Chapter 1449: Qualifying early
"...The 34th Olympic Games will open at the Pasadena Stadium in Los Angeles at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. Speaking of this stadium, it still has some connections with our Chinese football - at the 2026 US-Canada World Cup two years ago, It was at this stadium that the Chinese team played the Brazilian team 3:3. Ping... Going back further, in the 1999 World Cup held in the United States, the Chinese women's football team lost to the United States team on this stadium, and unfortunately missed the world championship... This stadium will also become a football event in this Olympic Games. The venue for the final...
"In the women's football match that ended last night, the Chinese women's football girls performed well in the game and defeated the Norwegian women's football team 4:2 and got a good start in the group stage. In this way, both men's and women's football teams won the championship in this Olympic Games. Victory..."
After Li Qingqing's camera disappeared from the TV screen, Xie Lan turned his gaze back and commented: "What is tacit understanding? This is it! The two of them must have discussed it in private and win together!"
Hu Lixin did not refute his wife's statement, because it would be strange if his son and Li Qingqing did not make a private agreement about the Olympics.
After all, they are already boyfriend and girlfriend, a couple.
It's normal for couples to have some little secrets.
Maybe for the two of them, the Olympic Games is an extra-large "date"?
So after Hu Lai scored twice to help the Chinese Olympic team win the first game, he was not surprised at all when Li Qingqing also scored twice to help the women's football team win.
"Let me see who we will beat after our group advances..."
Xie Lan started flipping through the battle charts she had saved before.
She saw the women's football match first.
There are a total of twelve participating teams in the women's football team, divided into three groups. In order to distinguish it from the groups of men's football matches, the groups of women's football are arranged starting from E, namely Group E, Group F and Group G.
The top two teams in each group and the two best third-place teams advance to the quarterfinals.
The Chinese women's football team is assigned to Group G and is the seed team in Group G.
Xie Lan acquiesced that the Chinese women's football team should be first in Group G. According to the rules, if the women's football team qualified as the first in the group, they would face a non-group third place in the quarter-finals. If the third place in Group G advances, the Chinese team ranked first in Group G will face the third place in Group E or Group F. If the third place in Group G does not qualify, the first place in Group G will play against the third place in Group F.
But no matter which group they are playing against, since they are third in the group, their strength will definitely not be much better.
The Chinese women's football team has great hopes of advancing to the semifinals.
Xie Lan was confused by the complicated rules of the women's football team, so she decided to see the situation on the men's football team.
Compared with the women's football team, the match rules of the men's football team are very fixed - the qualifying team of Group C of the Chinese team will compete against the qualifying team of Group D in the lower half, and cross-match.
Xie Lan hopes that the Chinese Olympic team can take first place in the group. Although the German Olympic team is also very strong... But when she looked at Group D, she immediately stopped worrying about whether the Chinese Olympic team could take first or second place, because no matter Whether first or second, the opponents in the quarter-finals are not easy to beat.
The four teams in Group D are Spain, the runner-up of the last Olympic Games, Brazil, the traditional football powerhouse, Senegal, the African representative, and Chile.
This group is the "Group of Death" in this Olympics. No matter who is qualified, it will be difficult to fight.
Especially the Spanish and Brazilian Olympic teams.
In the last Olympic Games, the Chinese Olympic team was eliminated by the host Spanish Olympic team in the quarter-finals.
Seeing this result, Xie Lan frowned and clicked his tongue.
"What's wrong?" Hu Lixin asked curiously.
"The situation is not good..."
Hu Lixin was very surprised: "Didn't we just win one game? Why is the situation so bad?"
"I'm talking about the knockout situation!"
Hu Lixin couldn't laugh or cry: "Thinking too far, we only played one game in the group stage!"
"Why is it so far away? Is there any suspense in the group stage? Except for the last game. As long as we win Fiji, we will qualify early. The only suspense is whether first or second..."
Hu Lixin said: "Yes, the first and second opponents are different, so it makes no sense for you to think so far now..."
"The problem is that no matter whether you are first or second, there is no difference between your opponents..." Xie Lan showed the four teams in Group D to her husband.
Hu Lixin also fell into deep thought after reading it, and then he also clicked his tongue.
Xielan continued: "The two groups in the lower half include the European Youth Championship champions Germany, runner-up Spain, and opponents like Brazil. In comparison, the top half is simply too easy, with only Argentina. I doubt it. The United States might have taken advantage of the host country and tampered with the draw to arrange such a good draw for them..."
As he spoke, Xie Lan suddenly added in a very affirmative tone: "Yes, yes, that's definitely the case! What a stupid American! If you can't win the track and field relay, you'll have to rematch it. If you lose, you'll accuse your opponent of taking medicine...Now football You are using such dirty tricks to draw lots! Your heart is darker than your asshole, so shameless!”
Hu Lixin grinned when he heard his wife suddenly scolding the United States. He originally wanted to say "no conspiracy theories", but when he thought about the series of scandalous operations in the United States from top to bottom in recent years - not only at the sports level - -He suddenly couldn't say these words.
You can't blame his wife for the conspiracy theory. The Yankees really haven't done anything serious in all these years.
Judging from their usual behavior, it is not incredible that the United States takes advantage of the host country to arrange a relatively easy draw for their team...
With the current grouping situation, as long as the U.S. team takes first place in the group, it will definitely be able to avoid Argentina, which should also be the first in the group, in the quarterfinals.
It was basically equivalent to being sent to the semifinals.
Entering the semi-finals, the goal of winning a medal is not far away.
If you have better luck, or better "luck", you can still make it to the finals...
And once they reach the finals, it would be unreasonable not to win a gold medal, right?
So...
Following this logic, Hu Lixin wanted to follow his wife and scold Americans.
Wrong...
Hu Lixin realized, what does the despicableness of Americans have to do with us? They are in the top half, and unless the Olympic team reaches the semifinals, it is impossible to meet them. If the Chinese team gets second place in the group stage, it will only have the chance to meet the host country if they reach the finals.
So he advised: "You, you still think too much. What happens to Americans is not something we should consider. Let's wait until we actually meet..."
Xie Lan also knew that her criticism of the United States was entirely out of a simple national sentiment and anger at the unfavorable situation of the Olympic team's knockout round.
So she no longer cares about Americans' black buttholes.
Let’s see how it goes in the group stage first...
※※※
On August 7, the second day after the opening of the Olympic Games, the Chinese Olympic team faced its second opponent in the group stage.
Fiji Olympic team representing Oceania.
The team won last year's Pacific Games soccer championship and also qualified for this year's Olympics.
What they defeated in the final was the powerful New Zealand Olympic team, which was an upset - you must know that this was the first time that the Fiji Olympic team participated in the Olympics.
Before the game, almost all voices in China believed that there would be no suspense for the Olympic team to defeat Fiji. The only suspense was to win a few goals...
After all, in the first round of the group stage, the German Olympic team defeated the Fiji Olympic team 10:0. Their main forward Nico Strauy scored five goals in the game.
You must know that in the last Olympic Games, Hu Lai scored a total of five goals in four games and became the "top scorer" of that Olympic Games.
And now Strauyi has completed Hulay's goals in one Olympic Games in just one game.
Although the Olympics does not have the honor of "top scorer", fans will still discuss and compare.
Nico Strauy is a talented player trained by the powerful Bundesliga team Vesseldorf, but he has an ill-fated fate. The twenty-three-year-old has already suffered two major injuries in his career so far. This affects the upper limit of his career, so everyone is now more optimistic about Ruhr Rhein's Janus Edman. After all, Edman is younger than Straoui and is physically stronger.
Straui had just experienced seven months of injury recovery before participating in this Olympics. In the Olympics, he scored five goals against Fiji, which somewhat allowed him to regain some form.
Germany's big win against Fiji, as well as Strauyi's five goals, made many people in China believe that it is easy for the Chinese team to win Fiji. Some people even asked Hulay to be better than Strauyi. More balls, otherwise it is a failure...
They said plausibly: "Hulay has the Champions League Golden Boot and the La Liga Golden Boot. What does Straoui have? Since he can score five goals against Fiji, it makes sense that Hulay scores more goals than him, right?" ? You can’t be compared to someone who has been seriously injured for almost a season, right? You can’t be compared to someone who has been seriously injured for almost a season, right? In that case, you still feel that Hu Lai has no growth and progress at all..."
For people who say this, I really don’t know whether they are Hu Lai’s fans or scumbags...
In response to these people, Hu Lai completed four goals in this game and helped the Chinese Olympic team defeat the Fiji Olympic team 8:0.
The Olympic team did not capsize in the gutter, but Hulay did not score more goals than Straui, or even one less...
He did not play the full game and was replaced by head coach Mai Zhaocheng with substitute forward Tian Yuan with 24 minutes left in the game.
Hu Lai showed no dissatisfaction when he was replaced.
This shows that he does not want to compete with Strauyi in terms of goals.
On the contrary, he had a smile on his face when he came off the field and frequently waved to the cheering Chinese fans in the stands.
The Olympic team won two games, scored 11 goals, and did not concede a single goal. It has already qualified for the group ahead of schedule.
Compared with four years ago, it is indeed worthwhile to qualify from the group so easily.
The number of goals scored is less than that of Strauy. In the eyes of Hu Lai today, it is a trivial matter and will not affect his mood at all. (End of chapter)