Football: Starting from the 05 World Youth Championship

After the second round of the group stage, the qualifying situation of each group is still unclear.

None of the teams predicted by the media as favorites to win the championship before the game were able to advance to the knockout stage.

The Australian team in Group A was ranked last, which is shocking!
In comparison, the Chinese team, which has won both games, is in the best position to qualify among all teams.

The Chinese national football team, which has won both games, currently tops Group C with 6 points. Uzbekistan ranks second, while Iran is temporarily ranked third because of its lower goal difference than Uzbekistan.

As for the host Malaysian team, they lost both games and unsurprisingly ranked last.

In Group C, except for the Malaysian team which has been eliminated early, the remaining three teams have hopes of advancing.

Among them, the Chinese national football team has the best situation to qualify, and there is only a theoretical possibility of being eliminated.

With 6 points and 13 goals difference, it will be difficult for them to be eliminated unless they suffer a huge defeat in the last game.

The reason why there is a theoretical possibility of being eliminated is that if the Chinese national football team wants to eliminate itself, it must lose more than five goals in the next game against Uzbekistan.

Unless the match is fixed, this sounds like a difficult task to accomplish.

Even if you don't send out any of the main players, it is actually quite difficult to lose five.

After all, even the substitutes are carefully selected from a group of outstanding players. Although their strength is not as good as the main players, they are not rookies either.

Of course, if the Chinese national football team wants to qualify as the first in the group, it is better to play seriously and it is safer to fight for a draw or a win.

I don’t know if it’s because there are four hosts and four different competition venues.

There were quite a few upsets in this Asian Cup. Shortly after China defeated Iran 4:2, in a match in Group D, South Korea, another favorite to win the championship, also suffered an upset and lost to Bahrain 1:2.

The South Korean team drew with Saudi Arabia in the first round and now lost to another West Asian team.

After two rounds, the South Korean team only got 1 point and sat at the children's table with the Australian team in Group A.

This result was beyond everyone's expectations. In everyone's imagination, Group D should be a situation where the South Korean team was slaughtered indiscriminately. Unexpectedly, the South Korean team was indeed slaughtered indiscriminately, but they were slaughtered by others.

Right now the South Korean team’s qualifying situation is very bad. With only 1 point, they must win the next game and also have to depend on other people’s moods.

What if Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, two West Asian teams, play in tacit agreement and the final game ends in a draw.

Then the South Korean team will be eliminated by Bahrain due to the win-loss relationship.

To make matters worse, perhaps it is because the team's record is really too bad.

After losing to Bahrain, there was unrest within the South Korean team.

The main striker Lee Dong-gook even publicly criticized the tactics of South Korea's coach Verbeek, believing that the opponent's tactics of only deploying one striker in the middle and two wingers was completely wrong.

In his opinion, the South Korean team should send out two forwards.

Li Dongguo's words didn't sound like criticism, but rather like forcing the emperor to abdicate.

Lee Dong-guk has a long history. As early as 1998, he participated in the France World Cup as the youngest player in the history of the South Korean team.

Although he missed the 2002 Japan-Korea World Cup and the 2006 Germany World Cup due to injuries and other reasons.

But in the current South Korean team, he is indeed the player with the longest experience, and South Korea happens to be a country that values ​​seniority.

Therefore, his statement won the support of many fans in South Korea.

A large number of Korean fans flocked to the official website of the Korean Football Association and even ran to the Korean Football Association’s headquarters with banners to protest, demanding that they fire Verbeek.

However, in the face of criticism from players, questioning from the media and opposition from fans, the Dutchman insisted that his tactics were correct and told Lee Dong-gook not to always blame others but to reflect more on himself.

"As far as I know, Lee Dong-guk hasn't played in a game for a long time. He was just a substitute in Millsburg and hasn't played a full 90 minutes in a year.

So before criticising the team's tactics, he needs to focus on his own performance first."

This seems to imply that the South Korean team failed to score a goal because Lee Dong-guk was in poor condition.

The Dutch then brought up the results of the previous warm-up matches, 3:0 Iraq, 2:1 Uzbekistan, and even in the matches against Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the South Korean team created many opportunities, which all proved that their tactical system was effective.

The failure to score a goal is the fault of the forwards. If anyone is to blame, it is their failure to seize the opportunity.

After Vibeke's defense, the Korean media turned against him and began to criticize Lee Dong-guk.

There were even media reports that came up with rumors from nowhere, saying that Lee Dong-guk was bullying young players with less experience than him in the locker room, acting like a gangster.

For a time, people who supported Lee Dong-guk and those who supported Verbeek were cursing each other online and offline, which opened the eyes of the Chinese public.

[Haha, it turns out that when the South Korean team has a bad record, they also have internal conflicts. I thought this was exclusive to the Chinese national football team! ]

[You are surprised by this. This kind of situation of the Korean team overthrowing the superior has happened many times, especially when they hired foreign coaches! ]

[Why foreign coaches? Don’t they dare to object to local coaches? ]

[Of course, Korea is a society that values ​​seniority. The qualifications and prestige of local coaches are much higher than those of players. Many of them are former internationals. They also have friends and teammates, which is a large circle of connections and relationships. If active players dare to criticize local coaches, they will definitely offend many people and make it difficult for them to continue in the football world! ]

Seeing the situation heading towards the edge of being out of control, the Korean Football Association quickly stepped in, internally warned Lee Dong-guk, pressed his head and forced him to apologize to Verbeek, temporarily calming the farce.

But privately, the Korean Football Association also issued an ultimatum to the Dutchman that if he could not lead the Korean team to qualify from the group stage, the Korean Football Association would fire him.

Because there is no pressure to qualify, the fans of the Chinese national football team are focused on watching the show.

One day later, the third round of the group stage started in Group A.

The most watched match in Group A in this round is the match between the host Thailand team and the former favorite to win the championship, Australia.

The reason why it is called the former favorite to win the championship is that after the results of the second round of the group stage came out, Australia's odds of winning the championship have fallen out of the top five.

However, just when everyone thought that the Kangaroos were going to continue to fail, they defeated the host Thailand team 4:0 away from home.

The Thai fans who were so happy before the game and looking forward to seeing their team advance to the quarterfinals, all became autistic after watching this game.

Four goals, each one was like a dagger stabbing into their hearts, making tens of thousands of Thai fans at the scene feel miserable.

It hurts, it hurts too much!
Not only did their dream of advancement fall through, but they were also dealt a devastating blow by the opponent at their home ground.

This game is destined to become an indelible shadow in the hearts of many Thai fans.

Compared with the Thais, Singaporeans were much luckier. In the last match, the Singaporean team tied Oman 0:0 and advanced to the quarterfinals as the group leader, creating the best result in the history of Singaporean football.

After the game, many Singaporean fans posted online to specifically thank the Chinese team.

If the Chinese team had not defeated Iraq twice and given Singapore 1 point, allowing Singapore to take advantage of the opportunity, Singapore would not even have made it to the Asian Cup finals, let alone the historic quarterfinals of the Asian Cup.

Fans of the Chinese national football team did not expect things to develop to this extent. When the national football team was tied by the Singapore team in an away game, many fans broke down and even spoke ill of the national football team!
No one expected that the dark horse Singapore team was so strong that they actually made it to the quarterfinals as the group leader.

From this perspective, it doesn’t seem unfair that the Chinese national football team was forced to a draw?
……

The plot of the last round of Group B was almost identical to that of Group A. The host country, who only needed a draw to qualify, conceded three goals to Japan in the first half and conceded another one in the second half, with the score now at 1:4.

Seeing that the defeat was irreversible, the fans of the Vietnamese team all placed their hopes on the UAE.

Whether we can qualify depends entirely on the performance of the UAE!
Vietnamese people are obviously much luckier than Thai people!

After Qatar scored the first goal, the UAE equalized the score in the second half and scored again in injury time. In the end, they defeated Qatar 2:1 and helped Vietnam secure the second spot in Group B.

Like Singapore in Group A, this is also the first time that Vietnam has reached the knockout stage of the Asian Cup.

Even though Indonesia and Malaysia were eliminated, the fact that two Southeast Asian teams advanced to the quarterfinals in one Asian Cup is enough to make Southeast Asian fans proud.

……

July 7, 18: p.m.

The last round of Group C kicked off at the same time, with the Chinese national football team visiting Shanan Stadium to face the last opponent of the group stage - Uzbekistan.

This game is extremely important for Uzbekistan and Iran. Whether they can qualify depends entirely on the performance of the Chinese team.

In order to win this game, Uzbekistan team played with all its main players, even the main players who did not appear in the last warm-up match with the Chinese team, also appeared this time.

Although judging from the strength on paper, the gap between the two teams is quite obvious.

The value of Lin Feng alone on the Chinese national football team is several times that of the entire Uzbekistan team combined.

What's more, the Chinese national football team has a large number of players studying abroad.

But the Uzbek team has been forced into a desperate situation. If they lose this game, they will definitely be eliminated.

It is obviously unrealistic to hope that the Malaysian team will unexpectedly defeat the Iranian team.

Compared with the importance attached by the Uzbek team, the Chinese national team did not actually take this game too seriously.

In addition to Li Weifeng, Zheng Zhi and others who were suspended due to accumulated yellow cards, the main goalkeeper Li Leilei, who was injured in the previous game, did not play in this game.

Zhu Guanghu arranged a very young starting lineup. At first glance, it seemed that it was not the national football team but the national Olympic team that was playing.

In this game, the three players on the front line were Mao Jianqing, Gao Lin and Dong Fangzhuo.

Behind the three of them, the three midfielders lined up in a row were Lin Feng, Chen Tao and Zhao Xuri.

There are minimal changes in the defense, with Sun Xiang still the left-back and Zhang Shuai, Sun Jihai's substitute who plays for Beijing Guoan, replacing him at right-back.

The two central defenders are Feng Xiaoting and Zhang Yaokun!

As for the goalkeeper, Zhu Guanghu was very radical and did not choose the second goalkeeper Yang Jun, but instead chose the third goalkeeper Wang Dalei who was only 18 years old.

The Chinese national football team's lineup is very young, with an average age of only 22.2 years old, breaking the record for the youngest starting lineup in the Asian Cup.

Such a young lineup made Chinese fans exclaim in disbelief when they saw the starting lineup.

[Brothers, is this really the Asian Cup and not the Olympics? Apart from Sun Xiang, Zhang Shuai and Zhang Yaokun, isn't this a proper National Olympic Team lineup? ]

[No doubt, if you just change the coach to Krauchen, this will be the National Olympic Team! ]

[Isn't Lao Zhu a bit too radical? Isn't this lineup a bit too young? ]

[This lineup is indeed a bit too young. There are actually two players under the age of 20. For such an important position as goalkeeper, an -year-old player was chosen. I even wonder if Lao Zhu drank too much last night and didn't wake up? ]

[Although they look a little younger, you can't really say that these players are weak! ]

[Indeed, as long as Lin Feng is on the field, the Chinese team will not be weak, but the goalkeeper position is a bit too...]

[Although Wang Dalei is young, he is an Inter Milan player after all. He is the starting goalkeeper of Venice in the Italian Serie C. He is quite capable! ]

……

Seeing the shocked expressions of the fans and opponents, Zhu Guanghu felt a little proud.

Haha, are you young?

It’s right to be young!
If Zhang Linpeng hadn't accidentally strained a muscle during team training, Zhu Guanghu would have even wanted to put him in the starting lineup for this game.

If he also makes the starting lineup, the average age of the national football team will drop to 21 years old!
As for why they use young players so aggressively instead of choosing to play it safe and send out older players.

On the one hand, it is to fulfill the agreement with Krauchen and give more opportunities to young players to perform. Before the Olympics start, use the Asian Cup platform to test the combat effectiveness of the National Olympic Team.

On the other hand, Zhu Guanghu wanted to create a youth storm in the national football team, inject fresh blood into the Chinese team, and give some strength to the old guys in the team who are living off their past responsibilities so that they dare not be lazy or slack off.

With the 85 National Youth Team, Chinese football will be full of talents in the next few years.

The competition in the national team is bound to become very fierce, and by then there will be plenty of people who will do it if you don’t want to.

If the older players in the team don't want to be replaced by young players, they should show the right attitude and train and play seriously.

Don't act like you did before, playing tricks in the game, disobeying the head coach's orders, or even forming cliques and factions in private.

Otherwise, Zhu Guanghu would not take their old friendship into consideration and would decisively promote new people when it was time to replace them.

After all, the talents of this group of young players are actually better than those of the current national team players.

The sooner they can be promoted to the first team and the team's transition from old to new players can be completed sooner, the Chinese team's combat effectiveness will be taken to a higher level!
Of course, the reason why he dared to use players so aggressively in such an important game.

It is because the Chinese national football team does not have much pressure to qualify, so they can be a little willful when using players. (End of this chapter)