Starting with playing defensive midfield for Evergrande

Chapter 182 A Crushing Victory Over Uzbekistan: The Unstoppable Chinese Soviet Union?
China thrashes Saudi Arabia 7-1, Su Hao scores four goals in Australia!

The strongest teams in the Asian Cup have emerged; the odds of South Korea, Japan, and Australia winning the title have plummeted!

Lippi praises Su Hao as the greatest midfielder in football history!

After a resounding victory, Su Hao's name once again dominated headlines across Asia and even in English media.

Especially domestically.

Even though this was only the first group stage match, the fans in China, who were used to hardship, celebrated this victory as if they had won the championship.

Bars packed late at night, noisy dormitories on campus
In short, not a single person in the country who loves football slept that night!

They released their pent-up emotions from the past few years without any restraint!

just.

While fans were celebrating wildly, the national team members in Australia had nothing special to do.

Since the second group stage match was in three days, Lippi quickly sent everyone back to their rooms after everyone had a simple bottle of beer.

China thrashed Saudi Arabia, while in another group stage match, Uzbekistan narrowly defeated North Korea by one goal.

In other groups.

South Korea defeated Oman 1-0.

However, despite South Korea winning the game, countless South Korean fans surrounded the South Korean team's bus after the match.

There's nothing we can do about it; the South Korean media had been exaggerating their South Korea too much before.

The South Korean fans were so inflated that they thought their national team would crush the little-known Omani team like China had crushed Saudi Arabia.

But the result?
Despite dominating Oman throughout the match, South Korea managed to narrowly defeat them in the 80th minute with a penalty kick.

With the Chinese team as a comparison, proud South Korean fans naturally felt that these national team players had completely disgraced South Korea in Australia!

After more than an hour of blocking the bus, the South Korean team's head coach led all the players out of the car to bow and apologize, which finally calmed the fans down.

However, while the team was allowed to proceed, the fans made a demand that the South Korean team could not refuse.

That means the next group stage match against Australia. They need to play with the spirit of South Korea. A double-digit score is unrealistic, but at least the score should be better than China's second match.

Otherwise, they will continue to block the bus like they did today.

And it's the kind of blocking method that absolutely refuses to back down!

Three days passed quickly.

During the two-day break for the Chinese team, the matches in the other groups will proceed in turn.

After all, the overall level of Asian football is just so-so, and the gap between teams is quite obvious, so there were no upsets in the matches these past two days.

Teams like Japan, Iran, and Qatar all won their respective matches with narrow escapes.

At 8:00 AM local time on June 25th.

The second match for the Chinese team, which has attracted the attention of numerous media outlets and their formidable opponents in the Asian Cup, has officially begun.

Uzbekistan!

This traditionally strong West Asian team defeated North Korea in their last match.

However, his overall strength was actually not even as good as the Chinese team without Su Hao. Therefore, Su Hao only played for 45 minutes in this game before being substituted for rest.

However, even so.

With Su Hao in the lead for 45 minutes, the Chinese team still dominated their opponents with their usual four-goal lead.

Su Hao scored a long-range shot, but didn't add many goals to his tally.

However, the other three goals were all assisted by Su Hao.

Moreover, all three of Su Hao's assists went to the same person.

Wu Lei!

This future number one player from the village, who is different from the original history, went abroad early and truly grew up in La Liga.

After his weakness in front of goal was exploited, his world-class positioning truly became the strongest explosive point for this Chinese team besides Su Hao.

All three goals came from opportunities he created himself!
Especially the third goal.

Su Hao was completely surrounded by three Uzbek players in midfield, with absolutely no space to pass the ball.

However, Wu Lei did not hesitate to rush towards Uzbekistan's goal the moment their last line of defense relaxed.

Wu Lei can create opportunities!
How could Su Hao, a world-class player with a passing accuracy of 93, possibly let Wu Lei's agile runs go to waste?
Wu Lei's no-look pass not only impressed the Uzbek players but also allowed him to complete his first hat-trick for the national team.

A chip shot!
Wu Lei chipped the ball over the onrushing goalkeeper, making the score 4-0.
The moment the goal was scored, Wu Lei was so excited that he immediately took off his jersey and ran wildly towards Su Hao, who had fed him such a world-class goal from the midfield.

Halftime score: 4-0.

With the outcome of the match already decided, Lippi naturally substituted Su Hao to protect him.

With Su Hao off the field, the Uzbekistan coach on the other side was naturally excited and quickly adjusted his tactics, planning a desperate comeback.

However, what the Uzbekistan coach didn't expect was that Lippi had already anticipated that move.

In this substitution, Lippi not only replaced Su Hao, but also Gao Lin.

Qin Sheng and Huang Bowen, a pair of Evergrande's core midfielders, made their debut.

而原本中国队的4-4-2也快速的切换成了4-5-1。

Then, in the next match.

Although fans could no longer see Su Hao's dazzling individual brilliance, the Evergrande team's fluid and coordinated tactics still resulted in two goals in the 59th and 76th minutes of the match.

Moreover, not only did they score two more goals, but they also had Van Dijk's support in the backfield.

China's defense was also watertight, keeping all of Uzbekistan's attacks out.

6: 0!

This is how the match ended.

They scored 13 goals and conceded only one in two games!
The Chinese team secured first place in their group and advanced to the quarterfinals with overwhelming force.

The Chinese team won, and it was a resounding 6-0 victory.

With this score, the pressure naturally fell on the South Korean team, who were far away in Sydney.

Because of the previous incident of fans blocking the bus, this highly anticipated match against Australia was even described by South Korean media as a battle for the dignity of the Republic of Korea.

South Korean fans expected their Republic of Korea to not only win this match, but also to achieve a victory by at least three goals, similar to China's thrashing of Uzbekistan, to even consider it a draw. However...
South Korean fans had high hopes, but reality was far from ideal.

They're on Australian soil, and Australia's strength is no less than, if not greater than, that of South Korea.

In this situation, no matter how hard the South Korean players tried, they still couldn't achieve the resounding victory over Australia that the fans had hoped for.

They didn't even defeat Australia.

A 1-1 draw!
The Republic of Korea and Australia drew.

Moreover, in terms of the game, the South Korean team was even dominated by Australia for a long time.

If it weren't for Guangzhou Evergrande player Kim Young-gwon's header that leveled the score in the final moments of the match, South Korea's battle for dignity might have ended in defeat to Australia.

Once again, they were overwhelmed by the Chinese team.

After the match, true to their word, the South Korean fans blocked the South Korean team's bus without hesitation.

Moreover, this time, South Korean fans truly stood their ground.

If Australian police hadn't arrived at the last minute to disperse the South Korean fans, these South Korean stars might have really had to spend a long night on the team bus!
With the team advancing early, Lippi naturally started a rotation and rest program for the key players.

In the final round of the group stage three days later.

Facing North Korea, who had already lost two games in a row, Lippi fielded a completely reserve lineup.

Even Zeng Cheng was replaced by Wang Dalei.

Forehead.
And then!
Unsurprisingly, without the Evergrande players, the Chinese team was naturally brought back to its original state.

Facing a highly motivated North Korean team, the Chinese team managed only seven shots on goal throughout the entire match.

Their attack was so weak that the fans in the stands started booing their own team.

Fortunately, the Chinese team's attack was ineffective, and the North Korean team's attack posed little threat either.

Especially after North Korea's only chance was denied by Wang Dalei's brilliant save.

The match ended in a dull 90 minutes, with both teams failing to score, resulting in a 0-0 draw in the final group stage game.

With two wins and one draw, the Chinese team accumulated 7 points and a goal difference of +12, securing first place and advancing to the next round without any doubt.

And then the matches in the other groups.

Japan defeated Palestine 4-0, securing their place in the next round with three wins out of three matches.

South Korea, on the other hand, thrashed Kuwait 5-0 in their final match, securing first place on goal difference.

With that, all group stage matches came to an end.

The eight teams that will advance have been finalized.

Group A: South Korea first, Australia second!
Group B: China first, Uzbekistan second!
Group C: Iran first, UAE second!

Group D: Japan first, Iraq second!

According to the competition format, the first place in Group A will meet the second place in Group B, and so on.

China's opponent in the quarterfinals is the host country, Australia, which is ranked among the top teams in the quarterfinals.

The South Korean team was exceptionally fortunate to face Uzbekistan, the weakest team in the league.

As soon as the quarterfinal matchups were announced, South Korean fans erupted in jubilation once again.
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[Damn it! The Chinese team is facing Australia, an opponent even our great South Korea couldn't beat. China's Asian Cup journey is probably over early!]
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[Our Republic of Korea couldn't beat Australia, which proves that Australia is indeed one of the top teams in Asia. But honestly, I really wanted to see how our Republic of Korea would defeat that Chinese team that only made it to the knockout stage thanks to naturalized players!]
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Actually, I think this Chinese team is indeed the strongest in history. Maybe they can eliminate Australia?
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[Damn it, is that guy upstairs a traitor? Does he mean the Chinese team is stronger than our Republic of Korea?]

"Hey! Give me more chili peppers!"

"Haozi, did you steal and eat the kidneys I grilled? Those were my special golden crispy kidneys! I grilled them for a full twenty minutes to get them this crispy!"

"Haha, Lao Zhao, you've wronged Haozi. Those kidneys weren't eaten by Su Hao, they were eaten by that bastard Lao Qin!"

"You damn idiot, Lao Qin! Spit it out!"

"."

There are four days left in the quarterfinals.

So, during their break, Su Hao and Zheng Zhi discussed having the whole team book a beach at a seaside resort in Sydney and hold a barbecue party.

According to Su Hao, these kinds of gatherings and barbecues during the tournament actually help players relax a lot.

Therefore, after discussing with Lippi and the others for a while, Su Hao arranged for Evergrande's private jet to airlift a batch of specially prepared safe ingredients and Qingdao fresh-brewed beer in the early morning.

And so, starting at noon, the group of people laughed and joked while eating barbecue.

and!

The national team didn't sneak off to this gathering.

From the start of the gathering, Huang Bowen began live-streaming the barbecue party with various photos on his Weibo account, which already has a million followers.

Interestingly, a photo of Su Hao holding a beer in his hand posted on Huang Bowen's Weibo account sparked a heated debate on the Chinese internet.

As for the reason?

Many fans naturally believe that during such a major tournament, the national team's unrestrained drinking and eating is a complete joke about the Asian Cup.

Especially looking at that photo, Su Hao, who is in the center, is clearly the leader.

So, some radical fans insisted that Su Hao had brought all the bad habits from England into the national team.

Of course, while some fans are criticizing, there are also fans supporting!

Just like Huang Jianxiang, who is now the number one representative of the Soviet Union's anti-Soviet faction in China.

A lengthy blog post of several hundred words directly confronted the fans who were criticizing Su Hao.

In Huang Jianxiang's words, after such a crushing victory over Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan in the group stage, Su Hao has proven that he has brought something to this Chinese team.

They brought something that the Chinese national football team has never had in all these years!

That is self-confidence!

With Su Hao in the lineup, Huang Jianxiang cited examples from each player's performance on the field.

Young players like Wu Lei dare to make moves past goalkeepers on a stage like the Asian Cup, full-backs like Zhang Linpeng dare to cut inside and unleash powerful shots from the wing, and Hao Junmin is also showing off his stepovers on the field in a way that's different from before!

At the end of his Weibo post, Lao Huang boldly made a direct prediction about the upcoming quarterfinals.

There was no complex tactical analysis.

Old Huang only had one sentence!

With Su Hao on the team, the Chinese team will not only defeat the host country Australia, but will also defeat their opponents in a spectacular manner on Australia's home turf, successfully advancing to the semi-finals!
(End of this chapter)