The irony of Chinese soccer's Class of 2002 is that they are largely remembered for embarrassing the nation at the World Cup, losing all three games without even scoring a goal, but in the context of China's soccer history, they still represent the golden generation.

Three of the players from that team - Sun Jihai, Li Tie and Fan Zhiyi - had successful spells in the UK, while two others - Shao Jiayi and Yang Chen - had impressive careers in Germany. But others from that team, and many more since, have also tried their hands in Europe with far less success.

Zhang Xizhe is set to become just the fourth Chinese player to lace up in the Bundesliga when his transfer to high-flying Wolfsburg becomes official this week, and he will hope to follow in the footsteps of Shao and Yang, and not those of Hao Junmin, who went goalless in 14 appearances for Schalke 04 and returned to China in 2011 after lasting just 18 months overseas.

The dilemma facing the 23-year-old Zhang is simple: Stay in China and continue to be a big fish in a small pond, or go abroad and risk spending the prime of his career on the bench. Zhang, though, is making the rwight decision, not only for himself, but for the whole of Chinese soccer.

Ten years ago, almost all the best American soccer players were attached to European clubs, in order to test themselves at the highest possible level. That helped the national team, and in turn also raised the standard of the domestic US league, which can now retain at least some of its star players. The Chinese Super League lags far behind the top European leagues, and the learning curve for Zhang in Germany will be extremely steep, but China needs its best players to be playing at the highest levels in order to improve the national team and inspire those left at home.

Wolfsburg had been tracking Zhang's progress for over a year and other teams in Europe, including Celtic, had been interested. Another, more cynical, worry for the 2012 Chinese Young Player of the Year is that Volkswagen, who owns Wolfsburg outright, is using simply him to promote their cars in the world's largest auto market. Even so, if Zhang had refused the move, what would that have said about his ambition, and by extension, about the whole of the Chinese soccer establishment?

Having struggled at times to impose himself in Asian Champions League matches, he is far from certain to be a regular for a team that is currently the second best in Germany, but Zhang needs to take this leap of faith to find out just how good he can become.

The author is a Beijing-based freelance writer. dreyermark@gmail.com