To this day, Wu Lei’s journey abroad has officially entered its third year.
On January 28, 2019, Spaniard official Xuan Wulei joined.
The picture shows the posters released simultaneously at that time.
For the past two full years, the "Nuclear 7" made in China has risen and fallen with the Spaniards in Spanish football.
Starting from the starting point of La Liga, he has gone to the Europa League and experienced painful relegation. Now, the roller coaster that Wu Lei is riding on is at another low point.
The player's sports career is fleeting. For Wu Lei, who will turn 30 by the end of the year, every minute of playing time is precious.
But the reality is cruel. He has not been able to start a game on behalf of the home team in the league for 56 consecutive days, which has forced Wu Lei to a dark corner of studying abroad.
Data map: On April 25, 2019, Wu Lei represented the Spaniard in the game.
Picture source: Oriental IC
You know, Wu Lei is no longer a player in the five major leagues, and the enemy he faces is no longer the star-studded Real Madrid and Barcelona.
After falling from La Liga to Western B, Wu Lei's state has not seen the light spot for a long time, and people's expectations for him are still rapidly dissipating.
Remember Wu Lei when he debuted on the La Liga stage two years ago?
Under the spotlight of the domestic media, he is like a well-deserved leader of Chinese football. Fans who hear the chicken "wu" wait for him before the dawn of each game day, and the "wu addiction" can't stop.
Wu Lei sent a message to celebrate after scoring his first goal in La Liga.
When first arrived, everything is fresh.
During that period, Wu Lei and the Chinese fans were thousands of miles away, but they had similar fanatical beliefs.
Playing time and performance on the field, through the lens, are almost disassembled into fragments.
The Spaniard's post-match comment from the Marca Newspaper said that all words related to Wu Lei will be followed by tens of millions of fans.
Until the buzzer stepped into the Europa League in the new season, Wu Lei and the Spaniard spent the second half of the season with a particularly successful season.
Before the arrival of the Chinese forward, this team was still struggling to relegation, with victories, and with the rising rankings on the standings, the heat wave swept behind Wu Lei.
Wu Lei began serializing Wu Lei's Weekly Diaries in May 2019.
Immediately afterwards, the Europa League, Copa del Rey and the league played in the third line. The coach and the center forward went away. The Spaniard fell into the deep valley in another season. Wu Lei on the wave naturally had nowhere to get out.
Some people say that relegation is just a nightmare for the Spaniards, and it is by no means Wu Lei's, because the second team will achieve a better Wu Lei.
Facts have proved that this group of onlookers are still a miss.
Wu Lei only performed occasionally.
As the "hope of the whole village", the bitterness, anxiety and helplessness in it are all in them.
Studying abroad seems to have profound significance to Chinese football.
Many fans prefer to regard the Chinese who go to Europe to play football as a kind of fire, or beacon.
Before Wu Lei, Chinese football has been in the five major league starting lineups for 2,857 days.
Data map: Wu Lei broke the goal in the 2019 UEFA Europa League qualifiers.
Image source: Sipaphoto
Ever since, when Wu Lei rushed to La Liga with the image of "the hope of the whole village", we in the east of the world could hardly restrain our inner excitement.
For a while, it seemed to have forgotten the pain of the national football team against Iran and South Korea in the Asian Cup that had just ended.
To this day, there are still many voices who are still willing to compare Wu Lei with Sun Xingmin, the "Asian Brother".
But the reality is that the latter won the Asian Football Confederation’s best overseas player of the year 4 times in 6 years, and Wu Lei’s dream of a Chinese Golden Globe hat-trick was just broken by Wu Xi, who led the team to win the Chinese Super League.
Message from Wu Lei Video Connection Wu Xi
Compared with Wu Lei, who spent two years abroad, Sun Xingmin, who left his hometown at the age of 16, is a veritable predecessor despite his younger age.
He made his debut from Hamburg, became famous in Leverkusen, and once again blossomed in the Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur. The journey of the "Asian King" is difficult to reproduce.
However, Wu Lei is still the most competitive player in Chinese football today. This can also be heard from Wu Xi, who broke his rule of the Golden Globe Awards.
"If I could play in the Premier League, I would be very happy because I really enjoy the high-intensity physical confrontation there. But my body is relatively thin and it may be difficult to cope with that kind of request." After winning the China Golden Globes, Wu Xi said in an interview with the media.
Data map: Jiangsu Suning captain Wu Xi (second from right) celebrated the goal during the game.
Image source: Osports All Sports Photo Agency
Looking around, there are players who can compete in high-level European leagues in China. It is not an exaggeration to describe them as rare. However, Chinese football has been going back and there was a glorious time.
The Premier League, which made Wu Xi "daunt", was once the main battlefield where football star Sun Jihai fought all the year round.
After joining Manchester City in 2001, after his debut season with the team as a champion, Sun Jihai quickly gained a foothold. In 6 years of his journey, he has played 123 times for Manchester City in the Premier League, scored 3 goals, and staged a halftime run. , The stunning moment of the goal line sliding tackle to save the ball.
In 2015, Sun Jihai was officially elected to the England Football Hall of Fame as a Manchester City star.
Even the Premier League once staged a Chinese Derby.
In 2007, when Sun Jihai made the first 100 milestones for Manchester City, it was the young Zheng Zhi who stood in front of him.
Zheng Zhi, who will support the national football team in the future, joined Charlton on loan at that time.
The rivalry between Red 9 and Blue 17 has never been played on the Premier League stage since then.
Data map: On April 6, 2007, Sun Jihai (right) and Zheng Zhi competed in the 32nd round of the 2006-07 Premier League.
Image source: Xinhuanet
Of course, if you count down, there are many successful cases of Chinese players studying abroad, such as Frankfurt's relegation hero Yang Chen, such as Crystal Palace captain Fan Zhiyi, and China's Champions League leader Sun Xiang... But those past events have been sealed in Chinese football early. Deep in history.
In the past few years, Zhang Yuning, Zhang Chengdong, and Zhang Xizhe have only played 10 minutes in the five major leagues.
Wu Lei, who changed all of this, is fighting against fate on the ground he insists on.
The first contract with the Spaniard was originally due to expire at the end of 2020, and after the end of last year's season, the fate of the team's relegation was in sight, but this did not shake Wu Lei's determination to stay in the team.
On August 17, 2020, the Spanish team official announced a contract extension agreement with Chinese forward Wu Lei.
The picture shows the posters released simultaneously at that time.
"From the beginning to the end I have been very determined to stay in the Spaniard. Because the Spaniard is the first team I came to Europe, it means very different to me." After reaching a four-year contract extension with the team After the agreement, Wu Lei bluntly expressed the reason for staying in the team.
He hopes to stay where his dream started and fight for the Spaniard to return to La Liga.
Of course you can say that his current status is far from his ambitions when he renewed his contract.
But as long as he is there, the light at the end of the Chinese football overseas passage will be on.
And we should also understand that he should not bear the weight of this "fire of hope" abroad.
No matter how hard the life is, I still have to live it day by day.
In any case, another year for Wu Lei has begun.
(Reporter Wang Sishuo)