The only Chinese player who was nominated in the World Footballer selection, why is he not a national player?

Someone once asked whether the Jingkang scandal was the most shameful moment in Chinese history. The results were revealed in the comment area below. Netizens expressed that there is no shame in the Chinese men's football team that just lost to Syria?

The Chinese men’s football team is a very special existence. There are two kinds of football in the world, one is football and the other is the Chinese men’s football team. Other teams play to win, but Chinese football is to win. funny.

On days when there are no games, the Chinese men’s football team is the biggest source of happiness for China’s 1.4 billion people, and jokes about them can circle the earth three times. The famous variety show Tucao Conference even spent an entire 60-minute program on complaining about the Chinese men's football team, and everyone still found it unsatisfactory.

But what everyone doesn’t know is that in the history of Chinese football, there is also a player who has been nominated for the World Footballer. Guess who this player is?

Li Huitang? no. Although I admit that Li Huitang is the greatest star in our country after Gao Qiu and a world football king comparable to Pele, in his era, he was not nominated for the World Footballer.

Rong Zhixing? The spirit of Zhixing has inspired generations of people. Some people still miss the Chinese national team in 1982, which was the strongest national team in history. The combination of Rong Zhixing and Gu Guangming completely crushes the current national football team in terms of strength, but Rong Zhixing has not been nominated for the World Footballer.

So who does this honor belong to?

Belongs to Gong Lei! Yes, it was him, the man who brought the Guizhou team to relegation.

Gong Lei became famous in the Chinese youth team. In that national youth team, there was also Gong Lei’s teammate Gao Hongbo in the Beijing team. This should be the strongest Chinese national youth team in history. They were held in the Soviet Union In the World Youth Championship, they reached the quarterfinals but lost to the host Soviet Union and failed to go any further. Gong Lei is the captain of this team.

This should be Gong Lei’s highlight moment in domestic football.

However, in the Sixth National Games, the ambitious Beijing team did not achieve results commensurate with its strength, and only finished sixth in the National Games that year.

In anger, the relevant leaders in Beijing decided to carry out a major shake-up of the team, that is, almost all players of Gong Lei's age group were eliminated, leaving only Gao Hongbo and Gong Lei. You know At this time, these players were only 22 years old, and there were several main players of the Chinese youth team among them. In that era without free transfers, these players were eliminated, which meant that their football careers were over as soon as they began.

This shows that China’s football associations at all levels have been doing this consistently for the past 30 years.

In 1989, Gong Lei suffered a major injury that kept him away from the football field for a year and a half. He decided to study in Canada. He went through the retirement procedures with the Beijing team and traveled across the ocean to the other side of the ocean.

In 1988, he visited Tahiti with the Beijing team and participated in an invitational tournament. This time the Beijing team performed extremely well and only lost to Ligue 1 Metz in the final. The team finished second.

Gong Lei’s performance was remarkable and left a deep impression on Tahiti. At that time, some teams expressed their intention to pursue Gong Lei. It's just that the management was strict at that time, and no one thought about international transfers.

After Gong Lei arrived in Canada, Tahiti's AS Pillay actually sent people to chase him to Canada. Their sincerity moved Gong Lei, and he decided to join the Tahiti team, starting a period of Tahiti football The legend of the ball king.

During his time in Tahiti, he won eight championship trophies and won the title of best player and top scorer six times. In 1993, Gong Lei scored 36 goals in all levels of competition, showing extremely strong offensive power. In that year's World Footballer selection, the head coach of the Tahiti national team voted for Gong Lei without hesitation.

This is the only vote a Chinese player has received so far in the World Footballer selection. In a sense, this is a player who has never been selected for the national team. Should be the number one player in Chinese football.

However, this also maintains the fine tradition that Chinese national football players have never been nominated for the World Footballer.