Fu Bin

Fu Bin
符宾

Personal information
Date of birth	May 6, 1969
Place of birth	Beijing, China
Height	1.94 m (6 ft 4 in)
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Club information
Current team	Tianjin Teda
Youth career
	Hebei team
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1986-1993	Hebei team
1994	Jilin Samsung	8	(0)
1995-1997	Beijing Guoan	59	(0)
1998-2003	Chongqing Lifan	146	(0)
2004-2006	Hunan Xiangjun	76	(0)
2007-2009	Chengdu Blades	61	(0)
National team^‡
2000-2001	China	7	(0)
Teams managed
2004-2006	Hunan Xiangjun (goalkeeping)
2005	Hunan Xiangjun (caretaker)
2010-2011	Chengdu Blades (goalkeeping)
2011-	Tianjin Teda (goalkeeping)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 12:00, 1 Jan 2012 (UTC). ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 16:11, 1 Jan 2012 (UTC)

Fu Bin (Chinese: 符宾; Chinese: 符賓; pinyin: Fú Bīn; born May 6, 1969 in Beijing) is a Chinese football goalkeeping coach and a former international football player. His playing career would see him be predominantly remembered for his time at Beijing Guoan and Chongqing Lifan where he won several Chinese FA Cup titles before moving to Chengdu Blades where he achieved the distinction for being the oldest professional player in Chinese history aged 40 years and 133 days before he retired.^[1]

Club career

While Fu Bin may have been born in Beijing he would move to Hebei to start his sporting career where he originally excelled in basketball before turning his attentions to football where he was good enough to gain a spot within the Hebei team as one of their goalkeepers in 1986.^[2] He would stay with Hebei for several seasons until the 1994 league season when the league became fully professional and he was offered a transfer to Jilin Samsung. The move turned out to be a disappointment and he spent most of the season sitting on the bench, however the following season he was offered a move back to his hometown with Beijing Guoan in a moved that turned out to be a huge success and ushered in the peak of his career when he helped the team to win the 1996 and 1997 Chinese FA Cup as well as also achieving his first call up to the Chinese national football team.

In the 1998 league season an offer of 2 million yuan was offered for him by Qianwei Huandao (now known as Chongqing Lifan) and despite achieving significant success with Beijing as well as regular playing time with the club he decided to leave and take the offer from Qianwei Huandao. The move initially came under much scrutiny because he had left a club who were genuine title contenders for one who were recently promoted, with many Beijing fans believing he moved purely for the money.^[2] While his first few seasons with the club were uninspired Fu Bin was able to prove his critics wrong when he would win the 2000 Chinese FA Cup with them as well as eventually spending five full seasons with the club before he left them in 2003 to go to second tier club Hunan Xiangjun where he was also offered a goalkeeper coaching role as well. By the 2006 league season Hunan Xiangjun were relegated and Fu Bin was allowed to leave for another second tier club Chengdu Blades where he immediately won promotion with them in his first season with the club and another chance to play in the top tier once again.^[3] He would aid the club for two seasons within the top flight and go on to achieve the record for being the oldest professional Chinese player in the last game of the season on October 31, 2009 in a league game against Shandong Luneng in a 1-0 victory aged 40 years and 133 days before he retired.^[4]

Honours

Beijing Guoan F.C.

• Chinese FA Cup: 1996, 1997

Chongqing Lifan

• Chinese FA Cup: 2000

References

1. "符宾：一个化石级球员的退隐_评论频道_凤凰网". News.ifeng.com. 2010-11-29. Retrieved 2010-12-25.
2. "符宾40岁生日快乐：他愿成为中国的米拉大叔_李宁网易体育". Sports.163.com. Retrieved 2010-12-25.
3. "China 2007". Rsssf.com. 2008-04-18. Retrieved 2010-12-25.
4. "比赛结果-中超数据库-搜狐". Csldata.sports.sohu.com. Retrieved 2010-12-25.

External links

• Career stats at Nationalfootballteams.com
• Career stats at Sohu.com