Chapter 277 The Chinese national football team goes all out to strangle the dark horse in the cradle!
Compared with the Chinese national football team which made it out of the game early, the current situation of the Iraqi team is not very optimistic.
This dark horse that shines in next year's Asian Cup is currently still struggling for the right to qualify for the group stage.
In the five group matches held previously, the Iraqi team had 2 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses, and only got 7 points.
Apart from the loss to the Chinese team which was due to their own lack of skills, the points lost in the remaining games were a bit incomprehensible!
In the first round of the group stage, the Iraqi team lost 0:2 to Singapore away from home.
In the fourth round, they were unexpectedly tied at home by Palestine, the weakest team in the group.
Before the fifth round of the group stage, Iraq had only a pitiful 4 points, exactly the same as the Singapore team. Their opponent at the time was the Singapore team. If Iraq had lost that game, their dark horse would have died prematurely!
Fortunately, the Iraqi team learned from their mistakes and defeated Singapore 4:2 at home, taking the initiative to qualify.
But at this time they were already far behind the Chinese national team in points and it was no longer possible for them to compete with the Chinese national team for the first place in the group.
Therefore, for the Iraqi team, qualifying is their only goal.
In the last round of the group stage against the Chinese team, they only need a draw to qualify, otherwise they will have to depend on Singapore's performance.
Although Singapore is three points behind Iraq, their opponent in the final round is Palestine, the bottom team in Group E. The probability of Singapore getting three points is very high.
Considering that the Singapore team only lost one goal in the two rounds against the Chinese team, this has accumulated an advantage for them to qualify by goal difference!
Singapore’s goal difference is currently negative two, while Iraq’s goal difference is zero.
It seems that the Iraqi team is leading in points and goal difference, and the situation is very good.
But Iraq's opponent is China, which is first in the group. As long as the Chinese team does not let up, nothing can be certain.
If Singapore scores a lot of goals against Palestine in the last game and Iraq is beaten to a pulp by China away from home, then they will be eliminated!
So before the game started, the Iraqi coach and players hinted in interviews with reporters that their goal was to qualify from the group stage, and their words implied that they would use conservative defensive tactics to fight for a draw and victory away from home.
But the outcome of a game cannot be decided by one team alone; it also depends on whether their opponents are willing to cooperate.
The friendship between the Chinese team and the Iraqi team is obviously not that deep. Even though they lost points to Singapore before, the Chinese team would still prefer to see Singapore advance to the Asian Cup finals.
There is no other reason. The Singapore team at least won’t bribe the referee to blow a biased whistle, but the West Asian teams really will.
Therefore, the Chinese national football team had no intention of showing mercy in this game, and Zhu Guanghu arranged for the entire main lineup to play.
Gao Lin partners with Li Jinyu on the front line, and behind them are Lin Feng, Chen Tao, Zheng Zhi and Li Tie in the midfield.
On the defensive line, Chinese national team captain Li Weifeng returned and partnered with Feng Xiaoting, who has gradually established himself and made rapid progress at Barcelona. On the left and right sides are Sun Xiang and Sun Jihai, two of the Chinese national team's best full-backs.
As soon as the fans saw the lineup of the Chinese national team, they immediately knew what was going on!
"Haha, it looks like Old Zhu is planning to celebrate the New Year for us in advance!"
"If this lineup plays well, I think it can be used directly in next year's Asian Cup without any adjustments!"
"There is no problem with the four starters in the midfield, and there is no big problem with the defense. Although Xiao Feng is young, he plays calmly and steadily, with the demeanor of a great general. In the future, he will definitely surpass the senior players of the national football team and become the strongest defender of the national football team!"
"The only thing worth worrying about is probably the forward line, right?"
"Indeed, I also think the selection of strikers needs to be discussed. Gao Lin and Li Jinyu's partnership doesn't seem to be the best. Maybe we can let Dong Fangzhuo and Han Peng go up and give it a try. If that doesn't work, we can also call back veterans like Xie Hui, Li Yi, and Zhang Yuning!"
The problem of the Chinese national football team's weak forward force has already been reflected in the past few years.
It’s just that the other positions of the Chinese national football team were not strong at that time, and the problem of weak forward strength was not exposed very prominently.
But now, the strength of the Chinese national football team's midfield has been greatly improved. The unreliable problem of the strikers has been quickly exposed against the backdrop of the excellent midfield, and has gradually become a major shortcoming of the Chinese national football team.
When it comes to this, the fans sighed and wondered how to strengthen this thing.
As the Chinese Super League introduces more and more foreign forwards and the positions of local shooters are becoming increasingly precarious, there is no hope of solving this problem.
And even if there are restrictions on foreign players, it is useless. The local shooters are still a bunch of bad players. It's just that the range of selection is wider, and we can pick out a relatively better one who looks like a general from a group of dwarfs.
Although the fans of the Chinese national football team are not very satisfied with the forward line, the Iraqi coach was completely stunned after seeing the lineup sent out by the Chinese national football team!
You have already secured first place in the group, so why are you still fighting so hard in the last game?
Aren’t you afraid that something unexpected might happen and some key players might get injured during the game, which might affect the Asian Cup next year?
At 19:30 Beijing time, accompanied by the referee's whistle, the last round of the Asian Cup qualifiers, Group E, the match between China and Iraq, officially kicked off at the He Long Stadium in Changsha.
The two teams met in the UAE eight months ago, and the Chinese team won 4:1 away from home.
Now back at home, the Chinese national team, who remained undefeated in the group stage, appear to be full of confidence.
After the opening, the Chinese national football team actively and proactively launched a fierce attack on the opponent.
The Iraqi team really retreated on all fronts as they said in the interview, as if they were determined to defend the situation to the death.
They had already witnessed the terrifying firepower of the Chinese team at home last time. Now they are playing away from home. If they dare to attack aggressively like they did in the last game, they will probably not know how to write the word death!
The Iraqi team's deployment today seemed very targeted. They gave up a forward and arranged three defensive midfielders in the backcourt to strengthen the interception and clearance of the midfield and deny the Chinese national team the opportunity to organize an attack in the frontcourt.
The Chinese team also had a plan for this. Taking advantage of Lin Feng's large range of movement on the field and his ability to attack from the side, Zhu Guanghu specially arranged for two full-backs to actively and proactively advance and attack, creating a situation of outnumbering the opponent in local areas on the wing, attracting the opponent's midfielders and defenders to double-team, and then through Lin Feng's pass, the ball was sent to Chen Tao and Zheng Zhi's feet, allowing them to complete the final pass.
Of course, this is when the breakthrough on the wing is blocked. If the attack on the wing goes smoothly, Lin Feng can dribble the ball inside and complete an inverted triangle pass at the sideline of the penalty area or cut inside to the middle and shoot directly.
You can also continue to cooperate with your teammates on the wing and let the full-back pass the ball from the bottom.
In short, when the opponent concentrates its forces in the midfield, the Chinese national football team should make full use of the width of the field and look for opportunities from both sides.
In the first ten minutes of the game, the Chinese national football team had been firmly in control of the initiative on the field and completed four shots. Although they did not score a goal, the fans were very satisfied and the applause and cheers from the stands never stopped.
In addition to ordinary fans, there was also a special spectator in the stands of Helong Stadium today. He was the former head coach of the National Youth Team, German Krautzen.
Since the end of last year's World Youth Championship, Krauchen has gradually faded out of the public eye.
Originally, there were many rumors that the Football Association did not intend to renew his contract and planned to hire other coaches to coach the national youth team, which is the future national Olympic team.
But after this news was revealed, it immediately aroused collective dissatisfaction among the majority of fans.
In the eyes of the fans, Krauchen is leading the team well, why did you replace him?
Could it be that he saw that Krauchen had coached the national youth team well and achieved good results, so he was in a hurry to come out and reap the benefits?
If this is the case, then the Football Association and the unconfirmed domestic coach will probably become rats crossing the street, and everyone will shout and beat them.
Due to the loud opposition from fans, coupled with the collective retention of the national youth team and the media hype, public opinion further fermented.
Under tremendous pressure from public opinion, Jia Xiuquan could not bear the attacks from the outside world and the insults from the fans, and publicly stated that he would not coach the National Olympic Team, causing the Football Association's alternative plan to fail. The team was then forced to renew its contract with Krauchen and officially confirmed that he would lead the team to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
As the Olympic Games approached, the preparations for the National Olympic Team began to get on track.
This time, Krauchen made a special trip to watch the game, firstly to understand the tactics used by the adult national team, and secondly to observe the performance of the national Olympic players selected for the national football team's roster.
Due to the easing of relations between the IOC and FIFA, the age limit for players in the Olympics has not been as strict in recent years.
In addition to young players under the age of 23, each team can also recruit an additional 3 over-age players.
This time, Krauchen also came to understand the level of the main players in various positions of the national football team. If there are players with outstanding personal strength, he will not hesitate to give them the three places and bring them to the Olympics!
After watching the first ten minutes of the game, Krauchen had an idea of the strength of the Chinese national team.
The strength of the adult national team is definitely stronger than that of the national youth team. At least in the position of defensive midfielder, Zheng Zhi is irreplaceable, and the two full-backs are also much stronger than those of the national youth team.
So he quickly set his sights on the Chinese national team's right-back Sun Jihai and midfielder Zheng Zhi.
In Krauchen's opinion, he feels that these two people have the ability to gain a foothold in the top five leagues.
After asking the assistant, I found out that both of them are playing in the top five leagues and are starters in their respective teams.
Krauchen nodded with satisfaction and decided to talk to the two of them after the game. If they were willing, he could add them to the national Olympic team's roster.
The appearance of Krauchen quickly attracted the attention of the fans, and warm applause and cheers broke out at the scene. This was a gift from the fans to Krauchen for leading the national youth team to win the World Youth Championship.
When his figure was captured by the camera, even the fans who were watching the live broadcast on TV started to make a noise.
A German old man in his sixties, without taking a penny from China, led the young men of the National Youth Team, taught them by words and deeds, and used his connections to arrange friendly matches everywhere. During this period, he discovered a super genius like Lin Feng, and finally led the National Youth Team to the top of the world.
Such a person deserves the title of old friend of the Chinese people!
At least he is an old friend of Chinese fans!
The simple Chinese people welcome such international friends from the bottom of their hearts!
Seeing the camera pointed at him, Krauchen smiled and waved to the camera, greeting the fans at the scene and across the country.
This scene was quickly projected onto the big screen at the scene. Zhao Xuri, Zhou Haibin and other young players on the bench became excited when they saw that it was Krauschen:
"It's old man Ke!"
"Why is he here?"
"Is the National Olympic Team going to form a team soon?"
"Then he must be here to select the players, right? Ahhh, I really want to play!"
……
The commotion on the bench caught Zhu Guanghu's attention. When he saw Krauchen's figure on the big screen, he was stunned for a moment, then stood up from the coaching seat involuntarily and walked to the sidelines with a serious expression.
He doesn't have much of a relationship with Krauchen, but he doesn't have as many conflicts with the national Olympic coach Dui as he did in history.
He roughly knew why Krauchen came here this time, so Zhu Guanghu didn't intend to hide it. He glanced at the time and it should be about time.
So he waved his hand and gave the order to the players on the field to launch a full-scale attack!
After seeing Zhu Guanghu's gesture, the Chinese national football players on the field suddenly accelerated the pace of their attack.
The players' movement, ball handling speed, passing and cutting coordination, and on-the-spot counter-attacks after losing the ball are all much faster than before.
The Iraqi players were surprised to find that they originally thought that what they had just seen was the true strength of the Chinese national football team, but they did not expect that the opponent could actually improve!
After the Chinese national football team suddenly increased the speed, the Iraqi team immediately seemed a little uncomfortable.
The opponent's passing and offensive advancement speed is completely different from before. What's more frightening is that the Chinese national team's on-the-spot counter-attack is very good. Through active running, the players can always form a numerical advantage in local areas. Even if there are mistakes in coordination and the ball is intercepted by the opponent, they can quickly use the numerical advantage in the local area to launch an on-the-spot counter-attack.
This tactic was developed by the Chinese national football team during last year's training camp in Spain and this year's World Cup, when they played against top teams such as Brazil and France.
The reason why these strong teams are strong is that their game tempo is faster. Once the weaker teams cannot keep up with their tempo, they will easily be defeated by them.
When the Chinese national football team first met them, they seemed very uncomfortable and had a very difficult time.
But after many rounds of games, the Chinese national football team gradually adapted to the rhythm of these strong teams. Although there is still a gap with the opponents, they can barely keep up.
This fast-paced offense and defense is a deadly weapon when facing Asian teams, which generally have a slower pace.
(End of this chapter)
