In recent years, China's men's soccer team has plummeted and begun to be overtaken by Southeast Asian teams. The development of overseas players seems to epitomize this. With the explosion of overseas players, South Korean and Japanese soccer have made huge strides, ranking first in Asia and taking their place in world soccer. The Chinese men's soccer team has only one overseas player based in the ECHL, Li Lei.
Since Wu Lei left the Spanish seafarer to return to Shanghai Port, Li Lei has become the new brother of the Chinese men's soccer student, carrying the banner of the European tour. Li Lei plays for Swiss Super League powerhouse Grasshoppers, similar to Wu Lei's European operation. Li Lei's Grasshoppers club belongs to the same Chinese team as the Spaniards when Wu Lei left the country.
Grasshoppers have a different development strategy than the Spaniards. They don't seem to have the idea of rising to dominate the Swiss Super League again. They are committed to creating stars, creating a young squad, and blowing the winds of youth. They are very willing to develop players from East Asia in an attempt to create higher commercial efficiency. Recently, Grasshoppers loaned a 24-year-old Japanese defender, Hye Ki Yuen. In addition, a 27-year-old Japanese midfielder Jun Kawabe, a 20-year-old Korean prospect Jung Wanna-Bin, a 22-year-old Japanese defender Ayumu Seguro, a 30-year-old Chinese men's soccer defender Li Lei, and five Grasshoppers players from East Asia.
In terms of age structure, Grasshoppers only have 3 players who are 30 years old, and the average age is only around 25 years old, which is quite young. With the team's youth storm, Li Lei got old and had to face being squeezed out of the team. He brought the returnee back to the Premier League, as there was essentially no place for Li Lei when the Grasshoppers registered their non-European players, and the original Huiqi would replace Li Lei. Importantly, Li Lei's contract was about to expire and neither side had any thoughts of renewing it. Li Lei's current contract expires in June 2023.
According to the Swiss Super Player Registration rules, each team can only register five non-European players. In addition to the 5 East Asian players, Grasshoppers also have a Nigerian striker, Francis Momo. It can be seen that Li Lei is unlikely to continue to register for the Swiss Super League, and may be squeezed out of the first team squad by Korean and Japanese players and Brazilian players. The famous media "Beijing Youth Daily" analysis pointed out that Li Lei's next development quickly concluded that if he can not get the trust of the coach, it is likely to return to the Premier League, Li Lei in an interview is also very satisfied, he said he can play in Europe, the realization of his dream, the next thing can not be controlled, so do not get entangled. Li Lei played 14 games for Grasshopper, including 6 starts and 8 substitutions, 1 assist and no goals.
National youth striker Jaboyan was confirmed to take over from Li Lei during winter training. He has recently received back-to-back offers from Grasshoppers FC and Dubrava FC, with Grasshoppers promoting him to the first team for winter training. As Grasshoppers loaned Jaboyan to K-League side Dubrava, Jaboyan returned to Dubrava after Grasshoppers' winter training and quickly completed two warm-up matches for the team.In the second half of 2022, Jaboyan made great strides by representing Dubrava in several cup matches, scoring two goals, so he earned the trust of both clubs. At the national team level, the 19-year-old Jaboyan was recognized for his ability and form as he was called up for the national youth team and the Olympics in quick succession.
