Fox in the Penalty Area

"Aha! It's finally my turn to show up! If I don't show up, I'm going to catch a cold, lose it!"

Lin Zhiyuan stood at the gate of the Hongfengling training base and shouted excitedly.

The South China Tiger teammates who came with him stayed far away from him...

As the main goalkeeper of the South China Tigers, Lin Zhiyuan came to the Olympic team for training nearly two months in advance, which will inevitably affect his status in the club.

But Lin Zhiyuan doesn't think about that at all now.

All he could think about was getting to Europe through his performance at the Olympics.

If the main position of domestic clubs is gone, it will be gone.

In fact, based on Lin Zhiyuan's age, he is an age-appropriate player for this Olympic team. If he had not participated in the Olympics once, he would not have to occupy the over-age player quota now.

And when he was only eighteen years old, he was able to participate in the Olympics as the main goalkeeper of the Olympic team, which really shows his strength.

It's just that because of the particularity of the goalkeeper position, he has been unable to go abroad for a long time. He can only watch Hu Lai, Zhou Zijing, and Xia Xiaoyu each have their own highlights abroad.

But before he left to join the Olympic team this time, his agent, Uncle Qiu, told him that the communication with Westin Athletic had made key progress - Westin Athletic had seriously considered the possibility of introducing him. All he has to do is put in a convincing enough performance at the Olympics to secure a better commitment for himself at Westin Athletic. At the very least, he must get a fair chance to compete with Pierre Groche, the current first-team goalkeeper of Westin Athletic.

While Lin Zhiyuan was standing at the gate of the Hongmaple Ridge training base, looking forward to a bright future, he heard a disturbing voice:

"Fuck, Lin Zhiyuan, why are you here?"

Lin Zhiyuan turned around and saw Hu Lai's annoying face. He gritted his teeth and said: "I'm so embarrassed! Why can't I be here? Like you, I am also one of the over-age players!"

Hu Lai showed a surprised expression.

Lin Zhiyuan pointed at him: "What's your expression!"

Hu Lai suddenly realized: "Oh, I remembered it, you seem to be an over-age player... Oops, Xiao Linzi, you haven't played for so long, I almost forgot about it, I'm sorry!"

Faced with Hu Lai's strange charisma,

Lin Zhiyuan chuckled twice with a smile on his face.

Ou Yangjin and others, who followed Hu Lai and Xia Xiaoyu to Hongmaple Ridge to report, saw Hu Lai and the national team's main goalkeeper passionately facing each other, and they all looked at each other:

Is this what Brother Xiaoyu meant by "pure"?

※※※

While the players of the Chinese Olympic team flew to the capital from all over the country to prepare for the game, the second "China Cup" had also concluded all games.

The Chinese national team, without Hu Lai, Zhang Qinghuan, Lin Zhiyuan, Xia Xiaoyu and Zhou Zijing, lost to the Croatian national team 1:2 in the first semi-finals.

Defending the title failed.

Fortunately, they defeated the Senegal national team 1:0 in the third-place finals and finally did not rank at the bottom of their home court.

The champion of this "China Cup" belongs to the Croatian national team, who defeated the Costa Rica national team 3:0 in the final. It can be regarded as a kind of consolation and compensation for their failure to participate in the European Cup.

The attendance rate of the "China Cup" is actually good, and the two games involving the Chinese team were basically full.

Even though there was no match played by the Chinese team, Chinese fans also fully demonstrated their high-quality hosts and enthusiastically cheered for both participating parties, making them feel at home.

The "China Cup" kicks off Chinese fans' football journey this summer:

Following the "Chinese Cup" to make up for the schedule is the European Cup.

In fact, before the "Chinese Cup" was over, the European Cup had already started.

It's in full swing at this time.

This is a rich feast for countless Chinese fans.

But what Chinese fans are most concerned about is probably not this summer's European Cup, but the Olympic Games starting in early August.

It stands to reason that in the football world, the influence and gold content of the Olympic football project cannot be compared with the European Cup.

Only the World Cup can beat the European Cup.

Chinese fans in the past also viewed the Olympic Games in this way - if the Olympic Games and the European Cup conflict in time, they will definitely choose the European Cup without hesitation.

Although the European Cup is a football event that takes place in far away Europe, countless Chinese fans voluntarily become fans of those European national teams, and their emotions rise and fall with their wins and losses.

Things have changed now.

Although the European Cup is also exciting, it is the Olympic Games that can really tug at the heartstrings of Chinese fans.

Because the Chinese Olympic team is participating.

And not just there.

This year's Chinese Olympic team also has several super-powerful over-age players.

This is the second consecutive time the Chinese Olympic team has participated in the Olympics. Unlike the time four years ago, everyone will naturally place more hopes on them.

Four years ago, the Chinese Olympic team was placed in the death group. In addition, it was the first time in 12 years for the Chinese Olympic team to participate in the Olympic Games as the host in 2012, so everyone did not dare to have confidence in the team's results. What are the expectations?

For many fans, it is already a great victory for the Chinese Olympic team to appear in the Olympic Games.

What kind of bike do you want?

But this time, the Olympic team once again entered the Olympic Games, which shows that their team itself is capable, otherwise they might not even have tickets to the Olympics.

On this basis, there are three more powerful over-age players. How can Chinese fans still have no expectations for this team's Olympic journey?

You must know that in the last Olympic Games, the Olympic team did not include any over-age players.

Although the current Chinese Olympic team lacks Chen Xingyi, Luo Kai and Wang Guangwei compared to the one four years ago, it also has more Xia Xiaoyu and Zhou Zijing. These two Olympic-age players actually already have the strength of the national team. . And both of them have already experienced it in Europe.

The Olympic team four years ago did not have a single overseas player.

Some people once said that the Olympic team four years ago was the golden generation of Chinese football. In fact, the strength of this Olympic team four years later is not bad.

In addition to Xia Xiaoyu and Zhou Zijing, the addition of three over-age players Hu Lai, Zhang Qinghuan and Lin Zhiyuan has greatly increased the team's strength and experience.

The remaining players also came to the stage after the reform of Chinese football, and their growth environment is better than that of the group four years ago.

Since there are so many favorable conditions, it is natural and reasonable for Chinese fans to have high hopes for them.

As for whether such high expectations will bring huge psychological pressure to them, become a burden, and affect their performance...

As Chinese professional players, if they can't handle such psychological pressure well, then they might as well give up their status as professional players.

"...You have to understand that being a professional player in this country requires constant pressure."

At the Olympic team training ground, head coach Mai Zhaocheng is holding a meeting with all the Olympic team players.

On the first day when the team gathered, before training started, the first thing to do was to hold a meeting to unify their thoughts.

Only by unifying their thinking can the players know why they are fighting in the subsequent training and preparations, and only in this way can they generate subjective initiative.

Mai Zhaocheng believes that subjective initiative is very important, and the ideological construction of the team is very important, so he discussed it with the team leader Ran Jiachang. After the team gathered, they would have a meeting to unify their thinking and clearly tell them what the team's goal is for this Olympics. What.

After the goal is established, everyone will train and prepare around this goal.

Unlike ordinary coaches who try every means to reduce pressure on their players, Mai Zhaocheng took an unconventional approach and told everyone straight to the point that their Olympic team will be under tremendous pressure.

Because everyone has high hopes for them.

"... As a Chinese player, he naturally bears the attention of tens of millions of Chinese fans and hundreds of millions of Chinese people. Because we all know that football has an extraordinary status in Chinese society. If we do not perform well, we will There are countless people scolding us, even if those people don't watch football at all... We have to accept this reality. So don't think about the issue of whether it is a big pressure or not. Representing a country with a population of 1.4 billion is not a thing in the first place. Something easy.”

"After fully understanding this, let's talk about the team's goals for this Olympics. I don't think anyone thinks that as long as we can participate in the Olympics this time, it will be considered a victory, right?"

After speaking, Mai Zhaocheng looked around at the team members in the conference room.

Then he found that no one was surprised by his statement.

That's good.

It seems that after consecutive participation in the Olympics and World Cup, and the emergence of a large number of overseas players, Chinese players are now generally more motivated than before, and they do not really feel that they will be satisfied just by participating in the Olympics.

"I can tell you frankly that we set a minimum goal and a maximum goal for this Olympic Games. Then all our training plans are formulated according to the maximum goal. In this way, even if we do not achieve the maximum goal, we should still achieve it. Better than the minimum goal. Our minimum goal is to qualify from the group.”

When this minimum goal was stated, the team members still had no reaction.

It shows that no one in the team thinks that they can't make it out of the group - with La Liga Golden Boot and Champions League Golden Boot Hu Lai, as well as strong national team-level teammates such as Zhang Qinghuan, Lin Zhiyuan, Xia Xiaoyu and Zhou Zijing, the group results this time are also Much better than four years ago, so qualifying from the group really shouldn't be a goal that's up for discussion.

Seeing that everyone was still calm, Mai Zhaocheng finally made his ambition public:

"The highest goal is to win a medal."

The conference room was quiet for a second or two. Perhaps everyone finally realized what the head coach had just said, and they started to commotion!