Lee Jang-soo (; born October 15, 1956) is a South Korean association football manager and a former player. As a player, he had the distinction of being one of the first fully professional footballers to play in the newly formed Korean Super League in the inaugural 1983 league season, however it has been as a manager where he has distinguished himself particularly within China where he has gone on to twice win the Chinese FA Cup with Chongqing Lifan and Qingdao Beilaite. He has also achieved a successful spell back home within South Korea with FC Seoul when he won the K-League Cup, however he has continued to return to China where he was the manager of Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande whose appointment also makes him the longest serving foreign coach within Chinese football. Playing career Lee Jang-soo was one of the first players to play professional football in South Korea when he started his professional football career at Yukong Elephants in 1983 with the formation of the K-League. Despite already being in his late twenties he would eventually play in 53 league games in his professional career which ended in 1986. Coaching career After his football career he became a coach at Honam University before being offered the chance to become a trainer with the newly formed Ilhwa Chunma team in the K-League. He was offered a promotion as a coaching in 1992 where he was part of the team that took them second in the league. The next few seasons saw him as part of the coaching team that would establish Ilhwa Chunma as a successful team within the K-League by winning the league for three consecutive seasons. In the 1996 league season when Ilhwa Chunma decided to rename themselves as Cheonan Ilhwa Chunma, Lee Jang-soo was again promoted to the Head coach position after the previous manager Park Jong-hwan left, however after a disappointing season where they were never in the title challenge Lee Jang-soo left. Throughout 1997 Lee Jang-soo went to Brazil to study coaching abroad until 1998 when Lee Jang-soo would move to China and manage Chongqing Lifan for four seasons. While he was there he managed to twice take Chongqing Lifan to fourth in the league in the 1999 and 2000 league season. However it wasn't until 2002 when Lee Jang-soo had moved to Qingdao Beilaite that he rose to prominace within China and