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Zheng Zhi

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Zheng Zhi
郑智
Personal information
Full name Zheng Zhi
Date of birth (1980-08-20) 20 August 1980 (age 44)
Place of birth Shenyang, Liaoning, China
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s) Defender / Midfielder
Team information
Current team
 Guangzhou Evergrande
Number 10
Youth career
1990–2000 Liaoning Youth
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 60 (11)
International career‡
2002– China 61 (13)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 27 October 2012
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 27 October 2012

Template:Chinese name

Zheng Zhi (simplified Chinese: 郑智; traditional Chinese: 鄭智; pinyin: Zhèng Zhì, born 20 August 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 goal scoring period in Zheng's career and he soon became the captain of the Chinese national football team, which then led to moves to Charlton Athletic and Celtic.

Club career

Early career

Zheng Zhi started his football career in 1990 playing for the various Liaoning FC junior teams before being premoted to the Liaoning Youth team in 1999 where he started out as a right back.[1] Despite being the reserve team of Liaoning FC the Liaoning Youth team were allowed to take part in the third tier of the Chinese league pyramid where they found it differcult within the league system and the club were involved in legal trouble that saw all their assets frozen, including player transfers rights. This saw Zheng spend a year without playing professional football and he was transferred to top tier club Shenzhen Jianlibao, who were coached by Zhu Guanghu, his former coach during his time with the Chinese U-23 national team. While he was initially deployed as a defender at first he successfully made the transition as a playmaker and aided Shenzhen to the 2004 Chinese Super League title for the first time in the clubs history. After the title win Zheng would play for the Chinese national team at the 2004 AFC Asian Cup where the manager Arie Haan deployed him as a defender once again as China came runners-up within the tournament.

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.[2]

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.[3] In a March 2008 edition of British football magazine FourFourTwo, Zheng was voted the fifth best player in the Football League.[4] 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.[5]

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,[6] 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.[7]

Celtic

On 1 September 2009 Zheng became the second Chinese player, after Du Wei, to sign for Celtic after penning a two-year contract.[8] Manager Tony Mowbray affirmed his long held admiration for the player and expressed his delight in the signing.[9] Zheng was unable to play in Celtic's Europa League group games after UEFA confirmed he was not registered in time.[10]

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.[11] 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.[12]

Return to China

On 28 June 2010, Zheng return to China and signed for China League One club Guangzhou FC on a free transfer.[13][14] 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 the 2010 season, 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.[15]

International goals

Club career stats

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2000 |Liaoning Youth |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 |24||1||3||1||-||-||9||0||36||2 |- Template:Football player statistics 3 186 ||55 ||20 ||8 ||6 ||5 ||18 ||7 ||230 ||75 Template:Football player statistics 3 81||10 ||4 ||1 ||2 ||1 ||0 ||0 ||87 ||12 Template:Football player statistics 5 267 ||66 ||24 ||9 ||8 ||6 ||18 ||7 ||317 ||87 Template:Football player statistics end

Honours

Club

Shenzhen Jianlibao
Shandong Luneng Taishan
Guangzhou Evergrande

Country

China

Individual

References

  1. ^ "郑智简介". sports.QQ.com. 2007-02-01. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  2. ^ "Charlton 2–0 Newcastle". BBC. 18 March 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2009.
  3. ^ "Charlton snap up McLeod & Zheng". BBC Sport. 9 August 2007. Retrieved 9 August 2007.
  4. ^ "FourFourTwo 50 Best Football League Players". FourFourTwo. 2 March 2008. Retrieved 14 August 2008.
  5. ^ "China's soccer exports face uncertain future". Sina.com English. 6 May 2008. Retrieved 14 August 2008.
  6. ^ "Baggies continue Zheng talks". Sky Sports. 29 August 2008. Retrieved 2 September 2008.
  7. ^ "Midfielder Zheng leaves Charlton". BBC Sport. 8 July 2009. Retrieved 14 July 2009.
  8. ^ "Celtic sign China captain Zheng Zhi". The Herald. 1 September 2009. Retrieved 1 September 2009.
  9. ^ "Zheng Zhi gets green light from SFA". Celtic F.C. 4 September 2009. Retrieved 4 September 2009.
  10. ^ Zheng to miss european campaign. Sporting Life. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
  11. ^ "Rangers 2–1 Celtic". BBC Sport. 4 October 2009. Retrieved 5 March 2010.
  12. ^ "Celtic release midfielders Zhi and Mizuno". BBC Sport. 1 July 2010. Retrieved 2012-09-24.
  13. ^ "郑智穿28号战袍 不当只有虚名的英超球员". ESPN Star Sports. 28 June 2010. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
  14. ^ China seeks 'gold' from World Cup. China Daily.com. 30 June 2010. Retrieved 2012-09-24.
  15. ^ Zheng and Dong head China soccer squad for Beijing. Reuters. 23 July 2008. Retrieved 2012-09-24.
Sporting positions
Preceded by Guangzhou F.C. captain
2011– 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
Preceded by China national football team captain
2006–2008 		Succeeded by
Preceded by China national football team captain
2011 		Succeeded by

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