Chinese champion

Chapter 258 The Road to Glory: A New National Team
"Ker, I'm leaving!"

At the gate of the apartment, Pei Wei, who was carrying a large package, was saying goodbye to Ma Keer.

"Let's go." Ma Ke'er stretched out his hand to drive Pei Wei away: "Go back to China and report, remember to send me the tickets, I'm going to the scene to cheer for you!"

Pei Wei was stunned for a moment, and said unwillingly, "I'm leaving, but I won't be able to come back for a while!"

Ma Ke'er continued to drive Pei Wei away: "It's okay, I will miss you."

Pei Wei rubbed his nose: "You are so ruthless, I thought you would watch me get into the car silently with tears in your eyes, and then rush over to me shouting my name the moment the car was about to drive. Finally, send a kiss to say goodbye..."

"Bah!" Marco grinned, "You haven't been there for a long time, and besides, I won't be the same when the World Cup starts next month. Can I cheer for you in the stands? What's so sad?"

Just as the two were laughing and joking, a Chevrolet stopped beside them with a "squeak", and Hu Yong poked his head out and shouted, "What are you two talking about, Pei Wei, let's go, The plane will take off in just over half an hour, and it will take more than 20 minutes from here to the airport alone!"

"Here we come!" Pei Wei turned his head in response, and before Ma Ke'er could react, he hugged her fiercely, and whispered in her ear: "I will send you back soon." See you in Germany!" Then he let go of Marco, whose face was flushed like blood, turned around and picked up the package, and got into the car.

Marco stared at the shadow of the car that rolled up a puff of smoke and dust, and a mist slowly formed in his eyes.

"Pei Wei, the scene you just mentioned is really vulgar... Hehe, but if I didn't suppress my emotions, it would really happen. It turns out that even a short separation is so painful..."

In the car, Hu Yong looked at the pensive Pei Wei, and couldn't help but joked: "Why, I don't want to leave. No wonder others say that Xiao Biesheng is newly married."

Hearing this sentence, Pei Wei turned his head and looked at Hu Yong as if he was looking at an alien monster, making his heart shudder: "What's the matter, Pei Wei, what are you doing looking at me like this?"

There was a weird smile on the corner of Pei Wei's mouth: "The sentence you said just now really doesn't fit your character setting...According to the logic, it should be said by Zhu Jun or me, why, you are so excited ?”

"Damn!" Hu Yong didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "You bastard, why are you getting more and more glib now? It seems that you were really influenced by Zhu Jun during those three years in Spain!"

"Honestly, Hu Yong, haven't you ever thought about finding a girlfriend? Football is important, but it's not the whole of life." Pei Wei suddenly said seriously.

Hu Yong was silent, and after a while he smiled wryly and said, "It seems unnecessary to mention this now, right? Our current goal should be the World Cup."

Pei Wei smiled, he could see that Hu Yong had a past that he didn't want to mention, at this moment, Martins, who played the role of guest driver, said: "You guys, you really don't know your blessings, you are going to play the World Cup soon Not happy? Neither the captain nor Walter (Samuel) can go. I can say that the team is disappointing and did not make it to the World Cup, but the captain and Walter are miserable, especially the captain. They are all the main right backs of Argentina, but this time they were inexplicably lost, it seems that the captain has no chance to participate in the World Cup again."

Hearing this, Pei Wei was also silent. Captain Zanetti was not selected for Argentina's squad this time. This is too cruel for a veteran who has participated in all the South American qualifiers and the Confederations Cup. Zanetti will be 37 years old when the World Cup in South Africa begins. It is believed that the 2002 World Cup will be the captain's last performance in the World Cup.

Pei Wei and the others are lucky, they are still young, this cup will definitely not be their last World Cup, and they are unlucky, they had hoped to participate in the World Cup four years ago, but unfortunately due to some people behind the scenes And lost this opportunity...

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After Menotti announced the national team list in mid-May, the media exclaimed: "This is a brand new national team!"

三名守门员分别是1号吴奇，12号刘飞，23号杨兵，八名后卫：3号王小敏、5号杜巍、4号李敏、17号孙承海、13号孙如、6号姚乐、14号李威、2号杨兵，七名中场：8号胡勇、11号竺军、7号张琪、10号裴炜、16号李刚、15号少益、21号周海，五名前锋18号展风、20号钟琰、9号董玉卓、19号黎劲宇和22号陈波。

In this list of 23 players, except for Liu Fei, Sun Chenghai, Li Wei, Li Gang, Shao Yi and Li Jinyu who participated in the last World Cup, the other 17 players were all promoted from the National Olympic Team and the National Youth Team Yes, no one has doubts about their strength, just kidding, these people are either stars who have proven themselves in the European arena, or the best performers among the players of the age appropriate for the 08 Olympics. The only doubt is , Will this young team with an average age of only 24 lack experience.

"Their experience will definitely not be a problem!" Menotti said firmly at the press conference: "We have fifteen players who have played in the European League, and nine of them have played in Europe for more than four years. , I believe that the experience they have gained in Europe is enough for them to show their true level in the World Cup. Although their national team experience is not enough, it is just that we often do not have it in order not to affect them playing in Europe. Recalling them in some unimportant games, I believe that after half a month of training, the cooperation of our players will be fully perfected, and we will definitely make a historic breakthrough in the World Cup."

Menotti is indeed an old fox who has been in football for decades. His words have already brought a little Chinese language art, "historic breakthrough", what is a historic breakthrough, for the Chinese team , Any step can be said to be a historic breakthrough, scoring a goal, scoring a point, winning a game, qualifying for the group... any step is considered a historic breakthrough!
The media expressed dissatisfaction with Menotti's ambiguous words, but after the press conference ended, Menotti waved his hand: Starting today, the national team will start closed training and will not accept any media comments. interview!

With Menotti's action, he suddenly pushed himself to the opposite side of the national sports media, but the veterans from all walks of life could do nothing about it. As the national team entered the World Cup for the second time, and it was still in the quarter-finals. South Korea and Saudi Arabia, two strong Asian teams, have achieved a perfect record of five wins and one loss. Menotti and the Chinese team led by him have become the most inviolable idols in the hearts of fans all over the country. At this time, they use the pen in their hands to attack the fans. The sanctity in our hearts is obviously unwise.

Therefore, reporters who could not obtain first-hand information racked their brains to extend Menotti's "historic breakthrough" to a new level of imagination and far-fetched thinking.

"The goal of the national team: the quarterfinals! "

"Spain, the weakest seeded team!" "

"Ukraine, a new World Cup team with one less experience than us"

"Tunisia, the African underdog who has never won a World Cup"

"The Chinese team is expected to win the group stage! "

……

All kinds of bold speculations appeared in the major sports media, and some people even predicted the results of the group stage and analyzed the opponents they might encounter in the knockout stage one by one, and came up with a situation that even they themselves did not know. A conclusion that I dare to believe: the championship is not a dream...

We have to admit that although Chinese fans are cute and admirable, they are still inexperienced and lack the ability to think calmly, just like the Chinese football team.

After such overwhelming publicity, the hearts of the fans have been raised to the highest level. They began to believe that this time we have drawn a lottery that couldn't be better. To be able to enter the semi-finals of the World Cup as our close neighbor South Korea did in the last World Cup.

In this impetuous state of mind, the Chinese team ended their week-long training in China and flew to Munich, Germany.

The World Cup group stage must be very difficult for the Chinese team. Their match sequence is June 6th against Tunisia at the Allianz Arena in Munich, June 15th against Ukraine at the AOL Arena in Hamburg, and June 6rd. Against Spain at the Fritz Walter Stadium in Kaiserslautern, it can be said that the three opponents are stronger than the other, and in these eight days, they will play three games in three different venues. For the Chinese team members who have been traveling for a season, it will be difficult to recover their physical strength.

And Menotti is not as optimistic about the prospects of the group stage as the sports media. Although Ukraine has entered the World Cup finals for the first time, the Ukrainian players have already caused a lot of waves in Europe. This time the European qualifiers Among them, they are the first to qualify from the group, which in itself already shows their super strength, not to mention the long list of Gusev, Voronin, and Rybrov who are all famous in Europe. The name, just a "nuclear warhead" Shevchenko's reputation is enough to surpass all the players in the Chinese team, and although Tunisia is not obvious, the African team is known as a neurotic team. In the 2002 World Cup, Senegal defeated the defending champion France is a good example. Who can guarantee that they will not suddenly play their best in the game against the Chinese team?What's more, Tunisia's current head coach is the Frenchman Le Maire. I believe that under his leadership, Tunisia already has a bit of strict discipline in European teams, and their team also has Trabelsi who plays in Ajax. Such a first-class star, as for Spain... needless to say, right?Isn't that player a figure in the top five European leagues?And when the "iron and blood coach", Pei Wei's mentor in Mallorca Aragones took over, the old coach has been influencing the players of the Spanish team with his iconic iron and blood spirit. Problems have been improved a lot.

"There are no underdogs in the World Cup", this sentence Menotti has a deep memory. In the 82 World Cup, the Argentine team led by him lost to Belgium in the first game. Since then, he has not played against any team. The team took it lightly, because it is very likely that just because they underestimated the enemy for a while, they will lose a game that should not have been lost.

After the departure, the Chinese team came to Dachauza, a small town near Munich, to camp, where they will stay until the end of the first round of the group stage, and then set off to Hamburg, where the next match will take place.

Unlike strong teams such as Brazil and Argentina that would immediately attract crowds of people as soon as they settled down in a small town, the Chinese team’s arrival in Dachau did not attract any attention from the local residents. The only thing that changed was probably the residents’ attitude The standard of living, because when the Chinese team came here, the Chinese reporters who followed immediately filled up all the local hotels and houses that could be rented. money.

During the ten days in Dachau, the Chinese team played two warm-up matches against Poland and France. Menotti’s selection of opponents for the warm-up match was very targeted. Poland and Ukraine are very close geographically, and the style of play is different. They are very similar, and France, like Spain, is a rare European team with excellent skills and strong overall coordination. Warming up with these two teams will help you become more familiar with the two opponents in the group stage.

The results of the warm-up match made the Chinese fans very happy, and the coaching staff were also very satisfied. They first defeated Poland with a score of 3:2, and then lost to France with a small score of 1:2. Such a result is quite good for the Chinese team Now, the fans are looking forward to the Chinese team's first group match of this World Cup coming soon.

In the eyes of some people, a historic moment is coming. The Chinese team will definitely win against Tunisia at the Allianz Arena in Munich and win their first victory in the World Cup.

But will they really get what they want?Is winning the World Cup really that simple?
On the fourth day after the start of the World Cup, after all the previous group matches were over, the last match of the first round of the 2006 World Cup group match, the match between China and Tunisia officially started at the Allianz Arena in Munich.

This brand-new national team has finally embarked on the journey of this World Cup amidst the sound of ardent hope...

(End of this chapter)