The strongest winger

Chapter 897 Come Last, Come Last

Chinese fans are not surprised by Ai Luo's declaration of winning the Asian Cup. In their impression, Ai Luo is the kind of top player who is motivated to win the championship in any competition.
More than half of the 23 players recruited this time are players from Europe. Among them, Ai Luo, Wang Xiaolei, Wu Xi, Hao Junmin, Gao Lin, Feng Xiaoting, and Zhang Linpeng play in the five major European leagues, and they are all main players.

Therefore, the lineup is much more luxurious than that of other Asian national teams, and the Chinese team also has the world's top superstar Ai Luo, which is unique in Asia.

If the Asian Footballer of the Year hadn’t stipulated that he could only be selected within the scope of professional football in Asia, otherwise, since Ai Luo’s birth, Ai Luo could win the Asian Footballer of the Year every year. Players from other countries would have no hope at all. Therefore, on the day Ai Luo returned to the team, the official website of the AFC updated: I hope that the favorite Chinese team can win the first Asian Cup championship in history.

In fact, there is no need for the AFC to say these things. The current Chinese team knows how to do it, and the Chinese team captain Ai Luo has already expressed his desire to win the championship in an interview with reporters. Reminiscent of Ai Luo's words, many Chinese fans are mentally prepared to welcome the Asian Cup champion.

Because Chinese fans have been waiting for this championship for too long, since they participated in Iran's Asian Cup for the first time in 1976 and won the third place, the Chinese team has repeatedly failed in the knockout round of the Asian Cup.

Among them, the best results were the 1984 Singapore Asian Cup and the 2004 local Asian Cup. They both entered the finals, but they all missed the championship. Especially in the Asian Cup final held at BJ Workers Stadium in 2004, the score was 66:1 before 1 minutes of the game, but then there was a very controversial scene. The on-duty referee turned a blind eye, and finally had to accept a 1:3 home defeat to Japan, and finished runner-up...

Everyone knows that the Chinese team is the strongest team in Asia, but not all national teams think that the Chinese team will win the final championship. The new head coach of the Japanese team, Italian Zaccheroni, said in an interview with reporters during the preparations for the Asian Cup group stage in Singapore: "The Chinese team is indeed very strong, but this is the Asian Cup. Every year is a champion, and so will the Asian Cup in Qatar next January..."

In addition, Australian head coach Holger Osik and South Korean head coach Cho Gwang-rae both believed that they could not win the championship just by talking about it, and it would only be announced after the end of the specific game.

※※※

The day after Gao Hongbo returned to the team with Ai Luo and Wang Xiaolei, the Chinese team conducted a week-long closed training at the Kunming training base.

Of course, the tactics still revolve around Ai Luo, who has the strongest scoring ability in the team. No coach will ignore a player with a super scoring ability like him.

Now this Chinese team is at the top level in Asia, so Gao Hongbo knows that the three opponents in the group stage will definitely use intensive defense to deal with the Chinese team even if he thinks with his toes.

Before going to Doha, the Chinese XX Football Association found an opponent for the Chinese team in a warm-up match. The opponent was Saudi Arabia, a veteran Asian team.

The purpose of the warm-up match is very obvious, that is, to adapt to the weather in Qatar in Saudi Arabia before the start of the Asian Cup.

Because the players of the Chinese team are either playing for European clubs, or playing for the Chinese Super League, K-League, or J-League. This time is in a cold stage, while Qatar has a tropical desert climate.

In order to allow teams from various countries participating in the Asian Cup in Qatar to play at a temperature suitable for the competition, the Asian Cup held in summer was deliberately moved to January.

But many players have already adapted to the cold weather, and it will always take a process to adapt to the cool weather again. Therefore, in order for the Chinese team to perform at their best in Qatar, the Chinese XX Football Association contacted the Saudi Arabian family, hoping to play a warm-up match before the start of the Asian Cup.

The Chinese team's first Asian Cup group match against Kuwait was played on the [-]th, so they flew to Saudi Arabia on New Year's Day.

In order to get good results in this year's Asian Cup, all players of the Chinese team had to become trapeze players on the first day of 2011.

And Ai Luo also used his free time to post on Twitter and Weibo to wish fans across the country a happy New Year's Day, and expressed his belief in winning the championship.

Ai Luo did not expect that in just a few minutes, it would be reposted hundreds of thousands of times on Weibo in China. I have to say... With the development of smart phones, more and more people use their mobile phones to directly surf the Internet.

Therefore, Ai Luo has more and more confidence in WeChat, which is jointly developed by its Internet mobile phone software company and Penguin.

Closer to home, the Chinese team played a warm-up match against Saudi Arabia on the [-]rd.

After 10 and 4 minutes of fierce fighting, the Chinese team, which played with all the main players, beat Saudi Arabia, which also had all the main players, 1:[-]. Therefore, the Chinese fans watching the live TV broadcast have more confidence in the Chinese team's journey to win the Asian Cup!
And those other Asian giants who paid attention to the Chinese team’s preparations were all surprised. This Chinese team was really more difficult to deal with than they imagined. Saudi Arabia, which played with all the main players, was beaten 4:1 by using dense defense at the right time, place and people. Then... what about the game also played on a neutral court?

I shudder to think about it.

The official website of the AFC was updated at the same time, praising the Chinese team as the well-deserved favorite to win the championship.

At the same time, Valencia, far away in the Iberian Peninsula, began to live without Aiello. Even though they played at home against the Espanyol in the middle of the league, they played very awkwardly. If David Villa scored a free kick at the last minute, Valencia would have won the first league game after the winter break.

※※※

The Chinese team took a flight to Doha in the afternoon after the warm-up match against Saudi Arabia, half a day later than the Saudi Arabian national team that flew to Doha in the morning, which means that the confident Chinese team was the last national team to arrive in Doha in the top [-] of the Asian Cup.

In this regard, Gao Hongbo shrugged his shoulders in the interview with the official reporter of the AFC: "Although we are the last to arrive in Doha, we are definitely the last team."

The implication is that the Chinese team came the latest and will win the final Asian Cup championship!
But when these words reached the ears of Zaccheroni, Holger Osik, and Zhao Guanglai, they were aggressive and did not pay attention to the national team they led.

The Chinese team in Doha did not conduct closed training like other national teams, but a generous open training, but the premise is that the normal training of the Chinese team cannot be affected.

Being able to train in the eyes of the public is naturally not a secret tactic, it is the most common practice of crossing and outflanking.

The night before the game, that is, the night of the [-]th, Tang Shun, the chairman of the Football Association who came to Doha to supervise the game, accompanied by the head coach Gao Hongbo, held a small meeting with all the players and coaches in the hotel conference room.

Sitting in the middle of the conference room was Tang Shun, chairman of the Football Association, who did not put pressure on the team, but made a long story short: "As the old saying goes, it takes a thousand days to use an army. Tomorrow afternoon, we will have the first group match of the 2011 Team China Asian Cup. Can disappoint them!"

Tang Shun's impassioned enthusiasm made many players of the Chinese team full of energy, and even wished for the Asian Cup match soon.

However, the Chinese team's first Asian Cup group match will be played at 45 pm tomorrow, which is [-]:[-] pm BJ time, so they can only compress this kind of game mood and save it for tomorrow's game.

On the night of the meeting of the Chinese team, Valencia and Villarreal played against Villarreal in the second round of the 1/8 final of the Copa del Rey. With a 4-0 victory in the first round, everyone thought that Valencia would be very relaxed as a guest at the Laguna Stadium, but Valencia, who played as a semi-main player, unexpectedly lost 0:2
As you all know, this is the aftereffect of adapting to Ai Luo and suddenly not having Ai Luo...

Ai Luo, who was watching the live broadcast of the game, shook his head again and again, as if the team would not be able to function well without him.

(End of this chapter)