Yang Chen (; born 17 January 1974) is a Chinese

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

coach and a former player. As a player he represented

Beijing Guoan Beijing Guoan Football Club (), known in AFC competitions as Beijing FC, is a Chinese professional football club based in Beijing, that competes in . Beijing Guoan plays its home matches at the Workers' Stadium, located within Chaoyang Distr ...

Waldhof Mannheim SV Waldhof Mannheim is a multi-sports club, located in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg. It is most known for its association football team; however, there are also professional handball and table-tennis sides. The club today has a membership of ove ...

Eintracht Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a German professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The club currently plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German footb ...

FC St. Pauli Fußball-Club St. Pauli von 1910 e.V., commonly known as simply FC St. Pauli (), is a German professional association football, football club based in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg. The team plays in the Bundesliga from the 2024–25 Bundesli ...

Shenzhen Jianlibao Shenzhen Football Club () was a Chinese professional football club based in Shenzhen, Guangdong. Shenzhen played its home matches at the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre and the Shenzhen Stadium. Their majority shareholder was the Kaisa Group, ...

and Xiamen Blue Lions. He is the first Chinese player to play and score in the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

while internationally he played for the China football team in the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea/Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

Club career

Born in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, Yang began his professional football career with

. He gradually established himself within their team during his time with them, however it was only once he had a short loan period with lower league German

in 1998 did he show his potential as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

. This saw

side

interested in him and were willing to make a transfer of DEM1 million for his services. Being the first Chinese footballer to play in the Bundesliga he would personally thrive within the league and score eight goals to help the team avoid relegation to 2. Bundesliga. Yang Chen would go on to be viewed as a trailblazer for Chinese footballers for his ability to score in one of the five major European football leagues and would personally go on to win the Chinese Footballer of the Year in 2000. While his time with Frankfurt was viewed as a success when new manager

Felix Magath Wolfgang Felix Magath (; born 26 July 1953) is a German football manager and former player. The most notable spell of his playing career was with Hamburger SV, with whom he won three Bundesliga titles, the 1977 European Cup Winners' Cup Final a ...

came in during the 2000–01 season Yang Chen did lose favour within the team and would have to fight back for his position before deciding to move to 2. Bundesliga team

to ensure his place within the Chinese football team in preparation for the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

. Yang Chen went back to his home country to play for

where under the manager

Zhu Guanghu Zhu Guanghu (; born 25 September 1949, in Shanghai, China) is a Chinese football coach and a former player. As a player, he was predominantly remembered for his time at Shanghai Football Team before going into management where he started of ...

his career would thrive once more and he would go on to win the

2004 Chinese Super League The 2004 Chinese Super League was the debut season of the establishment of the Chinese Football Association Super League (中国足球协会超级联赛 or 中超), also known as the Chinese Super League. Sponsored by Siemens Mobile, it is the el ...

title. Once Zhu Guanghu left to take over the Chinese national team and

Chi Shangbin Chi Shangbin ( zh, s=迟尚斌, t=迟尚斌, p=Chí Shàngbīn; 19 September 1949 – 6 March 2021) was a Chinese football player and coach. As player, he spent his whole career playing for Liaoning, and also represented China at international ...

came in to replace him Yang Chen and several other players immediately took a disliking to him. Throughout the 2005 league season there were numerous accusations between the management and the players. The club would decide to let the management go and several players including Yang Chen were sold off. He would go on to join Xiamen Blue Lions until they disbanded in 2007 and he decided to retire.

International career

Yang Chen also played for

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

at the

. He is the Chinese player to have come closest to scoring in the World Cup when his volley ricocheted off the post in the 3–0 loss to Turkey in group stage.

Managerial career

In 2009, Yang obtained his coaching certificate and joined top-tier club Jiangsu Sainty as an assistant coach. In 2010 he would leave the club to go back to Germany to study and complete his international A-level coaching badges before returning to Jiangsu Sainty as an assistant coach and team leader under

Dragan Okuka Dragomir "Dragan" Okuka (; born 2 April 1954) is a Serbian professional Manager (association football), football manager and former Football player, player. As a player, he was predominantly associated with his time with FK Velež Mostar, Velež ...

. In December 2013, Yang joined Guizhou Renhe as an assistant coach and team leader, however he decided to leave them in January 2015 when he accepted the invitation of returning to his hometown of Beijing to join Beijing Enterprises Group to become their guidetrainer and an assistant coach. In April 2021, Yang was named as head coach of China U-16.

Career statistics

:''Scores and results list China's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Chen goal.''

Honours

Shenzhen Jianlibao *

Chinese Super League The Chinese Football Super League (), commonly known as the Chinese Super League or the CSL (), also known as the China Resources Beverage Chinese Football Super League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Ch ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

Filmography

Variety shows

References

External links

*
2002 World Cup profile at BBC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yang, Chen 1974 births Living people Chinese men's footballers Footballers from Beijing Men's association football forwards Men's association football midfielders China men's international footballers 2002 FIFA World Cup players 2000 AFC Asian Cup players Asian Games medalists in football Footballers at the 1998 Asian Games Asian Games bronze medalists for China Medalists at the 1998 Asian Games Beijing Guoan F.C. players Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players Eintracht Frankfurt players FC St. Pauli players Shenzhen F.C. players Xiamen Blue Lions F.C. players Expatriate men's footballers in Germany Chinese expatriate sportspeople in Germany Chinese expatriate men's footballers 21st-century Chinese sportsmen 20th-century Chinese sportsmen