The biggest fanatic in football

I made a mistake yesterday. Belgium was ranked second in the world, second only to Germany.

——

"We are having a meeting to study Belgium's tactics. Do you have any suggestions, brothers?"

When Southgate was analyzing the characteristics of the next opponent to the players, Lee Polo sent a message in the "Chelsea Players Chat Group".

Two people quickly responded to him.

Courtois: "The Belgian goalkeeper is invincible!"

Hazard: “Belgium’s No. 10 is second in the world!”

Cahill, who secretly glanced at his phone, almost laughed out loud.

Southgate pretended not to notice their little moves and just coughed:

"This game is about the battle for the top spot in the group, and we should pay more attention to it."

"The previous two opponents, Tunisia and Panama, were just appetizers and desserts. Belgium is our first strong enemy in this World Cup. If we perform poorly, the previous two big wins will only become a joke!"

He spoke seriously, and the players couldn't help but straighten their backs. Lee Polo and Cahill also quietly put away their mobile phones.

Southgate then nodded:

"A more realistic problem is that judging from the current situation of each group, if we take all three points, we will enter the top half of the knockout rounds as the first in the group.

The upper half will probably become a death half full of powerful enemies. Germany, Brazil, Spain, and France will all be waiting for us here.

On the contrary, the opponents in the lower half are relatively weak, so I want to hear your opinions."

Li Polo raised his eyebrows:

[Is this South Gate out of your mind?]

[You just said a few seconds ago that we should attach great importance to it and go all out, and now you want to give up and lose and enter the second half?]

Before he criticized the head coach's capitulationism and utilitarianism, other teammates stood up.

The first person to express his stance was team captain Henderson:

"With all due respect, coach, with our current strength and morale, we should not consider this issue at all."

Vice-captain Cahill, English dance king Lingard, Happy Club leader Sterling and others expressed their support:

"We just want to fight our way through the dead zone!"

"We are not afraid of France, Brazil or Germany!"

"We want to punch Spain, kick Germany, and step on the past two champions to win the championship!"

"It's a pity that there is no 2006 champion Italy, otherwise we could have won three consecutive victories!"

Li Polo even shrugged:

"Coach, if you want to rotate the lineup in this game, I can support it.

But if you want to bully the weak in the second half, I will be the first to say no!"

The corner of Southgate's mouth twitched.

He regretted it very much!

[If I had known this, it would have been a waste to discuss it!]

[Wouldn’t it be over if you just push it all the way through? 】

-

While England and Belgium are actively preparing for the match, other group matches have already begun.

In Group A, which took the lead, Egypt lost 1:2 to Saudi Arabia. Although Salah scored consecutive goals, he was unable to prevent the team from losing three games in a row.

The host Russia suffered its first defeat since the start of the season. It was beaten by Uruguay with a score of 0:3. As the second place in the group, it entered the relatively weak lower half...

From the previous two rounds of performances, it is difficult to determine whether they did it intentionally or not.

Group B was originally divided into strong and weak groups, but in the first two rounds, Spain and Portugal each had 4 points, and Iran had 3 points. Everyone is likely to advance.

Portugal once led Iran 1:0, but Ronaldo then paid tribute to Messi and missed a penalty kick, missing an excellent opportunity to expand the score. However, Iran seized the opportunity of the opponent's declining morale and tenaciously equalized the score, making the situation very serious.

severe.

Fortunately, Portugal was united and managed to hold on to the draw in the end, joining forces with Spain, which defeated Morocco.

The situation in Group C has been very clear for a long time. France and Denmark played a 0:0 tacit match in the third round, and the two European heroes advanced side by side.

Group D has attracted much attention because of the presence of Argentina and Messi.

Croatia advanced early by winning all three matches, while Argentina, which had only accumulated one point in the first two rounds, had to fight Nigeria to the death.

Faced with the desperate situation of being eliminated if he didn't win, Messi finally stepped forward and scored the first goal in the 14th minute, finally scoring his first goal of this World Cup...

But Nigeria, unwilling to be eliminated, quickly regrouped. Lee Polo's good teammate Moses created a penalty kick in the 6th minute of the second half and took the penalty himself. The two sides returned to the same starting line...

The whole of Argentina became impatient, and Messi even received a yellow card for this. However, in front of Nigeria, which has players such as Moses, Iwobi, Mikel, Ndidi, and Ighalo, the Pampas Eagles did not have many players.

way.

It wasn't until the 86th minute that Argentine center back Rojo scored with a header from a set kick, killing the last trace of suspense and ensuring Argentina entered the knockout stage.

The situation in Group E is also very clear, with Brazil and Switzerland advancing without any doubt.

However, Group F suffered the biggest upset. Sweden and Mexico both advanced. Germany, the last champion and ranked No. 1 in the world, was beaten 2:0 by the South Korean team, which had been eliminated early!

You know, this Korean team was beaten 15:0 by the British three weeks ago!

After this battle, the German team was simply ashamed!

Because of their hip-stretching performance, tens of thousands of people around the world took to the rooftop!

The South Korean team was unanimously considered to be proud of their defeat!

Although Group H is a group of rookies pecking each other, the suspense didn't end until the last moment.

Colombia defeated the original group leader Senegal 1:0 and qualified with 6 points.

Japan, which was tied for first place with Senegal, lost to Poland, which was at the bottom of the group.

Then Japan, which has 4 points, began to calculate small points with Senegal.

Both teams have 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss. They both scored 4 goals and conceded 4 goals, with a goal difference of 0. The record of direct confrontation is 2:2 tie!

FIFA had to activate the final rule to compare the number of red and yellow cards!

As a result, Japan received 4 yellow cards in the three rounds, while Senegal received 6. Relying on the advantage of fair play points, the Japanese team advanced in a thrilling manner...

What is a little strange is that Group H is obviously the last group, but their game started four hours earlier than Group G.

So while England was still warming up, the other teams in the upper and lower halves had already taken their seats.

Top half: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, France, Japan, Portugal, Mexico

Lower half: Russia, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Colombia, Croatia

As Southgate analyzed, the risks in the upper and lower halves are very different.

Among the 7 teams in the top half, except for Japan and Mexico, which are less powerful, the others are all top 10 in the world!

Among the seven teams in the lower half, Spain is the top team...

But both Southgate and the England players unanimously stated in pre-match interviews:

"The World Cup is a stage for the strong, and we are eager to fight against stronger opponents!"