While at Tianjin Teda he would struggle to gain any significant playing time and after several seasons he would transfer to Shandong Luneng where he replaced Deng Xiaofei for the goalkeeping position for a short period.
[3] In preparation for the 2007 AFC Asian Cup Zong Lei would play in a friendly against Kazakhstan on February 2, 2007, where he made his international debut in a game, which China won 2–1.
[4] His performance was considered good enough for the Chinese Head coach Zhu Guanghu to include him in the tournament where he was the third choice goalkeeper and did not play in any games.
[5] When the new head coach Vladimir Petrović came in immediately after the tournament Zong Lei would be promoted as the national team's first choice goalkeeper and would play in several FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
When China failed to qualify and Vladimir Petrović's reign ended Zong Lei would find himself out of favour and was dropped from the subsequent squads.