Li Yang, born on July 22, 1997 in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, is 28 years old, is 183cm tall and weighs 75kg. He is a center defender and currently plays for Chengdu Chengdu, wearing the No. 22 jersey. His contract ends until January 2026.

Start abroad: I studied abroad at the Gondomar Club in Portugal. This experience laid a solid technical foundation for him

Domestic battles:

-Shanghai Shenhua (2019): Only played for half a year, made one start, was abandoned, and was regarded as a "parallel import"

-Guangzhou Team: Joined with a salary cut to gradually gain a foothold and demonstrate their strength

-Wuhan Sanzhen (2023): Appeared 17 times (14 league games +3 AFC Champions League games) and scored 2 goals

-Chengdu Rongcheng (2024-present): Officially joined in February 2024, ushering in the peak of his career

Appearance data: A total of 39 appearances in the League + AFC Champions League (33 starts), with 1 goal and 1 assist. He is one of the players with the most appearances in the team

Key changes: He only made 8 starts last season, and successfully surpassed Han Pengfei this season, becoming an indispensable part of Xu Zhengyuan's three-defender system

Defensive performance:

-Formed a "steel defense line" with Lechet and Yuan Mincheng, helping the team to only lose 28 goals in 30 rounds, becoming the team with the fewest goals in the Super League

-averaged 2.1 steals per game, 2.1 interceptions, and 3.2 clearances., wide defensive coverage

-83% pass success rate and 42% long pass success rate (93 successful in 221 long passes), demonstrating good organizational skills

Absolute strengths

-Top header ability: The success rate of aerial confrontation is as high as 78%, the core of corner attack and defense, and it is common for all four successful competitions

to compete for the top-Front defense: Strong physical confrontation, active competition, and brave game style, which can effectively block opponents 'offense

-Defensive awareness: Excellent sense of position and ability to cooperate in defense, often filling in loopholes in the defense line in a timely manner

Points of contention

-One-on-one defense: Sometimes the success rate is low in key confrontations (the lowest is only 1 success in 5 confrontations)

-Attention fluctuations: Occasionally "fatal overhanging" and man-marking errors, such as the AFC Champions League against Ulsan Hyundai A fatal mistake in stoppage time led to a kill

-Physical allocation: Physical fitness decreased at the end of some games and defensive response became sluggish

Praise-

Rated as "one of the biggest surprises of the season" by many media, and successfully transformed from "Shenhua Abandoned" to "Chengdu's trump card"

-Xu Zhengyuan commented: "Li Yang is an important pillar of the team's defensive system, and his growth is obvious to all"

-regarded as the best local central defender candidate and has been selected for discussion on the best local lineup of the Chinese Super League many times

Doubts

-After the disastrous performance in the key games of the AFC Champions League, he was criticized by some media as "pretending to be a professional player" and "two goals were his fault"

-defensive decisions were questioned in some games, such as "watching the opponent attack but not chasing back" Negative performance

National Olympic experience: Served as captain of China's National Olympic Team, showing leadership qualities.

National team goal: 28-year-old Li Yang publicly stated: "Being selected for the national team is an important goal in my career, and I will continue to work hard to improve myself."