Xavier Chen

Xavier Chen
Personal information

Full name	Xavier Chen
Date of birth	(1983-10-05) 5 October 1983 (age 40)
Place of birth	Sint-Agatha-Berchem, Brussels, Belgium
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 9 in)
Position(s)	Right back
Youth career
1991–2003	Anderlecht
2003–2005	KV Kortrijk
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
2005–2007	KV Kortrijk	38	(0)
2007–2013	KV Mechelen	124	(0)
2013–2015	Guizhou Renhe	75	(2)
2016–2017	KV Mechelen	18	(0)
Total		255	(2)
International career
2001–2002	Belgium U19	11	(0)
2011–2017	Chinese Taipei	9	(3)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Xavier Chen (Chinese: 陳昌源/夏維耶; born 5 October 1983) is a former professional footballer who played as a right-back. He began his youth career with Anderlecht before moving to KV Kortrijk where he first played at senior level (2003–2007). After Kortrijk, he spent six years at KV Mechelen (2007–2013) and two at Guizhou Renhe (2013–2015) before returning to KV Mechelen. Born in Belgium, he represented Chinese Taipei at international level.

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Personal life

Chen was born to a French mother and a Taiwanese father. His paternal grandfather is a former diplomat who still lives in Taiwan.

Club career

Chen started his senior career in KV Kortrijk, but gained recognition in his first stint with KV Mechelen, where he became captain. Due to the inconvenience of traveling back and forth between Belgium and Taiwan, Chen decided to move to Chinese side Guizhou Renhe when he accepted CTFA's invitation to play for the national team. In January 2016, Chen returned to KV Mechelen, stating that he only wanted to play for a maximum of three years in China. A few Chinese teams showed interest to sign him, but he ultimately decided to return to his country of birth. Altogether, Chen spent seven seasons with KV Mechelen.^[1]

International career

Chen's eligibility to play for Chinese Taipei was discovered by the CTFA public relations director Chen Chia-Ming in 2009^[2] and Chen was invited to play for the national team. The Chinese Football Association of the mainland had also made an attempt to recruit Chen three months after the CTFA did. On 24 May 2011, encouraged by his relatives, Chen elected to play for Chinese Taipei.^[3]^[4]

Chen made his international debut against Malaysia on 3 July 2011 and scored the winning goal. This marked the first time in 10 years that Chinese Taipei beat an opponent that was ranked in the FIFA top 150. The attendance of the game was a record breaking at 15,335, which was 10,000 higher than average. On 9 October 2015, Chen scored the third goal in a 5–1 victory over Macau.

International goals

Scores and results list Taiwan's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Chen goal.^[5]

List of international goals scored by Xavier Chen
No.	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	3 July 2011	Taipei Municipal Stadium, Taipei, Taiwan	Malaysia	3–2	3–2	2014 FIFA World Cup qualification
2	9 October 2015	Taipei Municipal Stadium, Taipei, Taiwan	Macau	3–1	5–1	Friendly
3	10 June 2017	Jalan Besar Stadium, Kallang, Singapore	Singapore	1–1	2–1	2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification