Zheng Zhi
Personal information | |||
---|---|---|---|
Full name | Zheng Zhi | ||
Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) | ||
Position(s) | Defensive Midfielder | ||
Team information | |||
Current team | Guangzhou Evergrande | ||
Number | 10 | ||
Youth career | |||
1999–2000 | Liaoning Chuangye | ||
Senior career* | |||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
2001–2004 | Shenzhen Jianlibao | 77 | (14) |
2005–2007 | Shandong Luneng Taishan | 44 | (31) |
2007 | → Charlton Athletic (loan) | 12 | (1) |
2007–2009 | Charlton Athletic | 55 | (8) |
2009–2010 | Celtic | 16 | (1) |
2010– | Guangzhou Evergrande | 45 | (10) |
International career‡ | |||
2002– | China PR | 60 | (15) |
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 25 May 2012 ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 15 November 2011 |
Zheng Zhi (simplified Chinese: 郑智; traditional Chinese: 鄭智; pinyin: Zhèng Zhì, born August 20, 1980 in Shenyang, Liaoning) is a Chinese professional association football player who currently plays for Guangzhou Evergrande. Starting his career as a defender, he was moved into central midfield by his coach at Shenzhen Jianlibao and experienced immediate success there by winning the 2004 Chinese Super League title with them. A move to Shandong Luneng Taishan saw a prolific period in Zheng's career and he became the captain of the Chinese national football team, which then led to moves to Charlton Athletic and Celtic.
Club career
China
In 1999, his club Liaoning Chuangye were involved in legal trouble and all assets of the club were frozen, including player transfers rights. After a year without playing professional football, he was transferred to Shenzhen Jianlibao, then coached by Zhu Guanghu, his former coach in the U-23 national team. He was deployed as a defender at first and made the transition to a playmaker that rose him to prominence. However, He still played as a defender under Arie Haan in the national team.
Charlton Athletic
He joined Charlton Athletic on loan on 29 December 2006 until the end of the season, with Charlton having an option to buy him. He was the first official signing of new manager Alan Pardew, though he had been on trial with the Addicks in November 2006 under previous manager Les Reed. He had scored 29 goals for Shandong Luneng as they won the national league title earlier in the year. Zheng made his Premier League debut against Manchester United at Old Trafford when he replaced the injured Amdy Faye. His first goal came on his first start against Newcastle United in March 2007.[1]
He returned to his parent club, Shandong Luneng, at the end of the 2006–07 season under the terms of his loan deal. He played once more for Shandong in 2007, in a 6–1 defeat to Beijing Guoan, before he returned to England to join Charlton in a permanent deal in August 2007. He joined for a fee of £2million and signed a two-year contract.[2] In a March 2008 edition of British football magazine FourFourTwo, Zheng was voted the fifth best player in the Football League.[3] He scored a total of seven league goals in the Championship season. However, because of the number of games he played for both Charlton and the Chinese national team he was less effective in the second half of the season as a result of fatigue.[4]
In the summer of 2008, Zheng was heavily linked with a transfer to West Bromwich Albion. Although Charlton were in negotiations with the Baggies up to the end of the transfer window,[5] the transfer failed to materialise.
On 8 July 2009, Zheng left Charlton after failing to agree a new contract with the London club following its relegation to third-tier League One.[6]
Celtic
On 1 September 2009 Zheng became the second Chinese player, after Du Wei, to sign for Celtic after penning a two-year contract.[7] Manager Tony Mowbray affirmed his long held admiration for the player and expressed his delight in the signing.[8] Zheng is not able to play in Celtic's Europa League group games after UEFA confirmed he was not registered in time.[9]
He made his debut on 4 October 2009, in the Old Firm derby against Rangers. He was fouled in the box to give Celtic a penalty, scored by Aiden McGeady to make it 2–1 to Rangers. Zheng was substituted for Paddy McCourt after 70 minutes.[10]
Zheng scored his first Celtic goal in the Scottish Premier League match against Heart of Midlothian at Tynecastle on 8 May 2010. Zheng scored the second goal in a 2–1 victory with a scissor kick from 12 yards out. On 1 July 2010, he was released by Celtic.[11]
Return to China
On 28 June 2010, Zheng return to China and signed for China League One club Guangzhou FC on a free transfer.[12][13] He made his League One debut against Hubei Greenery on 17 July 2010 and scored first goal for Guangzhou 4 days later, in a 10-0 home win against Nanjing Yoyo. In season 2010, Zheng scored 5 goals in 11 appearances as Guangzhou finished first place in the League One and won promotion back to the top flight at the first attempt.
Zheng became the captain of the club as former team captain Li Zhihai left for Guangdong Sunray Cave in the 2011 league season. He scored 5 times in 25 appearances and captained Guangzhou successfully achieve Super League champion for the first time in the club's history as Zheng won his third Super League title with three different clubs.
International career
Zheng joined the U-23 national team as the only player from the third division Yi League. Under Bobby Houghton, he mainly appeared at the right back position. After Zhu Guanghu took over the national team, he appeared in midfield more often.
Zheng was the captain of the Chinese national team that competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[14]
Club career stats
Correct as of 30 May 2012
Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2000 |Liaoning Chuangye |League Two | || || || || || || || || || |- |2001 |rowspan="4"|Shenzhen Jianlibao |rowspan="3"|Jia A |23||3|| || || || || || || 23||3 |- |2002 |22||6|| || || || || || || 22||6 |- |2003 |16||3|| || || || || || || 16||3 |- |2004 |Super League |16||2|| 5||4|| 2||1|| || || 23||7 |- |2005 |rowspan="3"|Shandong Luneng Taishan |rowspan="3"|Super League |18||10||4||2||4||4||6||5||32||21 |- |2006 |26||21||6||1||0||0||0||0||32||22 |- |2007 |1||0||0||0||0||0||3||2||4||2 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2006–07 |rowspan="3"|Charlton Athletic |Premier League |12||1||0||0||0||0||0||0||12||1 |- |2007–08 |rowspan="2"|Championship |42||7||2||1||1||1||0||0||45||9 |- |2008–09 |11||1||0||0||0||0||0||0||11||1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2009–10 ||Celtic |Scottish Premier League |16||1||2||0||1||0||0||0||19||1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2010 |rowspan="3"|Guangzhou Evergrande |League One ||11||5||-||-||-||-||-||-||11||5 |- |2011 |rowspan="2"|Super League ||25||5||2||0||-||-||-||-||27||5 |- |2012 |9||0||0||0||-||-||7||0||16||0 |- Template:Football player statistics 3 171||54 ||17 ||7 ||6 ||5 ||16 ||7 ||210 ||73 Template:Football player statistics 3 81||10 ||4 ||1 ||2 ||1 ||0 ||0 ||87 ||12 Template:Football player statistics 5 252||65 ||21 ||8 ||8 ||6 ||16 ||7 ||297 ||86 Template:Football player statistics end
International goals
Goal | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Competition |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 29 January 2004 | Shanghai, China PR | North Macedonia | 1–0 | Friendly |
2 | 7 February 2004 | Shenzhen, China PR | Finland | 2–1 | Friendly |
3 | 17 March 2004 | Guangzhou, China PR | Myanmar | 2–0 | Friendly |
4 | 1 June 2004 | Beijing, China PR | Hungary | 2–1 | Friendly |
5 | 10 July 2004 | Hohhot, China PR | United Arab Emirates | 2–2 | Friendly |
6 | 10 July 2004 | Hohhot, China PR | United Arab Emirates | 2–2 | Friendly |
7 | 17 July 2004 | Beijing, China PR | Bahrain | 2–2 | 2004 AFC Asian Cup |
8 | 30 July 2004 | Beijing, China PR | Iraq | 3–0 | 2004 AFC Asian Cup |
9 | 30 July 2004 | Beijing, China PR | Iraq | 3–0 | 2004 AFC Asian Cup |
10 | 22 June 2005 | Guangzhou, China PR | Costa Rica | 2–0 | Friendly |
11 | 7 June 2006 | Saint-Étienne, France | France | 1–3 | Friendly |
12 | 6 February 2008 | Al Ahli, Dubai | Iraq | 1–1 | 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification |
13 | 2 September 2011 | Kunming, China | Singapore | 2-1 | 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification |
Honours
Club
- Guangzhou Evergrande
- Chinese Super League: 2011
- China League One: 2010
International
Individual
- Chinese Super League Player of the Year: 2002, 2006
- 2004 AFC Asian Cup All-Star Team
See also
References
- ^ "Charlton 2–0 Newcastle". BBC. 18 March 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2009.
- ^ "Charlton snap up McLeod & Zheng". BBC Sport. 2007-08-09. Retrieved 2007-08-09.
- ^ "FourFourTwo 50 Best Football League Players". FourFourTwo. 2008-03-02. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
- ^ "China's soccer exports face uncertain future". SINA English. 2008-05-06. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
- ^ "Baggies continue Zheng talks". Sky Sports. 2008-08-29. Retrieved 2008-09-02.
- ^ "Midfielder Zheng leaves Charlton". BBC Sport. 2009-07-08. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
- ^ "Celtic sign China captain Zheng Zhi". The Herald. 1 September 2009. Retrieved 1 September 2009.
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(help) - ^ "Zheng Zhi gets green light from SFA". The Celtic Football Club. 4 September 2009. Retrieved 4 September 2009.
{{cite news}}
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(help) - ^ http://www.sportinglife.com/football/cups/uefacup/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=soccer/09/09/02/SOCCER_Celtic_Nightlead.html
- ^ "Rangers 2–1 Celtic". BBC Sport. 4 October 2009. Retrieved 5 March 2010.
- ^ "Celtic release midfielders Zhi and Mizuno". BBC Sport. 1 July 2010.
- ^ "郑智穿28号战袍 不当只有虚名的英超球员". espnstar. 28 June 2010. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
- ^ China seeks 'gold' from World Cup
- ^ Zheng and Dong head China soccer squad for Beijing | Reuters
External links
- Zheng Zhi player profile at celticfc.net
- Zheng Zhi player profile at cafc.co.uk
- Zheng Zhi at Soccerbase
Sporting positions | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by | China national football team captain 2006–2008 |
Succeeded by |
Preceded by | China national football team captain 2011 |
Succeeded by |
- 1980 births
- Living people
- People from Shenyang
- Association football midfielders
- Chinese footballers
- China international footballers
- Shenzhen Shangqingyin players
- Shandong Luneng Taishan F.C. players
- Charlton Athletic F.C. players
- Chinese expatriate footballers
- Expatriate footballers in England
- Premier League players
- The Football League players
- Celtic F.C. players
- Expatriate footballers in Scotland
- Scottish Premier League players
- Guangzhou FC players
- 2004 AFC Asian Cup players
- 2007 AFC Asian Cup players
- Footballers at the 2008 Summer Olympics
- Olympic footballers of China