Recently, while the national football team was training at the Hainan Guanlan Lake Football Training Base in Haikou, the Shanghai Shenhua Club was conducting group confrontation training on the No. 3 field separated by a net. The newly joined 19-year-old young player Wang Hanlong, as a forward, stood out with his performance and scored goals repeatedly. He has actually attracted the attention of many industry insiders, including members of the national football team. Last week, when the Shanghai Shenhua Club officially announced Wang Hanlong's joining, some domestic media defined this mixed-race player as a "Chinese descendant young player," and more Chinese fans called him the "mixed-race ball king." This is because Wang Hanlong had lived in Slovenia with his family for many years before. During this period, he was selected into the Slovenian national-level echelon of the 2006 age group many times and played for the Slovenian U17 team. As a result, in the past week, many Chinese fans have begun to discuss that the Chinese Football Association should start the naturalization procedures for Wang Hanlong.
However, according to the report of the Beijing Youth Daily, the official media of the national football team on January 13th, Beijing time, Wang Hanlong actively chose Chinese nationality when he turned 18, which means he does not need to be naturalized and can normally represent the Chinese national team in official matches. Therefore, if Wang Hanlong's ability is strong enough, he can also become an object of investigation for the U20 national football team of the 2005 age group, and even represent the team in this year's U20 Asian Cup. For this reason, some domestic media and Chinese fans describe Wang Hanlong as a "naturalized player without going through the naturalization process."
Wang Hanlong is a post-00s player. His mother is from Yiwu, Zhejiang, so Wang Hanlong's Chinese level is quite good. Born in Yiwu, Zhejiang on March 20, 2006, he is 182cm tall and plays as a forward on the field. In terms of physical quality, Wang Hanlong possesses very good forward qualities. Wang Hanlong started receiving football training at the age of 6 and went to Slovenia in 2019, joining the youth team of the traditional strong team Ljubljana Olympia Football Club in the league.
What is Wang Hanlong's football level? This is a topic that Chinese fans are most concerned about. Although it is now an era of highly developed internet, there is indeed very little information about Wang Hanlong on the internet. From the limited information, we can see that in the 2023-24 season, Wang Hanlong played 25 league games for the Ljubljana Olympia U19 team and scored 7 goals. He has played 15 league games in the 2025 season so far without scoring any goals. In addition, Wang Hanlong played 5 times for the Slovenian U16 team and scored 1 goal, and played 3 times for the Slovenian U17 team. Since Slovenia is not a traditional strong team in Europe and Wang Hanlong is a young player, it is still unclear what his football level is.
It is worth mentioning that Wang Hanlong expressed his desire to play for the Chinese national team as early as 2023, but the Chinese Football Association did not take any action. At that time, Wang Hailong was 17 years old, and he could choose between Slovenian nationality or Chinese nationality. A year later, when Wang Hanlong turned 18, he actively chose Chinese nationality.
On one hand, we can see that Wang Hanlong has a strong desire and sense of honor for the Chinese national team, which is very comforting to Chinese fans. On the other hand, we can see that the Chinese Football Association is completely inactive in naturalizing players. If Wang Hanlong chose Slovenian nationality at the age of 18, then we would have lost this naturalized player.
In fact, the Shanghai Shenhua Club has always had the tradition of introducing overseas Chinese players. From the early mixed-race player Ai Di to the American-Chinese defender Yan Xinli in the 2023 season. However, the football skills of these two players are indeed limited, and there is a certain gap with the expectations of fans. Neither of them was able to be selected for the national team. Among them, Yan Xinli even announced his retirement in 2024. Therefore, we very much hope that Wang Hanlong can break the vicious circle of his predecessors and make achievements in the Chinese football world.