011, and since then Chinese players have entered a gap in Europe's top five leagues.

Japan and South Korea, both in East Asia, have been compared to China. While Chinese players stumbled on the road to stay abroad, the road for Japanese and South Korean players to stay abroad became smoother and smoother. A large number of Japanese players such as Hidetoshi Nakata, Shinji Kagawa, Keisuke Honda, and Shunsuke Nakamura have become influential figures in various competitions. South Korean players such as Son Heung-min, Ji Sung-yong, Kim Jin-so, and Ji Dong-won have also written their own glorious history.

This season, there are 17 Japanese players and 8 Korean players in the five major leagues, and if you count the second-rate leagues in Europe and the secondary leagues of the five major leagues, the total number of Japanese players has reached 31, and the number of Korean players has also reached 20. If you count the leagues at all levels in Europe, the number of players in Japan and South Korea is even more impressive.

In fact, the number of people staying abroad corresponds to the level of the national teams of these three East Asian countries. The players of Japan and South Korea are like fish in water in Europe, and the corresponding is the steady improvement of the level of the Japanese and South Korean national teams. In contrast, in recent years, Chinese football has continued to decline, missing the World Cup for three consecutive years, and Chinese players have fewer and fewer opportunities to show to the world, which also makes it impossible for Chinese players to be discovered and recognized in time. Liuyang is also in the fault stage.

Therefore, although the Longteng team has received so many faxes of player inquiries, there are very few foreign teams that are willing to really put forward the purchase demand, most of them are proposed trials, and the only one that directly proposes to buy is only one club, Sporting Lisbon, and the player they want to buy is Xu Mingyu. The two players who were proposed for trial were Qin Minghao and Li Yun.

Sporting Lisbon's request to buy was very sincere, and they gave a purchase request of 100w euros. This is a very generous player who is still 5 years away from 18 years old in non-football powerhouses.

It's just that this time for the purchase, Zhang Sheng still needs to consult Xu Mingyu and Xu Mingyu's father's opinions. After all, as early as the last inquiry stage of Sporting Lisbon, Zhang Sheng had already communicated with Xu Mingyu's father, Xu Angran, and things like Liuyang really need to be based on the opinions of the players themselves.

The day after receiving the fax, Zhang Sheng called Xu Mingyu and Xu Mingyu's father and began to discuss the issue of staying abroad this time.

In the face of Zhang Sheng's request for the purchase of European teams, Xu Mingyu still seemed very excited, after all, every player has a dream of staying abroad in his heart. When Xu Mingyu was a child, he had a study abroad experience in Portugal. But there is a world of difference between that study abroad and this time being bought. Because in China, there are many kinds of foreign stays.

The early retention of Chinese players was basically based on the purchase of the opposing team. But after 2010, because of the scarcity and preciousness of foreign players, China's foreign players have become a little sour under the operation of well-intentioned people.

In the early days, most of the overseas players were individuals who stayed abroad, that is, players relied on their own personal abilities to gain the attention of foreign teams, and with the decline of Chinese players' ability, they also began to gradually turn to the mode of agency responsible for operation and club collective training.

So even if we don't see the situation of players at the national team level staying abroad, we have heard countless hype in various news and rumors, either who went to which country to play today, or which club or provincial football association will go to which European country with a large number of players tomorrow to study abroad. And these study abroad things reached a climax in 2015 and 2016.

As of December 2015, the total number of players trained in Spain for the Wanda Spanish Study Abroad Program reached 112, while the total number of players studying abroad that year was only 125. For this reason, the effectiveness of training in such group projects has also been questioned.

In September of that year, China's U15 national youth, which had a number of Wanda players, performed poorly in the preliminary round of the Asian U16 Championship and missed the main event. In the Weifang Cup in July of that year, the performance of Luneng DB United, which returned from training in Brazil, was even worse, not only being vulnerable in front of European teams, but even losing to the 99 national youth selection team with an average age of nearly 2 years younger.

According to the latest version of FIFA's transfer rules, which came into effect in May this year, only players over the age of 18 can make international transfers. This concise and concise regulation undoubtedly debunks the true face of many overseas projects under the packaging of the media, that is to say, according to FIFA regulations, whether it is the domestic players of DB Club acquired by Luneng or the students of Atletico Madrid Club invested by Wanda Group, they cannot make international transfers before the age of 18.

Because they do not have the qualifications to officially register with the local football association, they have no official matches to play abroad, which is nothing more than an extra halo on the players.

Among them, Xu Mingyu's original experience of studying abroad is one of the above, that is, the family spent money to find a relationship to let the local football association select and send them to Portugal to participate in the study abroad, and they generally only participate in the echelon training, and it is difficult to play official games.

In Portugal, for example, Xu Mingyu went to Portugal, where only five Chinese players played in the Portuguese league in 2010-11, that number had grown to a staggering 79 in 2015-16. This is not only related to the Portuguese overseas study program once led by the Chinese Football Association, but also Portugal's developed and perfect youth training system and relatively stagnant economic situation have provided favorable conditions for this.

These Portuguese players are basically managed by 7 to 8 different sports teams or agencies. Their situation varies, from a team of businessmen composed of overseas Chinese in Portugal, to brokerage companies with official backgrounds, and more from a team of senior brokers in China.

This is also the reason why Xu Mingyu was despised by other players after he went to Portugal, after all, a player who was sent from a weak football country through money and interpersonal relationships must be despised by his teammates, even if the player himself is young, he cannot control his own destiny. (To be continued.) )