When it comes to defenders with sharp blades in their hands, international stars such as David Luiz, Gerard Piqué and Mats Hummels often come to the mind of many fans. They not only have excellent defensive skills, but also can come forward at critical moments to lock the game for the team, as if the team's fourth striker. In China's soccer field, there is no shortage of such defenders, and Tianjin Teda's legendary veteran Cao Yang is one of the best. According to statistics, Cao Yang scored a total of 56 goals in his 15 seasons with Tianjin Teda, including 51 league goals, 3 goals in the Chinese Super Cup and 2 goals in the Asian Champions League. Cao Yang ranks second in TEDA's all-time scoring list, behind only Yu Genwei in the forward line. In addition, Cao Yang also set a record of scoring goals in the league for 13 consecutive seasons from 2002 to 2014, making him the No. 1 defender in China's soccer history.
However, the 2019 season saw the end of the legendary player as 37-year-old Cao Yang announced his retirement. But the title of defender with a knife has been inherited by someone else, and that is former Jiangsu Suning international Li Ang. One of the few college players in the Chinese Super League, Li started playing in the 2014 season, and despite his late start, he has scored goals every season. Unlike Cao Yang, Li's goals mainly come from free kicks and long range shots. As a center back, Li's positioning skills are superb, and his free kicks have become a killer feature for Jiangsu Suning over the past few seasons, especially in the year he helped the team win their first CSL title. Unfortunately, the team was disbanded before the start of this season, and Li Ang ended up joining Shanghai SIPG, but has yet to score a goal.
Such a leading defender naturally cannot escape the eyes of national team manager Li Tie. Li Ang was also selected for the national team in the Top 40 and made his debut against the Maldives with a good performance. Although he is not a starter in the national team at the moment, Li Ang's type of player will surely bring help to the national team in the future.
Recently, a good news has come to us that a new Li Ang may be coming to our country's soccer. This new Li Ang is 19 years old and is the current captain of the National Youth Football Team, Liang Shaowen, who is currently playing for Beijing Guoan. Liang Shaowen, a center back, once played for the National Youth Football Team in the Second Division League and scored an impressive header. Liang Shao-wen was later transferred back to China to play in the AFC Champions League as Guoan needed to send their young players to play in the AFC Champions League.
Despite the fact that the predominantly young team of Guoan was not favored, some even thought they would be beaten by their other AFC Champions League opponents. However, the team with low expectations surprised us. In the first round of the AFC Champions League group stage, Guoan played against United City of the Philippines. Although they conceded a goal first and were overwhelmed by the statistics of the whole match, thanks to Liang Shaowen's performance, Guoan finally got a draw, which is the first point of the Chinese Super League in this year's AFC Champions League.
In the 72nd minute of the second half, Beijing Guoan had a good chance to take a free kick in front of the goal, and 19-year-old Liang Shaowen took the initiative to replace his teammate and take the penalty. He took a free kick with his left foot with excellent speed, angle and strength, which even stunned the opposing goalkeeper. The footwork of this free kick was just like that of Li Ang, the same pursuit of perfect arc, the same pursuit of dead center, which was wonderful. In addition, this goal also set a number of records, in addition to the first goal of this year's AFC Champions League, Liang Shaowen with 19 years and 14 days of age to become China's first after 00 players in the AFC Champions League scored goals, but also in the history of the national football team's youngest AFC Champions League goal scorer.
In addition to this goal, Liang Shaowen also performed well on the defensive end. It can be seen that he has played a few more games than his teammates in the Chinese B League, and he is more adapted to the game and more confident. We believe that as long as Liang Shaowen gets the key training, he will surely have some achievements in the future, at least he can reach the level of Li Ang. Of course, there are many people who think that the 01 National Youth Football League is the weakest in the past 20 years, because they didn't even enter the Asian Youth Football League. But in fact, we still have a lot of players with outstanding individual ability, just that they play less in high-level games, and their potential has not yet been tapped. I believe that with the improvement of the league system in the future, more young players will stand out, just like Liang Shaowen.
