Sun Wen (footballer)
Chinese footballer (born 1973)

Sun Wen (Chinese: 孙雯; pinyin: Sūn Wén; born 6 April 1973) is a Chinese former professional footballer who played as a forward. She previously captained the China national team and the Atlanta Beat of the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA).
In 2000, she won the FIFA Female Player of the Century along with Michelle Akers. Sun won both the Golden Ball (top player) and Golden Boot (top scorer) for her performance at the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. She is considered one of the all-time greats of the women's game.
After the retirement, she became vice-president of the Chinese Football Association in 2019.
Early life
Sun began playing football around the age of ten. Her father, Sun Zonggao, was a recreational football player who took Sun with him to watch matches in the Chinese men's league. Sun credits him for influencing her foray into the sport.
Sun studied Chinese literature at the University of Shanghai.
The public source identifies “Sun Wen (footballer)” as chinese footballer (born 1973). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around footballer, Chinese and born.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q253223. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973, 2000, 1999 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sun Wen (footballer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.