Grass roots glory

Chapter 1080 Hong Kong, China
All the groups were settled within half an hour. The specific grouping is as follows:
Group A: Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Malmo
Group B: PSV, Chelsea, CSKA Moscow, Wolfsburg
Group C: Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray, Astana

Group D: Juventus, Manchester City, Sevilla, Monchengladbach
Group E: Barcelona, ​​Liverpool, Roma, Borisov

Group F: Bayern Munich, Napoli, Olympiacos, Dinamo Zagreb
Group G: Manchester United, Leverkusen, AC Milan, Espanyol

Group H: Zenit, Valencia, Lyon, Gent

Judging from this grouping, Group D is the real group of death. Even the Europa League champion Sevilla has difficulty qualifying. It seems that they have to continue to go to the Europa League to dominate and compete for their "Sevilla" Asian Cup".

Mourinho did not express his views on the group situation in front of the media. Nothing can prove it better than the real performance.

In the second round of the league, Manchester United defeated Aston Villa 1-0 in the away game. The first two games were small victories by one goal. Depay assisted Lukaku with a cross from the wing to complete the winning blow. This is the only thing that can be a little fresh Sensational — the calls are finally starting to start between the two new players on the team.

Mourinho is always a resultist in front of the media at this time, but he is not like this in front of the players.

With such a luxurious offensive lineup, they only scored two goals in two rounds of the league, which is unreasonable.

However, this problem will not be solved immediately, and the league will soon make way for the international match day. At this stage, Mourinho certainly knows what to do.

The first thing to tell everyone is not to be injured, and to ensure that the impact of the "FIFA virus" is minimized, and then we have the conditions to talk about how to stimulate the state of offensive players.

For example, for core players like Zhou Tiancheng, Mourinho must focus on explaining them.

"Zhou, do you know? In fact, I don't want to let you go back to compete. China is too far away. I can't guarantee your state at all, and this is just an opponent of that level."

Zhou Tiancheng smiled: "Sir, this is the World Cup qualifier, I'm afraid..."

"I know. So that's why I never coached the national team. There are only a dozen games a year at most and you have to compete with these clubs for players. I feel like I'm going to die."

In early September, the Chinese team had two games in the top [-] Asian qualifiers, one home and one away, against Hong Kong, China and the Maldives.

The match against Hong Kong, China was held in Shenzhen. Zhou Tiancheng shook his head when he arrived in Shenzhen, completely unable to understand the meaning of such an arrangement.

As soon as he walked out of the airport, he lined up at the gate to solicit a taxi to go to the base. In less than ten minutes, Zhou Tiancheng felt the pores on his back open, and there was faint sweat oozing out.

The weather in Shenzhen is so hot, and September is the time when the "autumn tiger" shows its power.Many teammates of the national team are from the north, many of them are from the Northeast, and Shenzhen and Hong Kong are only separated by the shore. Who is more suitable for this climate?
Zhou Tiancheng couldn't understand it at all. He really wanted to ask the decision-makers of the Chinese Football Association, did geography be taught by physical education teachers?
On the way to the training base, he sighed softly. It seems that this game will not be so easy.

Zhou Tiancheng's mind flashed a few historical moments that he saw or heard from his father when he was a child. The Hong Kong team of China can be defined as a weak team from any angle. In the Asian Cup, the restructuring expanded to sixteen. After the first team, they didn't even appear on the stage of the Asian Cup, a standard third-rate team in Asia.

However, it was this opponent that left the Chinese team with painful memories twice in the history of the World Cup.

……

Lippi is very serious about preparing for this game, and the training atmosphere can even be said to be a bit dignified. When Jiang Hao saw Zhou Tiancheng, he wanted to joke with him. After all, the grouping of the Champions League is really a coincidence, but in the They didn't dare to do this in front of Lippi, because Lippi's assistant Madaloni was the best supervisor.

"Move up guys, look at the weather, if you want to not fall down in the game, you must first restore your physical fitness to the peak state, do you think this opponent is easy to deal with?"

It is indeed not difficult to deal with it, even if the Hong Kong team that is about to face is not what it used to be, with as many as seven naturalized players from Europe and the United States.

But Lippi will never allow his team to underestimate the enemy. Maybe he has heard the wind of public opinion before that. As an Italian, he even went to learn about the history of the Chinese team's impact on the World Cup to warn everyone .

"I still say the same thing, boys, even though we are the best team in Asia now, when facing some opponents, you have to put away your sense of superiority. This team has twice prevented the Chinese team from qualifying for the World Cup. As Chinese, you should know better than me."

The two times Lippi mentioned, the first is the most famous "5" in the history of Chinese football - May 19, 1985, the last match of the Asia-Pacific qualifiers for the World Cup in Mexico. The Chinese team has taken the absolute initiative , only need to beat Hong Kong in the last round at home to advance to the next stage of the qualifiers. As a result, in the lead, they were reversed by Hong Kong, China with two goals in the second half.At that time, that team was the strongest national team in the strict sense. It had just won the runner-up in the 5 Asian Cup. The team included Asia's top central defender Jia Xiuquan, Asia's number one winger Gu Guangming, and Romario's World Youth Championship sixth team. Big star Li Huajun...

However, history is just a joke. Although many truths were gradually revealed afterwards, for example, the midfielder locker room received instructions from the highest level, at least to win Hong Kong by three, which led to the Chinese team still aggressively pressing ahead even though they were leading. As a result, the opponent caught a loophole in the defense in the rain battle... But this is already history. This is the first painful lesson for Chinese football, and it also triggered the largest fan riot in the history of Chinese football - at that time , Losing to Hong Kong can be said to be "damaging the country's prestige".

Later, there were many "black 3 minutes" and everyone got used to it.The second time the Hong Kong team kicked the Chinese team out of the World Cup was on November 2004, 11, in the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup in Germany. The famous 17:7 exit.

There are many stories about that game. There is a saying that the Hong Kong players wanted to let the Chinese team pass the test, and asked the Chinese team players if the goal difference was enough. However, how could this be possible? If they really wanted to let the Chinese team pass the test, what would the goalkeeper do? Will Zheng Zhi's penalty be saved?

Taking a step back, the whole world knows that it was a match-fixing, but the opponent is Hong Kong. This is true, and it is not wrong to blame him before the battle.

But this time, the media of all parties are confident that the fate of the Chinese team will no longer be controlled by their opponents.

Two days before the game, the official Weibo of the China team released a poster with the theme of not despising any opponent. Three black and white naturalized players in the Hong Kong team became the protagonists—people on this team have dark skin , yellow skin, white skin, such a layered team, you have to be careful!
This represents the official voice of the national team, this is a declaration of war!
(End of this chapter)