Fox in the Penalty Area

Chapter 1702 What comes and goes

"Wow!!! The Chinese team is ahead! The scorer is... Luo! Without Hu, the Chinese team actually scored first!"

A Spanish commentator yelled from the TV.

Hu Lai was unable to complain and could only roll his eyes to express his dissatisfaction with the commentator's "pride and prejudice".

Li Qingqing smiled and comforted him: "There are indeed too few opportunities for Chinese football to appear in front of Europe with a collective image. Just wait until later. Won't the World Cup be held in Spain and Portugal next year? By then, they will know the Chinese team What does it look like?”

Hu Lai nodded and said nothing more.

He knew his girlfriend was right.

For a long time, Chinese football has been considered low-level and inferior to Europeans, and is not worth paying attention to. Now it is only because of him that Hu Lai will understand it, but their understanding is only a superficial understanding, not in-depth.

Chinese football, like China, is full of all kinds of weird stereotypes.

To change this situation, we can only rely on the actual performance of Chinese players.

Japanese football has gone through exactly the same process.

At first, because Japanese products were marketed around the world, Europeans thought that Japanese players were "product spokesmen" sent over by Japanese companies in order to open up the European market. They came to Europe to sell products, not to play football.

This situation did not change until more and more Japanese players appeared in European competitions and performed well.

Chinese football also needs to go through such a process. The only difference is that Chinese companies will not spend money to send Chinese players to study abroad because they are afraid of being scolded by public opinion in their own country. Given the image of Chinese football at the time, it was not a good thing to be linked to Chinese football. Japanese companies helping Japanese players may also play a role in promoting their own brands. If it were a Chinese company, it would probably only be "infamous for thousands of years"...

Now, although Hulay's personal performance is very outstanding, he even won the European Ballon d'Or. But there are still many Europeans who think that the overall strength of Chinese football is very poor. Except for Hu Lai, everyone else in the Chinese team is not worth mentioning. Without him, the Chinese team is simply a weak persimmon that can be easily pinched...

Let alone Europeans, isn’t that what the Japanese media thinks?

Even some of us Chinese fans ourselves hold this view.

We can't accuse them of not being confident, after all, football still depends on actual performance.

Before there are actual results, don’t blame others for not believing anything you say.

Fortunately, next year's World Cup will be held in Europe, and all of Europe can see the Chinese team's performance.

As long as the Chinese team can show sufficient strength,

Perhaps Europeans' views on Chinese football will change greatly in the future.

※※ ※

The game has restarted. After taking the lead, the Chinese team tried to build up momentum and score another goal.

They did create a good opportunity, but Zhou Zijing's shot in the penalty area was saved by Japanese goalkeeper Nobuo Nishiguchi.

"oops!"

Seeing Zhou Zijing miss the opportunity, Hu Lai put his head in his hands and shouted with regret.

Seeing him like this, Li Qingqing said: "Fortunately, you are watching the game in your living room. If you were watching the game on the bench and you took this scene, maybe after the game, someone would pass you on to Zhou Zi I am very dissatisfied..."

Hu Lai shook his head: "No. It won't happen. Before the game is over, someone has said that I am dissatisfied with Zhou Zijing."

Zhou Zijing himself was also very upset. After missing the opportunity, he held his head in his hands and looked up to the sky and roared.

The Spanish commentator on the TV introduced: "Zhou is currently playing for the Premier League team Leeds City. He scored ten goals in all competitions last season. But so far this season, he has not scored..."

※※ ※

After withstanding the Chinese team's three blows after taking the lead, the Japanese team began to plan a counterattack.

Now that the score is behind, it is equivalent to forcing them to a dead end.

The only good thing is that at least the Chinese team took the lead at the beginning of the game, leaving them more time.

If the Chinese team takes the lead at the last moment, then the Japanese team will be in danger... I am afraid that they will not be able to make a comeback.

It has to be said that the overall strength of the Japanese team is still very strong. Almost all their starting players have experience playing in Europe. This allowed them to not fall into panic after facing the sudden loss of the ball.

Instead, he quickly adjusted from the blow of losing the ball.

Then they did not rush and directly launched the offense through long passes from the backcourt. Instead, they maintained their previous tactical play, taking advantage of their technical advantages in the midfield, playing steadily and gradually advancing.

They were not in a hurry to pass the football directly to the Chinese team's 30-meter area to shoot. Instead, they first moved back and forth in the midfield, looking for opportunities to paralyze the Chinese team's defense.

Luo Kai and Chen Xingyi, who were wingers in front, also had to retreat to the defensive third zone to defend, which also suppressed the Chinese team's offense.

Sugiyama Tatsuya uses his skills and awareness to constantly move throughout the midfield area to assist his teammates in sorting out the midfield.

"Tatsuya Sugiyama is indeed better than before... After going to Vesseldorf to play in the Champions League, he has improved a lot." Hu Lai, who watched the game from a God's perspective, said to Li Qingqing. "If he could have gone to a team that allowed him to play the main role earlier, his progress might have been even more obvious, but he ended up going to the Blue and White Munich..."

After Tatsuya Sugiyama finished playing in the 2024 Madrid Olympics, he was spotted by Blue and White Munich, and then made a very high-profile move to the Bundesliga giants. This was quite sensational news at the time.

At that time, even the Chinese media were envious, believing that Sugiyama Tatsuya's ability to join Blue and White Munich was another ironclad proof that Japanese football was ahead of Chinese football.

So much so that when the scandal between Hu Lai and the Madrid King came out, Hu Lai did not go. Many media and fans were dissatisfied, thinking that Chinese football had lost the best opportunity to overpower Japanese football - in their opinion , the level of the Madrid Kings is definitely higher than that of the Blue and White Munich. If Hu Lai can go to the Madrid Kings, the limelight can completely surpass Tatsuya Sugiyama of the Blue and White Munich and become the "Nanba Man" among young Asian players.

Of course, the development trajectories of the two people were very different later. Sugiyama Tatsuya, who once dominated the limelight, wasted time and again in the blue and white Munich, wasting a lot of time on constant loan.

It wasn't until I went to Vesseldorf that I found an environment that suited me and started to accelerate. But he is already twenty-seven years old, no longer young, and has no room for trial and error anymore. For him, going to Vesseldorf to play football is more like a stud, or failure.

However, Hu Lai started from Leeds City, a newly promoted Premier League team, and steadily improved step by step. Now he has become one of the top players in the world.

I have to say that in human destiny, personal struggle is important, but the right choice is equally important.

If Hu Lai was influenced by vanity and chose to go to Madrid Kings, then I am afraid that even he himself does not know what achievements he will have now.

※※ ※

The Japanese team advanced the attack, but when it entered the Chinese team's penalty area, Wang Guangwei headed the ball out.

After Zhang Qinghuan, who was retreating, received the ball, he turned around and wanted to lead forward.

Then he turned around and saw Junpei Morikawa standing in front of him.

His left shoulder sank, trying to dribble the ball to the left, but the outside instep of his right foot suddenly moved the football to the center, trying to shake away Junpei Morikawa.

Junpei Morikawa was not fooled by him at all. He stepped forward, stretched out his foot and stabbed the football on the outside of his right foot, pushing the ball behind Zhang Qinghuan.

Zhang Qinghuan staggered slightly and lost his position.

By the time he turned around and chased back, Junpei Morikawa had already caught up with the football and headed towards the Chinese team's penalty area.

Fortunately, Gao Ruimin was still standing in his position. As soon as Junpei Morikawa took a step forward, he met Gao Ruimin, who was waiting for him.

He had to slow down.

At this time, Zhang Qinghuan also chased back. Morikawa Junpei protected the football again, dodged Zhang Qinghuan's rush, and then dribbled the ball horizontally.

Zhang Qinghuan didn't have time to turn around, so he ran straight into the space behind Gao Ruimin to defend him. Gao Ruimin followed Morikawa Junpei and moved laterally to defend, trying to continue to get stuck in front of Morikawa Junpei.

After Morikawa Junpei crossed the angle laterally, he tried to pass the football forward and passed it to Tsutomu Ito, who was running diagonally behind the Chinese team's back line.

Wang Guangwei happened to be stuck in the path of his passing, stretched out his feet to make a tackle, and blocked the football.

However, the football blocked by Wang Guangwei fell to the feet of Tatsuya Sugiyama at the top of the penalty arc!

He stopped the ball in a hurry, and the football hit the inside of his foot hard, then bounced high and flew into the penalty area!

Sugiyama Tatsuya quickly adjusted his steps to catch up, and then shot a half-volley before Liu Yan and Mao Junzheng closed the door!

After the football was shot out, it hit Liu Yan's outstretched calf, changed its line slightly, and headed straight for the lower left corner of the goal!

Although Lin Zhiyuan made a save, he was still out of reach of this shot that went straight into the blind corner...

He fell to the ground and could only watch the football flying past his fingertips, then grazing the inside of the goal post and diving into the net!

In the 31st minute of the first half, the Japanese team equalized the score!