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Unbelievable: The 21-year-old Chinese men s football star returns to China, commits to the amateur league, and his dream of studying abroad is completely shattered

7:30am, 2 August 2025【Football】

The transfer window of the China League One is coming to an end, resulting in Liu Shaoziyang's failure to transfer to Beijing Guoan, which is equivalent to falling into the crack and having to play in the amateur game first to maintain its state.

Of course, Liu Shaoziyang's resolute departure from Austria this summer and chose to return to China actually shows another problem, that is, his road to staying in the ocean is completely impossible. This result will undoubtedly make fans feel regretful. After all, Liu Shaoziyang's progress in recent years is still good. He was Horn's main goalkeeper last season, which is the highest achievement that Chinese goalkeepers have achieved in Europe and other places. But if you start from Liu Shaoziyang's real dilemma, it is not difficult to understand why he made such a choice.

Playing in the Austrian League Two, the annual income of the main players is usually around 30,000 to 80,000 euros, while Liu Shaoziyang, as a young Chinese "outsider", must have a lower salary. In other words, Liu Shaoziyang played football in Europe for a year, and his income may just exceed RMB 200,000, which is not considered a higher living expenses far away from his hometown. What's more, Horn has been reduced to the C League. If Liu Shaoziyang continues to stay here, his salary will be further reduced, and his monthly income is about a few hundred euros, which makes life even more difficult.

And fans who are familiar with Liu Shaoziyang know that his family is not very well-off and he needs to share the financial pressure for his family as soon as possible. Therefore, while Liu Shaoziyang terminated the contract with Horn, he is most likely to be unable to find a job with a higher salary in Europe, so he made up his mind to return to China. After all, if you can play in the domestic professional league and play as the main player, you can earn at least 50,000 or 600,000 yuan a year, and there will be bonuses; even if the income is the same as in Europe, at least you don’t need to pay the high cost of studying abroad.

This is the real dilemma faced by Chinese players when studying abroad. The difficulties of their original families force players to consider more economic issues, and cannot devote themselves to studying abroad and "pursuing dreams". After all, not everyone has a wealthy family background as much as Zhang Yuning, and not everyone has only been successful and famous as Wu Lei and Zhang Xizhe. For most ordinary players, studying abroad is actually an out of reach luxury.