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. International career 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. He was already a veteran in the China national team by the time the national team played in the 2002 FIFA World Cup. 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. 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. Managerial career On 25 May 2012, Li accepted an invitation from Guangzhou Evergrande manager Marcello Lippi to become one of his assistant coaches. He also became the assistant coach of the Chinese national team under Alain Perrin in May 2014. He resigned from his position as assistant coach on 26 June 2015 after about three seasons with Guangzhou. Li became the deputy general manager, sports director and assistant coach at China League One side Hebei China Fortune on 14 July 2015. On 18 August 2015, he was assigned as the manager of the club after Radomir Antić's departure. Li led the club to win promotion to Chinese Super League in the 2015 season by winning eight matches in the rest of nine and finishing the runners-up in the league. On 27 August 2016, Li was replaced by Manuel Pellegrini after winning just one match in the last nine matches. On 16 November 2017, Li was appointed as the head coach of China League One club Wuhan Zall. In the 2018 season, he led the club to the Chinese Super after a five-year absence,