Has the relationship between Li Weifeng and Zheng Zhi always been bad? What's going on?

From 1999 to 2011, the careers of Li Weifeng and Zheng Zhi intertwined and overlapped countless times, like two twists intertwined. They worked together to win the Chinese Super League championship, and they were also two peaks in the national team. However, their polar opposites in personality determined that these two men with the same goals could not identify with each other from the bottom of their hearts. They were never brothers.

The first cooperation between Li Weifeng and Zheng Zhi was in the 1999 Olympic team. Horton, who was in charge of the National Olympics at the time, selected Zheng Zhi, who was playing as a defender in the National Youth Team, on the recommendation of Zhu Guanghu, so Zheng Zhi "leapfrogged" to become a national player. That Olympic team was dominated by Jianlibao (1977/78) who studied in Brazil. The younger Zheng Zhi (1980) was naturally a younger brother. He played right back and needed the care of a "big brother" like Li Weifeng.

In 2001, Zheng Zhi transferred to Shenzhen Pingan from the Liaoning Youth Team, which was on the verge of dissolution, and defected to Zhu Guanghu. At that time, Peng Weiguo had not yet retired, and Li Weifeng was not the "big brother" of the Shenzhen team. Zheng Zhi, who was in his early 20s, naturally became closer to his Olympic teammates such as Li Weifeng and Li Yi. Whether he is visiting away games or going out for fun, Zheng Zhi is always under Li Weifeng's care. In an interview by chance, Zheng Zhihui said: "Brother Feng often takes care of me. He is my good big brother..." On the court, Zheng Zhi still plays right back and Li Weifeng plays center back. This is the most harmonious time for the two of them.

In the summer of this year, during the league break, almost everyone left the Beacon Hill base - for an immigrant team like Shenzhen, it is natural to go home for the holidays. Zhu Guanghu and Zheng Zhi were the only two people left in the entire base. This month had changed him. Zhu Guanghu, who was addicted to the "video wall" in the room, told Zheng Zhi a lot. In the second half of that season, Zheng Zhi's position gradually improved, from right back to defensive midfielder, and later to attacking midfielder. In the last few rounds of the season, Peng Weiguo's offensive core position has gradually been replaced by Zheng Zhi.

In 2002, Peng Weiguo gradually faded out, while Zheng Zhi, who stood firmly in the attacking midfielder position, performed amazingly and was elected as the "Chinese Footballer" in one fell swoop. He was only 22 years old that year. This was an honor that Li Weifeng had never had. In more than a year, Zheng Zhi transformed from the dazed young man who had just arrived in the world to a star that attracted much attention, completely overshadowing Li Weifeng.

With this process, Zheng Zhi's personality inevitably emerges. Compared with Li Weifeng and Li Yi, he doesn't like to be lively or talk about brotherly loyalty. Although both he and Li Weifeng are from the Northeast and come from ordinary working-class families, Zheng Zhi only likes to keep his head down and do things. Although both have a pursuit and fierce drive to "get ahead", Zheng Zhi pays more attention to what he can really get, while Li Weifeng may care more about how others evaluate him.

Recalling the scene at that time, an old player who played for Shenzhen Football Team said: "In the 2002 World Cup, we all felt that Zheng Zhi should be selected. But Milu had to take care of the old players who played in the qualifiers. , did not give him a chance, and he held back his energy at that time. After the World Cup, Li Weifeng went to Everton in the Premier League. Outsiders thought that our performance would decline, but in the end that year we finished second and Zheng Zhi became the Footballer of the Year. At the end of the year, Li Weifeng came back, and later we discovered that they no longer went out together, and they rarely talked and laughed like before in the team..."

No one thought that this was a relationship between the two of them. Competing for the right to speak for the Shenzhen team, in fact, Zheng Zhi doesn't like forming cliques and acting as the boss outside the court at all. In comparison, Zheng Zhi is introverted and likes to keep things in mind; Li Weifeng is outgoing and sometimes impulsive. For Zhu Guanghu, Li Weifeng and him share a father-son bond, but they may not be true like-minded people. Although Zheng Zhi did not go to Brazil with Zhu Guanghu, he is closer to Lao Zhu in terms of personality. Many times, Zhu Guanghu was only willing to exchange some ideas with Zheng Zhi, but he needed the bold Li Weifeng to help him with some external matters. Of course, when Lao Zhu wants to show off his power, Chen Yongqiang and Li Yi will bear more of the responsibility. Li Weifeng and Zheng Zhi who have become famous will never be punished.

Li Weifeng's impulsive personality is his shortcoming, and he also knows that he has to pay a heavy price for it. When he was in the Shenzhen team, he said: "I have my own ideas and I never hide myself. My brothers sometimes bother me about it.

But I will not tell lies, nor will I pretend to be like others. "Who the "others" in this sentence refer to are known to the parties involved and the bystanders.

In 2003, Li Weifeng returned from the Premier League frustrated, and the Shenzhen team launched an attack on the league championship for the first time. This One year before the start of the season, something happened: It was originally agreed that Li Weifeng and Zheng Zhi would enjoy the highest treatment in the team, and Li Weifeng signed a contract with the club first. But then Zheng Zhi went to Guangzhou alone to interview with the boss Zhang Hai and won it again. Li Weifeng felt unhappy when he found out about the new contract with a higher price, but there was nothing he could do about it. In the second half of this year, with Yang Chen joining after returning from Germany, Shenzhen Jianlibao, which was full of stars, became the number one player in the Chinese Super League. Rich, this somewhat diluted the "two peaks confrontation" situation between Zheng Zhi and Li Weifeng. However, Shenzhen did not win the championship in the end.

In 2004, the Shenzhen team showed confidence in winning the championship. As the goal of winning the championship approached, the financial chain break caused by Zhang Hai's accident became increasingly clear. At the critical moment of winning the championship, the team could only attract the attention of the outside world, especially the government, by "strike". When the team stopped training, Li Weifeng appeared alone in the weight room of the base and was photographed by reporters. This incident caused an uproar in the team, and players including Zheng Zhi had differences of opinion with Li Weifeng.

In the end, Zhu Guanghu and general manager Zhang Jian tried every means to coordinate the relationship between several big players in the team, so that the team managed to reach the championship podium in the first year of the Chinese Super League. But everyone. He knew very well that this team had reached its end. As soon as the 2004 Chinese Super Cup finals ended, Zheng Zhi agreed that he was about to leave and join the final opponent Shandong Luneng. In this way, he and Li Weifeng turned from teammates to opponents.

In the national team at that time, Ali Han liked to pair Zheng Zhi and Li Weifeng as central defenders. In the game where they started as central defenders, the Chinese team did not lose for the last time in November 2004. On the 17th, the Chinese team defeated Hong Kong, China, 7-0, but was squeezed out of the World Cup qualifiers by the Kuwait team. Zheng Zhi missed a fatal penalty; after scoring the 7th goal, Li Weifeng thought that this score was guaranteed to qualify, and he celebrated uncontrollably. .

After Ali Han dismissed get out of class, Zhu Guanghu took over the Chinese team, and Li Weifeng and Zheng Zhi were naturally reused as his favorite disciples, and they were the core of the defense and attack lines respectively, but it was like the distance on the court was further enhanced. As they moved further apart, the two communicated less and less. After that, in the national team of Folado and Gao Hongbo, the two once again advanced and retreated together. They looked at each other just like themselves in the mirror, but they were opposite to each other. Still silent.

In January of this year, at the "Asian Challenge Cup" in Hong Kong, Zheng Zhi, who represented Evergrande, and Li Weifeng, who represented TEDA, met on the court. Once Zheng Zhi fouled Dabao, Li Weifeng rushed up. Zheng Zhi pushed away and glared.