On the night of March 26, China's U23 team beat Thailand's U23 team 4-2 in the Dubai Cup, in which Fang Hao, a "small steel gun", hit four goals and became famous. Fans affectionately called him "Fang Huang", a nickname inspired by "Lin Huang" Lingard and "Wu Huang" Wu Xinghan.
Fang Hao was born on January 3, 2000 in Yangzhong City, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, and at the age of 8, he was selected to practice track and field at the Yangzhong Sports School, but at that time, he did not think he would play soccer.
By chance, Fang Hao represented Yangzhong to participate in the Zhenjiang City Youth Soccer Competition. Unexpectedly, this teenager who had never touched a soccer ball before won the best scorer and helped his team to win the championship. This outstanding performance attracted the attention of the Zhenjiang City soccer team, and from March 2011, Fang Hao began to receive "formal" training.
Fang Hao, who started practicing at the age of 11, seemed to get a late start, but with his outstanding talent, he quickly stood out. 2011, he was selected for the Jiangsu Provincial Junior Team, and from 2013 to 2015, he was selected for the National Junior Team for three consecutive years.
In 2015, for better development, Fang Hao entered Luneng Football School and became a member of Luneng Youth Training.
At Luneng Football School, Fang Hao is known as the "Little Steel Cannon" for his outstanding performance, despite his late start, his good sense of the ball, strong body, low center of gravity, and strong confrontation ability. 2017, Fang Hao helped Luneng's U18 team to win the National Championship and won the best scorer.
Like Duan Liuyu, Fang Hao showed great interest in the opportunity to stay in Brazil after joining the Luneng Football School.
The Brazilian strategy of Luneng Football School is roughly in the form of: some of the best players are scattered to Brazilian clubs for integration training, mainly in Brazilian DB clubs, participating in the competition is the U20 competition of São Paulo State as well as São Paulo State A3 League (i.e., São Paulo State Third Level League), in addition, Luneng Football School will also arrange for the whole team of the U16 team to stay in Brazil for one year.
Taishan players who can play on the Brazilian DB competition is not much, Chen Pu, Duan Liuyu and Fang Hao three people perform well, and is the main point of cultivation of the player, Chen Pu and Duan Liuyu after training has returned to the Chinese Super League, and Fang Hao because of the epidemic had to interrupt the plan to stay in the ocean.
In the Luneng football school official microblogging "Luneng Youth Training" published Fang Hao diary, he introduced himself to be forced to finish the stay in the ocean before and after, the football school at the time of the thoughtful care, so Fang Hao is very touched, and this, too, highlights the football school is a high degree of attention to him.
Fang Hao also traveled to Belgium for a trial, which at one point affected his preparation and the first 5 rounds of the A3 League in the state of São Paulo, and in the 5 rounds of the tournament from the 6th to the 10th rounds, Fang Hao made 2 starts and 1 alternate, which would have been a very good start, but because of the epidemic, Fang Hao had to return to the country in August 2020.
After returning to China, Fang Hao has been loaned out. 2020 is the Central League team Inner Mongolia, he started 7 games waiting for 5 games to score 2 goals, becoming the first of Luneng youth training after 00 players to score in the professional league.
In the 2021 season, Fang Hao was loaned to Wuhan, and played under Li Xiaopeng and Li Jinyu. Throughout the season, he started 11 matches and stood in for 7 matches, with no goals but 1 assist, while in the AFC Cup competition, Fang Hao scored 1 goal.
Two years of the league and the FA Cup only scored 3 goals, but a U23 warm-up game performance of the big four, such a go makes the outside world a bit puzzled: Fang Hao is not an excellent scorer? What is the real Fang Hao's strength?
In fact, in the warm-up match against UAE Wahdah before the start of Dubai Cup, Fang Hao had hit the goal post with three consecutive passes, and then his teammates added a shot to equalize the score. At that time, Fang Hao's father said that his son needed to strengthen his practice in shooting, and after losing to UAE U23, Fang Hao also said that his ability to grasp the timing in front of the goal needed to be further improved.
And against Thailand U23 competition, Fang Hao's four goals highlights the excellent mastery of timing ability, the first goal is to face the attacking goalkeeper to play the near corner; the second goal is to use the light action calmly disengage the defender and then pushed the goalkeeper to remedy the opposite direction; the third goal is to make up for the shot, which is considered to be normal; and the fourth is to penetrate the crotch. The four goals were well oriented, calm and keenly observed, demonstrating the sense of smell and feeling that a goal scorer should have.
In fact, there are many reasons for the poor performance in the professional league, first of all, Fang Hao never spares his strength in the competition, and he uses up too much physical energy in defense, scrambling, and confrontation; in addition, in the professional league, Fang Hao faces seasoned defenders and foreign aiders, and even though he has a strong body and a low center of gravity, he still does not have an advantage; and then it is the position and the playing style of the team, in Wuhan, Fang Hao plays as a side forward, and he uses up more energy in the defense; Of course, there are also Fang Hao's own reasons, 2020 season is his first time to play professional league, 2021 season is the first time to play in the Chinese Super League, in fact, Guo Tianyu in the 2019 season on loan to Wuhan team, 7 games starting and 8 games on the bench also did not score a single goal, but the next year he the same time (more than 500 minutes) to help Taishan scored 4 goals, 2021 season total goal count rose to 10 goals.
As for the Dubai Cup, in addition to their own efforts, there is also a component of luck, goals some from the opponent's mistakes, not too much consumption, but also largely improve his ability to master the timing.
A contest big four does not mean that Fang Hao can become a cutting-edge scorer, he still has to improve a lot of places, the future return to the professional league, he still have to face many excellent defense players, and, he also have to find more suitable for his position, this is all a challenge.
