Li Tie

Li Tie (born 18 May 1977) is a Chinese professional football coach and former player.

As a player he represented Liaoning FC in the Chinese Jia-A League, Everton in the Premier League, Sheffield United in the Football League Championship and Chengdu Blades in the Chinese Super League.

At international level, he made 92 appearances scoring 6 goals for the China national team.

After retirement from playing, he started his coaching career as an assistant coach at Guangzhou Evergrande.

He moved to the China national team and then Hebei China Fortune where he gained his first coaching position.

Li Tie began his football career at the age of fifteen, joining Liaoning FC's youth academy system in 1992.

The following year he was sent to Brazil for a five-year training programme sponsored by Jianlibao and became the captain of the newly organized youth football team.

Li was one of four players called up from the Shenzhen Youth for the final round of 1998 FIFA World Cup qualifiers by Qi Wusheng, along with Li Jinyu, Sui Dongliang, and Zhang Xiaorui.

Li started his professional career by playing for Liaoning FC and rose to prominence during the 1999 league season when Liaoning finished as runners-up within the league.

One of the highest regarded Chinese players of his generation, Li secured a loan transfer in a deal brokered between sponsor Kejian and Premier League side Everton in August 2002.

Despite initial skepticism at Merseyside, his first season as an Everton player was a surprising success.

Then manager David Moyes played him in twenty-nine league games and started him in most of his appearances where his displays as a defensive midfielder helped the club achieve a seventh-place finish during the 2002-03 season.

He was already a veteran in the China national team by the time the national team played in the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Following Li's successful loan spell, Everton battled with his former club Liaoning FC to sign him on a permanent basis after the 2002-03 season and the deal was finally negotiated on 12 August 2003 when Li signed a three-year contract.

Everton paid £1,200,000 for his transfer with two-thirds of the deal paid by sponsorships.

The club's ownership let him move to the Premier League despite higher offers from Chinese clubs.

At the beginning of the 2003-04 season, Li's start was marred by a sending off against Arsenal on 16 August 2003 after only been substituted on for David Unsworth.

A series of injuries followed which meant that Li only played five league matches that season.

The last injury, a broken leg picked up during international duty in February 2004, ruled him out for another twelve months.

In January 2005, when Li made his return to the pitch by playing for Everton's reserve side against Bolton Wanderers, he lasted just forty-one minutes and required his leg to be reassessed.

In the summer of 2005, eighteen months since his last game for the Everton first team, Li played the full match against FC Gamlitz in a pre-season friendly.

He made a number of other preseason appearances and looked as if he was finally coming back to full fitness.

However, he never managed to break back into the first team despite playing regularly for the reserves and even earning another international call-up for the Chinese national team.

In March 2006, Li underwent another operation to remove pieces of bone that had grown on his ankle during his time on the sidelines.

In May 2006, Li was released by Everton and Sheffield United announced his signing on a free transfer in July 2006, agreeing to a two-year contract.

Following his move, Li spent some time training with China League One side Chengdu Blades, which was owned by Sheffield United, while waiting for his visa clearance.

On 19 September 2006, Li made his first competitive club start since January 2004 by appearing for Sheffield United in a League Cup match against Bury.

However, Li did not make another appearance for Sheffield United afterwards due to his lingering injury.

Recovering from an injury, Li returned to competitive football in June 2006 with substitute appearances for the China national team against Switzerland and France.

He was once again called up to play for the national team in a friendly against Thailand on 10 August 2006 and in a 2007 AFC Asian Cup qualifier against Singapore on 16 August 2006.

On 12 October 2007, Li was told he could leave Sheffield United on a free transfer with then manager Bryan Robson saying, "He's not in my plans and he is free to go wherever he wants on a free transfer."

Only two days later though, Sheffield United changed their mind on the decision and stated that he would stay at the club until the end of the season before having his future evaluated.

Li remained as a part of the national side and was called up by Zhu Guanghu to play the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, but failed to make an appearance during the tournament.

Despite reassurances to the contrary, Li did indeed move in 2008, transferring to Sheffield United's affiliated club Chengdu Blades to reinforce the team after their promotion to the Chinese Super League and made his debut in the opening game of the 2008 season against his former club Liaoning Whowin.

He scored first league goal in his football career in a 3-1 win against Shenzhen Shangqingyin in October 2008.

After spending one season with Chengdu, Li decided to return to his hometown club Liaoning Whowin to help them in their promotion push back to the top tier.

It proved to be an immediate success when he guided them to the securing the second tier league title and being promoted back to the top flight after only one season.

He suffered an injury in October 2010 which ruled him out for the whole 2011 season.

After not fully recovering from his leg injury, Li announced that he had decided to retire from football at the end of the 2011 season.

On 25 May 2012, Li accepted an invitation from Guangzhou Evergrande manager Marcello Lippi to become one of his assistant coaches.