"For many years, people have been hoping that Chinese football players will one day be able to break out of Asia and enter the World Series. Tonight, the Chinese football team has turned this wish into reality in the final match of the Olympic East Asian preliminaries here. He defeated the Japanese team 2-0 and qualified for the Olympic football game next year."
This is an excerpt from an article in the People’s Daily on October 27, 1987, titled "Victory over Japan by 2-0, Chinese Football Breaks Out of Asia".
Although a long time has passed, but now I can still feel the excitement and happiness that Chinese football brought to fans across the country at that moment.
Data map: Gao Fengwen (second from right).
Image source: Osports All Sports Photo Agency
But today, exactly 33 years later, a piece of bad news came.
He who led Chinese football "out of Asia and into the world" turned and left.
The Chinese Football Association confirmed on the 27th that the former national football coach Gao Fengwen, who led the Chinese team to the 1988 Seoul Olympics for the first time, passed away at the age of 81.
Time may erase the memory, but Gao Fengwen's story will forever be engraved in the history of Chinese football.
Screenshot of Chinese Football Association obituary
Lead the national football team to break out of Asia's first person
Statistics show that in 1939, Gao Fengwen was born in a small village in Kaiyuan County, Liaoning Province. After graduating from the Shenyang Sports School at the age of 17, he officially started his football life.
Gao Fengwen first entered the Shenyang Youth Football Team and won the National Youth Football League Championship with the team.
After the next year, he entered the Liaoning Football Team, and then was selected as the second national team of the men's football team and the national men's football team.
After retiring in 1973, Gao Fengwen opened a new chapter.
After coaching in Yemen and Burundi for more than 3 years, Gao Fengwen began to participate in the work of the Chinese National Youth Football Team at the end of 1979, and then became the national youth team coach.
In the two years of coaching, he led his team to win the second World Youth Championship finals for the first time.
Since then, Gao Fengwen coached the Chinese National Junior Team and led the team to the top 8 in the World Junior Championships.
Data map: Gao Fengwen.
Image source: Osports All Sports Photo Agency
After leading his team to compete in the world youth football competitions, Gao Fengwen got the opportunity to coach the national football team. This is also the starting point for him to lead Chinese football to "out of Asia and into the world".
In this season 33 years ago, Gao Fengwen led the national football team to defeat Japan 2-0 to win Olympic tickets.
This is the third time that the Chinese men's football team has won Olympic tickets since the founding of New China.
Prior to the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the Chinese delegation gave up its qualifications. Therefore, Seoul in 1988 became the first Chinese men's football appearance in the Olympic arena.
Since then, Chinese football has never broken through the Olympic preliminaries.
Only in the 2008 Olympic Games, as the host to appear on the Olympic football stadium.
"Black Three Minutes"
In the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Gao Fengwen's national football team lost 0:3 to Klinsmann's Federal Republic of Germany in the first match, lost to Sweden 0:2 in the second battle, and drew 0:0 with Tunisia in the final battle.
The bleak record has also become a turning point in Gao Fengwen's career as a coach.
In 1989, Gao Fengwen led the national football team to encounter "black three minutes" twice in the World Cup qualifiers: the national football team with a 1-0 lead in the second game was reversed by the UAE twice in the last 3 minutes; the final game against Qatar, the national football team was leading by 1 In the case of the ball, the opponent scored two goals in the last 3 minutes to overtake.
Two consecutive "black three minutes" shattered the national football's dream of entering the World Cup in Italy.
The football world has always regarded heroes by performance. Even if Gao Fengwen led the national football team to rush out of Asia, he has become a "sinner" in the eyes of many fans after experiencing a bleak record in the Olympics and World Preliminaries.
There were even fans sending blades and ropes to Gao Fengwen, asking him to "suicide in order to thank the Chinese."
Screenshot of fan comments below the official blog of the national football team
Fortunately, this is just an example.
More fans, remember the significance of Gao Fengwen to Chinese football.
At the 1990 Beijing Asian Games, the national football team lost to Thailand 0:1 in the quarter-finals. Gao Fengwen, who failed to fulfill the goal of "winning the Beijing Asian Games", announced his resignation after the game.
Cultivate many international players
After leaving office, Gao Fengwen did not leave his passion for football.
Faced with many clubs' rewards for coaching invitations, Gao Fengwen resolutely did a "drought job" and opened a football school in 1995.
Among his first batch of students were Du Zhenyu, Wang Dong, Zhang Xiaofei, Cao Tianbao and others. These players also became the champion team of Changchun Yatai ascent to the top of the Super League in 2007. Chen Tao, who once made a stunning appearance in the 2005 World Youth Championship, also came from Under Gao Fengwen's school.
According to statistics, Gao Fengwen's football school has trained hundreds of Chinese Super League and Chinese League A players.
Data map: Gao Fengwen.
Image source: Osports All Sports Photo Agency
The Chinese Football Association stated in the obituary that Gao Fengwen insisted on opening a football school, trained many young football talents, and made outstanding contributions to the Chinese football industry.
In an interview during his lifetime, Gao Fengwen said when talking about the football school: "Instead of always sighing and worrying about Chinese football, it is better to do something down-to-earth. I think this is all of my career, or an end here. , Try to draw an end here."
Someone once asked Gao Fengwen if he loves and hates football?
His answer was: "What do you hate? There is no hate, only love. This is the case all my life!"
Old man, go all the way!
(Author Bian Liqun)