World Cup of Great Powers

Ladd's narrative deeply moved Zeng Zheng.

Although it has not changed Chinese football, nor has it brought any achievements to Chinese football.

But are his efforts for Chinese football not worth mentioning?Isn't the temperament and spirit he showed worth remembering?

Ladd said to Zeng Zheng: "Football is just my means of earning a living; philosophy is what I am interested in."

He also told Zeng Zheng a story.

In a grand celebration in ancient Greece, Aristotle was invited as the most distinguished guest.

People were flamboyantly dressed, and after the parades, games, and drinks, they crowded around him, eager to ask him how he felt.

Aristotle replied slowly: "There are so many complicated and colorful things in the world-this is what I don't want to see."

Speaking of which, Ladd continued: "But if I happen to be participating in the running race of this celebration, I must insist on running to the finish line, because that is my duty."

In fact, it is not his wish to serve as the head coach of the Chinese team again.

Because he missed the best opportunity to cooperate with the national team, and it was a piece of transfer order that he only received when he had already devoted all his attention to cultivating young talents.

It's unfair and inappropriate for Ladd.

But when Zhu Xie's task arrived, he still resolutely chose to take up the post.

As a southerner who has been immersed in Chinese culture for many years, he is also very clear that his position as head coach is just an "agent".

Once Zhuxie finds an excellent head coach candidate, he will be replaced immediately as before.

So he has been ready since he took office, and he was once again reduced to the role of "consultant" before the competition.

However, this does not affect his wish for this team to be good and strong.

After spending a few days with Ladd in Maojiawan, Zeng Zheng became more and more admirable for this old man from the south.

He is humble, gentle and never fights with others.

This is the complete opposite of Zeng Zheng, who has a violent temper on the court.

A head coach without power is like a substitute teacher—although he usually wins the respect of the students, but if something happens, no one will listen to him.

Now is the time for "something to happen".

Although the Kirin beer mug is fighting on other people's territory.

But the "Millennium Dragon Team", which has devoted all of its efforts to the whole country, is so vulnerable that the fans and leaders absolutely cannot accept it.

Zeng Zheng also realized after understanding Ladd's character.

Now is not the time to be angry at all.

If you don't give some people a head-on blow as soon as possible, it may be too late by then.

"Mr. Ladd, what's the national team's itinerary like in the last month?"

Ladd thought for a while, then snapped his fingers and said, "Comrade Li Xiaoguang said that our national team will play as many games as possible this year."

"After the Kirin Beer Cup, there will be a friendly match against Yugoslavia at the end of February."

"In early March, the Chinese team was invited to participate in the CONCACAF Gold Cup."

Glancing at Zeng Zheng, Ladd continued, "After the Gold Cup, there will be two friendly matches. One is the HK team, and the other is the Olympic team you brought."

Zeng Zheng nodded after listening.

Although Xu Fang proposed a friendly match between the National Football Team and the National Olympics.

But looking at the schedule of the national team, it is obvious that Zeng Zheng's intentions were guessed, and he planned to play this game after screening, preparation, and training.

But Zeng Zheng was not worried.

Zeng Zheng also watched the Kirin Beer Cup match.

If he plays with his original team again, even if he can't win Little Days, the opponent won't even think about winning.

To put it bluntly, Ladd doesn't actually have much power in the national team.

Although the outside world didn't know about Ladd's trip to Maojiawan, "good news" came one after another.

For unknown reasons, Zhang Xiaorui, Li Tie, Li Jinyu and Sun Jihai were called back to the team one after another.

This made the fans very encouraged.

But in fact, these four people were also a little dumbfounded after returning to China.

I thought it was the "group of four studying abroad" who participated in the National Olympic training camp, but found out that it was the training base of the national football team.

After knowing the whole story, Zhang Xiaorui almost returned to Portugal.

Fortunately, Zeng Zheng called the four of them one by one, which made them feel at ease to train with the team.

After all, for the National Olympic players, they are the "preparation group" of the national football team, and it is reasonable to listen to calls at any time.

On February 2, the national football team went to Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, for a friendly match with the Yugoslav national team at the Guerrilla Stadium.

The only goal of the game was Mijatovic's header from Mihajlovic's free kick just seven minutes into the game.

After scoring the goal, due to concerns about the counterattack speed of the national football team, the Yugoslav team recovered quickly and did not give the national football team a good chance to score.

Throughout the first half, apart from Zhang Xiaorui's long-range shot from 30 meters away that threatened the opponent's goal, there were no other wonderful shots to qualify.

On the contrary, Yugoslavia frequently launched long passes from the backcourt to hit behind the two defenders of the national football team, posing a great threat and making the national football team hard to defend.

In the second half, Yugoslavia replaced all players except No. 6 Grozdic and No. 9 Milosevic. The national football team also replaced most of the main players, and all four returning Olympic members were included.

The South team's formation is obviously pressing forward, but because the strength of the substitute players is worse than that of the main players, the ability of the midfielder to deliver the ball is not as good as that of the first half, so the pressure on the national football goal is not greater than that of the first half.

It is precisely because of their forward pressure that the national football forwards have an opportunity.

In the 72nd minute of the second half, Li Jinyu used a sneak attack to win a single-handed goal, but he did not grasp it in the end.

In this friendly match, China was defeated 0-1.

At the post-match press conference, Ladd was very happy to lead the team back to his home country to compete with the Yugoslav national team after many years. He was also satisfied with the performance of the players and believed that the team is also making continuous progress.

After watching the game, Zeng Zheng immediately wrote a pertinent comment on the forum.

"...Compared with the previous China-Japan match, the performance of the national team that has absorbed several young Olympic players is obviously much better."

"Specifically, in terms of the polar shadow between the players, it is much better than the previous game."

"In the China-Japan confrontation, our passes were either wild and wide-footed, or continuous ultra-short passes within two or three meters. This shows that the connection distance between players is not well controlled."

"And in this game, it can be seen that the national football team can at least collapse in the midfield, and often pass a few good kicks to force the opponent to adjust the defense. Of course, this has something to do with the Yugoslavia team not being aggressive in the midfield, but the players The improvement of response awareness is also obvious."

"Secondly, in terms of various statistics, we are not far behind the Yugoslavia team."

"Both sides had 6 shots and corner kicks, and we were higher than our opponents in the number of times we scored into the opponent's 30-meter area. This is because our players did a good job in intercepting the midfield."

"But the problem is that although Yugoslavia does not lose to Yugoslavia in terms of shots and corner kicks, the threatening offense is far less than that of the opponent. This fully reflects the gap in the personal abilities of the two teams."

"In the face of high-level opponents, we have fully exposed the weakness of playing the ball too slowly."

"Many times it is not that there are no opportunities, but in the process of adjusting with the ball and looking up, the opportunities are gone."

"So we often see the national football team steal the ball in midfield and then immediately pass the ball away."

"In the opponent's 30-meter zone, that's where we conceded the most goals."

"This fully exposed that our players' ability to launch the final pass is still not good enough, or in other words, the coordination is not so smooth, and we can't find the backbone."

"In addition, it is worth mentioning that when our midfield is pressing forward, in order to keep the overall formation compact, the back line is also pressed to the middle circle."

"However, since the two central defenders, General Fan and Li Ming, are both good at frontal defense, they miss too much in judging the opponent's passing line and side protection in advance, so they are easy to be hit behind by the opponent."

"This is also the reason why we have more dangers in the backcourt in this game."

"In this regard, this requires the goalkeeper to expand the scope of activities and assume the responsibility of sweeper at certain times. But judging from the live game, Jiang Jin is obviously not used to this role."

"Of course, the team's overall ability cannot be improved in a short period of time. We should give Ladd time to change the team. At the same time, we should also see that our overall performance in this game is still good."

"It should be said that Coach Ladd's answer sheet is still satisfactory."

As soon as Zeng Zheng posted the post, thousands of replies followed in an instant.

"Coach Zeng, don't just keep watching, move your hands!"

"Coach Zeng, what kind of a hero are you to talk all the time? When you find a problem, help fix it!"

"Coach Zeng, I feel itchy to read your post. You know what the problem is but no one adjusts it. You can't always watch from behind!"

"Coach Zeng, when will you become the head coach of the national team???"

While the fans were anxiously waiting for a response, Zeng Zheng had already been "promoted" as a consultant to the national team through this post, and together with Ladd and the international players set foot on the flight to Da Laomei.

The CONCACAF Gold Cup is an international football tournament held every two years by the CONCACAF.

The predecessor of the Gold Cup was the Central American and Caribbean Championships, which began as early as 1941. At that time, only island countries from Central America and the Caribbean participated.

From 1963 to 1989, the event was renamed the Central North American and Caribbean Championships, and the participating countries expanded to North America.

In 1991, the event was renamed the North American and Caribbean Gold Cup, and a qualifier was added.

At the same time, in order to improve the quality of the competition, the Gold Cup also began to invite countries from other continents to participate.

This time, the Chinese team, which shined in the World Cup, became the star team in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, attracting the attention of the entire Americas.

This is also one of the reasons why Zhu Xie prefers to use "coaxing" to call the four overseas players to return to the team.

Football is of course the number one sport in any country in the world, but it is a project that is neglected in the paradise of sports.

Because of the success of last year's Women's World Cup, the organizing committee of the competition is full of expectations that it will be able to break the record of the competition this year.

Since the Gold Cup was renamed in 91, it has been held in Talmouth for five consecutive years.

When he came to Los Angeles again, Zeng Zheng was filled with emotions.

The two times I came with the national team, it turned out to be a "consultant".

It seems that I really don't have the life to be the head coach!
This time he came to the United States, Zeng Zheng even brought Chen Tao with him.

Just like when he excavated Liu Yunfei from the Tianjin team back then.

Zeng Zheng, who was deeply influenced by the story of the Brazil team and Ronaldo in 94, would rather pay out of his own pocket than bring his favorite young players in some competitions to increase their knowledge of the competition.

This year's CONCACAF Gold Cup has expanded to 12 teams, and two South American teams and one East Asian team have been invited to participate. The pre-match gimmicks are naturally well created.

This year's Gold Cup was originally scheduled to be divided into random groups, but based on commercial interests, the North China Continental Football Federation later changed its mind.

The final grouping result was that the Chinese team was in a group with Canada and Costa Rica.

"Boss Zeng, why are we here to participate in the Central and North American competition?" Zeng Zheng's assistant Han Tao asked.

"It's simple, because the East Asian teams are too weak."

Zeng Zheng explained, "From a geographical point of view, there is not much difference in the time we spend going to West Asia and the Americas."

"And the conditions in West Asia are not good, and the level of the teams is also uneven. Coupled with various factors such as war, culture, and diet, it is better to play against a more distinctive American team than to play some games with them. Discuss."

"And Xiao Tao, do you know?"

"Our neighbor Xiaotian has already spent money to buy South American Football Confederation, and they can already play the Copa America as an Asian team."

"At this point, I am still very satisfied that Zhuxie can win a place in the CONCACAF Gold Cup."

The fact is precisely because of this.

The North Central Continental Football Federation originally planned to invite South Korea.

But because Zhang Jilong and the AFC had too much trouble in FIFA last year, and abruptly snatched 0.5 places for Asia from South America.

After showing such a strong influence, the North China Continental Football Federation immediately chose the Chinese team as a special guest.

And for the Chinese team, which is determined to hit the 02 World Cup, this is also a rare training trip.

On March 3, the Chinese team, which was invited to participate in the CONCACAF Gold Cup for the first time, had a bad start and was tied 5-0 by Canada, the weakest opponent in the group in Los Angeles.

At the beginning of the game, the Chinese team launched a short pass and fast break amidst the sound of gongs and drums from the fans present.

Forwards Qu Shengqing, Zhang Xiaorui and midfielder Shen Si took turns bombing the Canadian goal.

However, due to the extraordinary brave performance of Canada's goalkeeper playing for the Premier League's West Ham United, he took risks one after another.

Although the Chinese team had the upper hand throughout the game, they did not score any points. In the end, they could only draw with Canada 0-0.

After the game, a reporter approached Zeng Zheng for an interview, but Zeng Zheng kept silent.

What else can I say?
Using Zhang Xiaorui as a striker, and there is a player on the team who was born in 83, is under 17 years old, and has played only 1 minute in the league as a substitute. What can Zeng Zheng say?
This time he came to the United States with the team, and Zeng Zheng devoted most of his energy to training the few overseas players.

As for the suggestion for the national team, he has said everything that should be said.

Whether the other party adopts it or not is their business.

Due to the previous 2-2 draw between Canada and Costa Rica.

Therefore, after the Chinese team draws with Canada, only by defeating the elder brother team or drawing with more than three goals in the next game can the Chinese team qualify for the group stage.

Before the game against the brother team, Jin Zhiyang and Chi Shangbin approached Zeng Zheng and asked him what he thought of the brother team.

After watching the match between Canada and Costa Rica, Zeng Zheng leaned on the sofa and said boredly: "Except for some players, the overall speed of the brother team is behind, and the individual skills are not obvious."

"As long as we play normally, it's no problem to win the opponent!"

The two teaching assistants looked at each other, and naturally they could hear something in Zeng Zheng's words.

After leaving Zeng Zheng's room, Jin Zhiyang and Chi Shangbin complained.

"Hey, it's all because Zhang Xiaorui played so well in the Portuguese Super League. If he doesn't score so many goals, can he be allowed to play as a striker?"

"Who says it's not! It's 2000, and some people think that if you score more goals, you should play as a striker."

On March 3, in the last group match of the Tongge team, the Chinese team "extended their strength".

Including General Fan, the five overseas players all started, and they all played positions they were good at.

Not only that, the other six positions are also used by experienced international players.

The players selected for the first time this year were all put on the bench.

At the beginning of the game, the national football players seemed a little too nervous, making frequent mistakes in the midfield and backcourt.

But after 5 minutes, the whole team gradually entered the state, and Zhang Xiaorui completed the first shot.

Since then, the advantages of national football players in midfield control, interception and organization have gradually emerged.

In the competition of equal opportunities, the ball is often earned by the national football team, and the opponent can only rely on fouls to stop the national football team from attacking.

In the 35th minute, Sun Jihai took a corner kick, the brother team headed the ball out of the penalty area, and Li Tie from outside the penalty area greeted the ball and shot.

The kick was so powerful that it just hit the opponent's back and changed direction. The ball flew into the net from the other side of the goalkeeper.

After the "accident" took the lead, the international players became more and more courageous.

Two minutes later, right back Sun Jihai used his speed to snatch the ball from his teammate's inappropriate pass in the fight with the opponent's defender, and passed back to Li Jinyu in the penalty area near the baseline.

After receiving the ball, the latter made a light dunk, avoided the opponent's tackle and then pushed calmly, and the ball hit the net again.

Since then, the national football team has played more relaxed.

In the 61st minute, the national football team seized an opportunity that was not a chance. In the right corner of the opponent's penalty area, it was Sun Jihai who had lost the ball. Using his physical advantage, he squeezed between the two defenders and passed the ball across. Near the penalty spot.

Under the defense of two defenders, Su Maozhen took a quick shot, and the ball went into the goal again from the brother's armpit.

Before the end, the brother team finally won a chance.

No. 8 made a strong long shot 30 meters away from the goal, and the ball bounced into the net from the center post.

In the end, the National Team won 3-1 and successfully advanced to the quarterfinals.