Born into a respectable family,[clarification needed] Haitao went to university while still playing for the Shandong youth team.
[1] After several rough seasons where Shandong spent much of their time in the lower leagues Zhang gained significant playing time which aided him when Shandong became a professional football team in 1994 and were allowed entry to the top tier.
Zhang retired from football at the end of the 1998 league season after being unable to fully recover from his knee damage and was given the chance to manage the Shandong Luneng Youth team in December 1998.
After spending several years training as a manager with the Shandong Luneng youth team where he was considered a talented young coach able to speak fluent English,[citation needed] he was offered the chance to be head coach of the China women's national team in 2003 ready for 2004 Olympics at Athens.
His time as the head coach however was not successful as China were unable to get out of the group stages after a defeat to Germany, which saw them lose 8-0.