Chapter 857 The Comparison of Young People
"... In a World Cup warm-up match held early this morning domestic time, the Chinese team lost to the European runner-up France with a score of 0:4 in an away game... During the game, Shi Wuyin made significant changes to the team's lineup. Rotation. At the post-match press conference, he said that the goal of the game had been achieved. Although the Chinese team lost four goals, they still played what he wanted to see..."
"Despite losing the first warm-up match, the Chinese team quickly got into preparations for the second warm-up match. This morning, the team, led by assistant coach Li Zhifei, held a game on the lawn outside the hotel. Next, they will leave Paris and go to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, to challenge the Ukrainian national team in the second warm-up match... It can be seen from the players' resumption of training that the impact of yesterday's loss is still there... I hope the players can come out of this impact as soon as possible..."
In the TV news, Chinese team players wearing uniform training uniforms were undergoing recovery training on the lawn under the leadership of their coaches. The expressions on the faces of the national team players who appear in several close-ups are slightly solemn.
Considering that they lost the game yesterday, this performance is normal.
If everyone saw that after the Chinese team lost the game, all the members were laughing and laughing after sleeping, the public opinion would probably be even more explosive...
Although this is a warm-up match, the result of the match does not mean anything.
However, many Chinese fans still had high hopes for them before the game, hoping that they could show off their power in a foreign country.
Based on such expectations, if the Chinese team loses, if the fans still see everyone smiling after losing, it is indeed disrespectful to the fans.
After the Chinese team conducted recovery training in the morning, the whole team had lunch and left the hotel collectively on the bus. They were going to fly to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, where they would challenge the Ukrainian national team, their second warm-up match opponent.
In this city, they left a big group photo and a 0:4 defeat.
This is their first official warm-up match after winning the right to qualify for the World Cup, so it can actually be said that the Chinese team's first trip to the World Cup actually started from this game.
But unlike what many people expected, the Chinese team’s preparations for the World Cup started with an embarrassing failure...
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Four days later, on March 23, the Chinese team challenged the Ukrainian team in an away game.
Compared with the game four days ago, Shi Wuyin made some adjustments to the starting lineup.
Lin Zhiyuan, who did not start the last game, appeared in the starting lineup, replacing the previous Hao De.
Hao De was injured in the final play-off round of the World Cup qualifiers. In fact, the injury was not serious, but he was indeed unable to make it in time for the second round of the play-off round. This gave Lin Zhiyuan a chance to become a hero.
After qualifying for the World Cup, he didn't take long to recover from his injuries. It didn’t even delay Hedong Thunder’s Chinese Super League and AFC Champions League group matches in the new season.
Shi Wuyin and his coaching staff are still hesitant about who will be Hao De or Lin Zhiyuan as the starting goalkeeper for the Chinese team going to the World Cup. Although Lin Zhiyuan performed perfectly in the last play-off game, he does have the disadvantage of being ups and downs and prone to thunderstorms. Hao De wins because of his stability and rich experience. Sometimes choosing the starting goalkeeper does not just depend on the player's goalkeeping skills...
So Hao De started in the last game, and Lin Zhiyuan started in this game.
In addition to Lin Zhiyuan, Zhang Qinghuan, who came on as a substitute in the second half of the last game, also started this game. The previous starting midfielder Guo Junfu returned to the bench.
It can be seen from the starting lineups of these two games that Shi Wuyin does not care much about the results of the games. He still needs to seize the opportunity of the warm-up matches to constantly try new personnel combinations and tactics.
At the same time, he also made adjustments in tactics.
In the last game against France, he relied on defense and counterattack. In the end, he was defeated by the French team.
This time he will play against Ukraine, which is inferior to the French team, so Shi Wuyuan's tactics will be much more aggressive.
Facing Ukraine, which has not even reached the World Cup finals, the Chinese team players must be more confident.
After the game started, they launched a fierce attack on Ukraine's goal.
This is also what Shi Wuyin requested, and the purpose is to test how powerful the Chinese team's offensive firepower is.
Before the game, he told his players not to worry about how many goals the Chinese team would concede in this game, and first see if their offense could penetrate Ukraine's defense.
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"Luo Kai gets the ball on the wing... facing Ukraine's defense... oh okay!"
Before He Feng finished speaking, he saw Luo Kai suddenly throw the football out, then speed up and force a breakthrough!
He quickly followed and shouted.
In his shouting, Luo Kai suddenly started and caught the Ukrainian defender off guard. He turned around a little slower and was squeezed behind by Luo Kai.
After successfully breaking through, Luo Kai did not pass the ball directly, but brought the football into the penalty area and then passed it across the middle.
It's a pity that the ball was blocked by Ukrainian defender Roman Sergey who was closely guarding Hulay.
Although he failed to score a goal, Luo Kai's performance was much better than in the previous game.
As the player who played the most minutes in the Chinese team in the last game, Luo Kai received special care from Shi Wuyin.
Thinking that he went to Veronica for three months and didn't play much time, and unlike other domestic players who flew long distances from China, his physical fitness was not a problem, so Shi Wuyin gave him the most playing time until the third game. He was replaced after seventy-seven minutes.
But as the player with the most playing time on the team, Luo Kai's performance was lackluster.
This made Luo Kai, who was holding back his energy to perform well in front of Li Qingqing before the game, extremely depressed.
Director Shi gave him trust and allowed him to play the longest time, but he could not repay Director Shi with any outstanding performance.
Now, all the shame in his heart has turned into motivation in this game.
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"Should I say it, Ukraine's strength is indeed far behind France's... although they also have superstars like Curtien in their ranks..." Assistant coach Li Zhifei said to Shi Wuyuan in front of the coaching bench on the sidelines.
"Even so, they are still better than our Chinese team." Shi Wuyuan glanced at the real-time score on the big screen.
Ukraine is leading the Chinese team with a score of 1:0.
"Of course, of course. But we have also made great progress. After conceding the goal, the players performed much better than the last game against France. The mentality is stable and the mind can stay clear. I think this is very important. It’s not easy anymore…”
"This is why we must go and play the French team first." Shi Wuyin smiled slightly. "Instead of playing against Ukraine first and then against France. Sometimes, the order of appearance is also very important."
"Because we played France first, after experiencing the severe beating of the European Cup runner-up, we have experienced strong winds and waves." Li Zhifei understood what Shi Wuyin meant.
Indeed, although the Chinese team lost miserably in that game, they were beaten with no ability to fight back. Both the score and the scene were ugly. But as the team's coach, Li Zhifei knows that such a failure is of great significance and precious to the team.
The outside media and fans may not be able to see anything for a while, but as insiders, they can still feel that some changes are happening to the Chinese team players.
Just like Luo Kai in this game.
He obviously performed better than the previous game.
Thinking of this, Li Zhifei walked to the sidelines and shouted to Luo Kai on the court: "Luo Kai! Luo Kai!"
As a player who often needs to replace head coach Shi Wuyuan from the sidelines and yell instructions to the court, the players of the Chinese team are very familiar with the voice of assistant coach Li Zhifei, so he easily attracted Luo Kai's attention.
Luo Kai thought that the head coach would give him some latest instructions, but he didn't expect to see Li Zhifei giving him a thumbs up and shouting: "Just play like this! Use the way you are good at! Break them!"
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Hearing the coach's words, Luo Kai took a deep breath and then nodded slowly.
This was what he was waiting for.
It feels like some shackles in my body have been broken...
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Chen Xingyi broke through from the left and sent a cross. With Hu Lai being stared at by the Ukrainian central defenders, Luo Kai suddenly came in from the back and took advantage of his speed to jump high and grab the ball. The Ukrainian left back hit the top with a shot!
Fortunately, Ukrainian goalkeeper Valery Kotyarov reacted in time. In the process of turning back, he raised one hand and hit the football over the crossbar.
"Oh, what a pity!" He Feng exclaimed, "Luo Kai is in really good shape today!"
Luo Kai, who had not scored a goal, clenched his fists in front of his chest after landing and yelled hard.
He himself was very upset about not scoring a goal.
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Luo Kai's outstanding form also stimulated the performance of other players in the Chinese team - young people always have a desire to compare.
It's just that some young players compare themselves with each other on how much their annual salary is, how expensive their sports car is, and whose girl's butt is the most upturned...
What these young people on the field compete with is their performance.
You, Luo Kai, are so outstanding, can I, Chen Xingyi, let you compete with me?
No way!
After Chen Xingyi performed well, Zhang Qinghuan took a look and saw that all these young people were so pushy. Is this good? This is not good! Do you really think that your frontcourt offense can only rely on your trident? Don't forget that I am the one wielding your trident!
How can I be a "halberd bearer" if I don't show some performance?
Come on, come on, follow my command!
When Zhang Qinghuan got the ball in the frontcourt, he pointed to the gap in the ribs behind the Ukrainian defense and directed Luo Kai to insert there.
Luo Kai understood the idea and made a diagonal pass from the side. This caused Ukraine's defense to shrink accordingly.
But he passed the football to the other side and caught the Ukrainian team off guard!
When the Ukrainian players tried to block Chen Xingyi again, Chen Xingyi directly used the outside instep of his right foot to cut the football towards the right rib of the penalty area!
That's exactly where Luo Kai thrust forward just now!
Luo Kai is ready to catch the ball!
Hulay stepped forward into the middle, pointed at his feet with both hands, and shouted in Ukrainian: "Pass the ball to me!!"
This voice made Ukrainian center back Roman Sergei, who originally wanted to block Rokai, stunned for a moment. He turned to look at Hulay and planned to go up and guard against Hulay.
But at the same time, a doubt popped up in his mind: Why did I understand what he was saying?
Then he suddenly realized - that boy was speaking Ukrainian!
But why did he speak Ukrainian to his teammates? Do his teammates also understand Ukrainian? !
Before all the little question marks popped up in Sergey's mind... Luo Kai had already received the football and shot!
In the penalty area, the football turned into a white light and went straight to the top corner of the goal!
Goalkeeper Kotyarov reached behind the football...the ball went in!
Luo Kai scored!
This is his first goal in Europe!
(End of chapter)