China's famous women's soccer legend, Zhang Ouying, passed away in San Diego, USA, due to lung cancer.
The No. 7 women's soccer goddess who has stepped into three World Cups and two Olympics
, just left us forever, may she still have wings to soar in heaven.
In March this year, Zhang Ouying was diagnosed with lung cancer, and the high medical costs were too much for her family to bear, so she had to raise $200,000 through online crowdfunding. Since then, the community as well as members of the old women's soccer team have raised money for her to treat the disease. Although she has never given up on her treatment, human beings seem so small in the face of the disease.
Born in 1975, Zhang Ouying, a former outstanding striker or right forward, is one of the representatives of the golden generation of Chinese women's soccer. With the speed of a seagull and the sense of smell of a hound, she is a rare fast striker in Chinese women's soccer.
At the age of 18, Zhang Ouying was selected for the Chinese women's national soccer team and began her career as an international player. Due to her young age, she did not participate in the 1994 Hiroshima Asian Games, the 1995 Women's World Cup in Sweden, or the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA with the Chinese women's soccer team. Starting from the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games, Zhang Ouying gradually made a name for herself in the Chinese women's soccer team.
In the 1999 Women's World Cup in the United States, Zhang Ouying represented the Chinese women's soccer team for the first time in a world tournament. In the second round of the group stage match against Ghana, she scored two goals in five minutes to help the Chinese women's soccer team beat their opponents 7-0.
That tournament was the last glory of the golden generation of women's soccer, and the outstanding play of Sun Wen, Liu Ailing, Liu Ying and other old generation international players made China's women's soccer team almost stand on the top of the world. However, fate always plays such a trick on people, and the goal line dangling case made the Chinese women's soccer team come in second place. Fortunately, the Chinese women's soccer team won the Asian Cup in the Philippines that year.
In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Zhang Ouying participated in the World Championships for the first time as a starter. Unfortunately, the Chinese women's soccer team failed to get out of the group in that Olympics. She then went on to play in the 2003 and 2007 World Cups, as well as the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Zhang Ouying is also one of the few Chinese women's soccer players to have played in Major League Soccer. During her time with the San Diego Elves, she wore her favorite number 7 jersey and became one of the most lethal star strikers in Major League Soccer. At the end of 2005, in the twilight of her career, Zhang Ouying officially announced her retirement, and then went to the United States to further her studies.
At the retirement conference, Zhang Ouying said angrily, "I wanted to play for two more years, but now people don't want me, so what am I still playing for, just retire." She expressed her denunciation of the relevant leaders of the Football Association!
In 2007, Zhang Ouying, who had already retired, returned to the national team as a veteran and played with the team in the locally organized World Cup. In the end, the Chinese women's soccer team was defeated by Norway in the quarterfinals and did not reach the quarterfinals. After the game, Zhang Ouying walked through the mixing area with tears in her eyes, and she was very upset about the loss. In the interview, she recalled how difficult it was for the Chinese women's soccer team to take the second place in the 1999 World Cup, and encouraged the young players to keep going.
In fact, Zhang Ouying's resume should have read "3 Olympic Games", but ......
In 2008, the then Chinese women's soccer coach Elizabeth was very optimistic about Zhang Ouying and wanted to recruit her to play in the Beijing Olympics as well as other tournaments that year. In the training list for the Algarve Cup that year, Elizabeth originally drew up a list of 28 players, but by the time the FA announced the list had become 27, with Zhang Ouying missing.
It is reported that Zhang Ouying came to Qinhuangdao Football School from Santiago alone under unknown circumstances, having traveled 18,000 kilometers with her luggage. After arriving at the training site, Elizabeth let herself first greet the leadership, and when she found the leader Zhang Jianqiang asked to return to the team, the team refused to return to the team on the grounds that she was not in the 27-player roster.
Surprisingly, the Football Association not only did not accept the meritorious veteran Zhang Ouying return to the team, and even her temporary residence in the team site to live a night's request are rejected, and finally still in the teammates Han Duan room will be a night.
At that time, the head coach Elizabeth and the Football Association has been a serious contradiction in differences, the rumor has even been rumored that the women's football head coach by the Football Association. And those on the list and team management with Elizabeth differences, and later most of the "anti-fake fight black" storm in the prison sentence. There is also news that Zhang Ouying was not accepted by some leaders of the federation because she criticized her teammates many times in the media.
Under the influence of public pressure, the Football Association temporarily added Zhang Ouying to the team's roster. But after the Algarve Cup, Elizabeth was fired and Zhang Ouying ended her career with the national team.
Zhang Ouying, who had a brilliant and incomparable career, rode the green field for many years, and although she ended up in a situation where she could not serve her country, she was happy in terms of marriage.
In 2004, Zhang Ouying, who was playing in the Major League Baseball, met an American, Eddie, who was an ordinary company employee. The two of them met, got to know each other, fell in love, and finally got married in June 2006 in the United States. Zhang Ouying gave birth to a pair of mixed-race children, who are not only very famous in San Diego, where she lives, but also in the domestic women's soccer circle.
It is worth mentioning that Zhang Ouying in the United States during the life of quite thrifty, that time the world just popular Apple cell phone, but Ouying did not go to follow this trend, but asked the reporter to help her in the country to buy a common domestic dual SIM dual standby cell phone.
After her retirement, Zhang Ouying did not leave the green field, and has long served as the women's soccer coach of the San Diego Soccer Club. She also runs local soccer training courses in San Diego, hoping to gather children from the local Chinese community and use her professional soccer knowledge to enable more children who are drifting away to play soccer.
Zhang Ouying has a dream, she dreamed that one day she could coach the Chinese women's soccer team and lead them to a world championship just like Lang Ping led the women's volleyball team. With China's development and progress in recent years, men's soccer is still weak, but women's soccer is already on the road to recovery. A new generation of roses, represented by Wang Frost and Wang Shanshan, is leading women's soccer on a bright path.
I believe that in the near future, Zhang Ouying in heaven will soon be able to see the women's soccer team to return to the glory of that year.
