Li Tie

Li Tie

Personal information
Full name	Tie Li
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Position(s)	Midfielder
Team information
Current team	Chengdu Blades
Number	8
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 12:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

For the director, see Li Tie (director).

Template:Chinese name Li Tie (simplified Chinese: 李铁) (born September 18, 1977 in Liaoning) is a Chinese professional footballer currently playing for Chengdu Blades.

Club career

Early career

Midfielder Li began his football career at the age of 15, joining Liaoning Province Youth System in 1992. The following year he was sent to Brazil for a five-year training programme sponsored by Jianlibao and became the captain of the China Jianlibao Youth Football Team.

The cream of his generation of Chinese football players, Li went to the Premier League in a deal brokered between sponsors Kejian and his new club, Everton.

Despite initial scepticism on Merseyside, his first season at Goodison Park was a surprising success. Manager David Moyes played him in 31 league games, mostly in the starting line-up, where his displays as a defensive midfielder helped the club clinch a 7th place finish.

Everton battled with his former club Liaoning to sign him on a permanent basis after the 2002–03 season and the deal was finally closed in August 2003 for an undisclosed fee with Li signing a three-year deal. It is thought that Everton paid between £0.5m to £1.5m for the midfielder, although the price was hugely offset by outside sponsorship.

Everton

Unfortunately, Li's 2003–04 season was marred by a sending-off against Arsenal in August 2003 and a series of injuries. The last injury, a broken leg picked up during international duty in February 2004, ruled him out for another 12 months. In January 2005, when he returned to action for the Everton reserve side against Bolton Wanderers, he lasted just 41 minutes, requiring his leg to be re-set.

In the summer of 2005, 18 months since his last game for the Everton first team, Li Tie featured for 90 minutes against FC Gamlitz of Austria in a pre-season friendly. He also played in friendlies against Motherwell, the Thai national team, Fenerbahçe and Udinese and looked like he was finally coming back to full fitness.

However, he never managed to break back into the first team despite playing regularly for the reserves and even earning another international call up for China. In March 2006, Li Tie underwent another operation to remove pieces of bone that had grown on his ankle during his time on the sidelines.

In May 2006, Li Tie was released by Everton and was linked with Sheffield United, who denied reports that a deal had been agreed to bring the player to Bramall Lane.

Sheffield United

On 6 July 2006, United announced the signing of Li Tie on a free transfer on a two year contract and he spent some time training with Chengdu Blades, a Chinese Football Association Jia League club owned by Sheffield United, while waiting for his visa clearance. He made his first-team debut in a pre-season friendly against local neighbours Rotherham United on 28 July.

Li Tie made his first competitive club start since January 2004 in a League Cup victory against Bury on 19 September 2006 but has still to make a league appearance.

On 12 October 2007, Li Tie was told he could leave Sheffield United on a free transfer. Blades' manager Bryan Robson said: "He's not in my plans and he is free to go wherever he wants on a free transfer.". Only two days later though, Sheffield United made a u-turn on the decision, stating that he would stay at the club until the end of the season before having his future evaluated.

Chengdu Blades

Despite reassurances to the contrary, Li Tie did indeed move in 2008 transferring to Sheffield United's Chinese sister club Chengdu Blades to reinforce the team after their promotion to the Chinese Super League and appeared in the opening game of the 2008 season against his former club Liaoning F.C.

International career

In 1997, Li Tie was one of four players called up from the Jianlibao Youth Team for the final round of 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification by Qi Wusheng, the coach of the Chinese national team along with Li Jinyu, Sui Dongliang and Zhang Xiaorui.

Li was already a veteran of the national squad when China embarked on their World Cup debut in 2002.

Despite recovering from an injury, Li Tie returned to competitive football in June 2006 with substitute appearances for the Chinese national team against Switzerland and France.

Li Tie was called up by China for a friendly against Thailand on 10 August and the 2007 Asian Cup qualifier against Singapore on 16 August 2006.

He also was called up by Zhu Guanghu for China squad to play the Asian Nations Cup 2007 but had no appearance this time.

Career statistics

[1] Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1999||rowspan="4"|Liaoning||||24||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2000||||29||1|||||||||||||||| |- |2001||||26||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2002||||12||0|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2002-03||rowspan="4"|Everton||rowspan="4"|Premier League||29||0||1||0||3||0||0||0||33||0 |- |2003-04||5||0||0||0||2||0||0||0||7||0 |- |2004-05||0||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2005-06||0||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2006-07||rowspan="2"|Sheffield United||Premier League||0||0||0||0||1||0||0||0||1||0 |- |2007-08||Championship||0||0|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2008||Chengdu Blades||Super League|||||||||||||||||||| Template:Football player statistics 391||1|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player statistics 434||0|||||||||||||||| Template:Football player statistics 5125||1|||||||||||||||| |}

External links

• Li Tie at Soccerbase