World Cup of Great Powers

The Gwangju World Cup Stadium was filled with people and every seat was packed.

Zeng Zheng stood in front of the visiting team's coaching bench, looking directly at the international players lined up on the field, his mind clear.

To be fair, for this game, Bamboo Shoes has done everything it can do off the court.

Whether it is the trend among fans and media, or the rights applied to FIFA, they have been greatly satisfied.

But unfortunately, this is Gwangju, the territory of South Korea.

If our ancestors had lowered their sights and looked at this lowland where birds didn't poop, maybe we wouldn't have so many worries today.

"Hua Hua Hua~~~"

Soon, Zeng Zheng's wild thoughts were brought back to reality by the noise in the stands.

Zeng Zheng understands Korean, but on this occasion, he doesn't want to seriously understand what the fans are shouting.

For this quarter knockout match, South Korea also tried its best off the court.

Not only did it cause some trouble before the Chinese team bus arrived, it also directly isolated the interaction between Chinese fans and players.

It is said that tens of thousands of Chinese fans outside the Gwangju Stadium were intercepted by Gwangju local police to prevent them from approaching the athletes' "restricted area."

On the contrary, those fans holding Bagua flags and supporting South Korea can enter easily.

After entering the stadium, only less than 5,000 seats in the stadium, which can accommodate 44,000 fans, were sold to Chinese fans.

These fans were crowded into a small corner of the stadium, not even in the center behind the goal.

The fans are treated like this, let alone the players.

These days, the team members have been harassed by local South Korean fans all the time.

Spies posing as fans and reporters are so pervasive that Jin and Chi have become counterintelligence experts and even evolved dog noses!

As long as you smell it in the air, you can smell the scum smell of the sticks.

It can be said that these are the most frustrating days for the Chinese team since the start of the World Cup.

Now, all this has passed.

With the Egyptian referee replaced by German Meike, on the surface, the Chinese team has achieved a substantial victory.

But only Zeng Zheng knew it.

The real showdown has just begun!

...

For this World Cup, South Korea not only asked Zheng Menghuai to donate the bamboo mats of the International Bead Curtain, but also invited the famous Dutch coach Hiddink to coach the team.

Compared with Troussier next door, Hiddink's name has already been in the civilized world!

"It's a great honor to compete with you, Mr. Hiddink."

When they met, even Zeng Zheng had to bend down and lower his posture to shake hands with this master in the industry.

Fortunately, Hiddink didn't put on any airs.

"Me too, Zeng. It's an honor to meet you here."

The two shook hands politely on the sidelines without saying much.

This is not just to avoid suspicion, but as opponents, the two sides really have nothing to say.

As a synonym for the contemporary magical coach, Hiddink’s resume needs no elaboration.

When the two turned their heads, the pressure on Zeng Zheng's shoulders to defeat a powerful enemy became heavier.

"Although I'm not as famous as Hiddink."

"But my players are better than Hiddink's players."

Zeng Zheng comforted himself in this way.

In this game, coach Hiddink arranged the classic Dutch 343 formation. The lineup was almost unchanged from the main force in the group stage.

Goalkeeper Lee Yun-jae, the three defenders are Choi Jin-cheol, captain Hong Myung-bo and Kim Tae-young, who has an injured nose and is wearing a protective mask.

The midfielders are all old acquaintances, namely Song Jong-guk, Ryu Sang-cheol, Kim Nam-il and Lee Yong-pyo.

On the forward line, three overseas players Park Ji-sung, Seol Qi-hyun and Ahn Jung-hwan formed a forward trident, trying to threaten the Chinese team's door.

On the visiting team's side, Ou Chuliang has always been the goalkeeper of the Chinese team unless there is any unexpected situation.

The four defenders are Xu Yunlong, General Fan, Li Weifeng and Wu Chengying.

Li Tie, Sun Jihai and Zhao Junzhe formed a parallel midfield.

On the forward line, Yang Chen, Su Maozhen and Xie Hui are the three top aerialists who stand against each other.

"The Chinese team is going to play high-altitude ball!"

Everyone guessed this after seeing Zeng Zheng's personnel arrangement.

In fact, Hiddink also noticed this when submitting the list yesterday.

But he didn't have many good ideas.

The three defenders of South Korea are all over 1.8 meters tall. Cui Jinzhe and Kim Tae-young are even taller than 1.87 meters, which is taller than the Chinese team's forward Trident.

But the problem is, leaving aside Kim Tae-young's injury, only the captain Hong Myung-po can compete with South Korea's three defenders based on their physical disadvantages and heading skills.

But Hong Mingpu is only 1.81 meters tall, which is obviously a head shorter than the others in a room of six people.

After seeing this personnel arrangement, many people gave Zeng Zheng a thumbs up.

Sure enough, when dealing with Asian teams, the Chinese team still uses the old-fashioned header to gain an advantage.

But is the confrontation on the court really that simple?

Especially when they saw Zeng Zheng putting Li Jinyu and Zhang Xiaorui on the bench today, the fans became silent again.

If other coaches don't let them play, these two guys might be very dissatisfied, and even the fans will complain on his behalf.

But the head coach is Zeng Zheng.

When they saw Li Jinyu and Zhang Xiaorui sitting on the sidelines wearing substitute uniforms, the fans could only curl their lips and shake their heads.

"Poor Dayu/Heizi, you two just listen to Chief Zeng honestly!"

...

"This is the fifth channel of the TV station."

"The live broadcast for you now is the third round of the 2002 World Cup quarter-finals."

"China versus South Korea."

"This is the first time since the first World Cup in 1930 that two Asian teams have met in the World Cup."

"This is an Asian derby that will go down in history!"

Speaking of the word "derby", Huang Jianxiang became excited about it.

Regardless of how South Korea got here today, the Chinese team has made it to the top eight step by step.

South Korea has specially set up two competition zones for this World Cup, and the Chinese team may be able to make the host country marry them by taking advantage of the host country's style.

When Huang Jianxiang thought about the Chinese team defeating South Korea and advancing to the semi-finals, like every Chinese fan, every cell in his body became restless.

"...After this game, the first Asian team to break into the semi-finals of the World Cup will be born."

"Whether it's the Chinese team or South Korea, this is a victory for Asian football!"

After all, it was a national live broadcast, so Huang Jianxiang still had to act grand.

"In today's game, South Korea, which plays at home, wears purple home uniforms, while the Chinese team wears white away uniforms."

"We can see that the South Korean fans in the stands have already dyed themselves red..."

"This is also our main color!"

...

With the referee Meck's whistle, the game officially started.

Both sides are old rivals.

South Korea, which took the lead in kicking off the ball, took the initiative to attack and passed the ball to Ahn Jung-hwan on the right. The latter's breakthrough after receiving the ball was cleanly tackled by Xu Yunlong.

Two minutes later, the Chinese team launched a counterattack and sent a long pass in the midfield.

Goalkeeper Li Yun took the initiative and confiscated the ball before Su Cap actually got the ball.

In the footage, in order to block the bulldozer-like golden-headed Lao Mao, Kim Tae-young lost his balance the moment Li Yun got the ball and fell to the ground.

The golden-headed Lao Mao, who couldn't stop the car, raised his foot and stepped directly over Jin Taiying's body.

Seeing this, the Chinese fans didn't do anything, but the Italian fans in front of the TV couldn't sit still.

"Okay, okay, fuck him!"

"Tram him to death, trample that son of a bitch to death!"

"Don't give him face, just step on his nose!"

Obviously, the strength of the Chinese team gave the Italians, who were eager for revenge, "hope".

Facing the strength of the Chinese team, South Korea, which played at home, did not show any weakness.

In the 7th minute, while fighting for the ball on the sideline, Zhao Junzhe, who was blocked by two people on the sideline, was squeezed to the ground because of his thin body.

But Kim Tae-young, who only had eyes for the ball, seemed to want revenge and actually sat down on the head of Zhao Junzhe.

"Beep!"

The whistle sounded.

The referee awarded the Chinese team a frontcourt foul ball.

"stand up!"

"What the f*ck are you doing?"

"Throw the ball!"

Seeing that Zhao Junzhe wanted to come forward to argue with him, Zeng Zheng grabbed him by the back of his neck.

"Boss Zeng, I..."

Zhao Junzhe pointed to his messed-up hairstyle and wanted to avenge Zeng Zheng.

"This is the football field!"

"Speak for me with goals!"

"Let's keep talking about those things that are there but not..."

Before he finished speaking, Zeng Zheng thrust the ball into Zhao Junzhe's hands and pushed him back to the sideline.

"Xiao Zhao, this kid is too restless."

Chi Shangbin came over and sighed, "Where are you now?"

As Chi Shangbin said.

In football matches, bumping into each other is normal.

Not to mention sitting on your head, even if I shoot you in the head, it's probably not a foul.

You haven't been injured yet, but you are mumbling. How can you behave like this?

"Oh, there's nothing we can do about it."

Jin Zhiyang also came over, "This stick is really disgusting to play football with."

"It's such an important game again."

"The children are under too much pressure..."

high pressure?

If anyone feels stressed, just don’t play!

These are the exact words Zeng Zheng said to the team members one day ago.

Thinking of this, Zhao Jun cursed and spat, and quickly got into the game again.

In this game, Zeng Zheng’s strategy was to “focus on attacking the visitors”.

Offense is always the best defense.

If we continue to chase points throughout the game like in the last game, the players' mental and physical fitness may not be able to sustain it.

Therefore, Zeng Zheng's request is to strengthen the attack and counterattack in the midfield and frontcourt at the beginning, and strive to win the first city.

After the Chinese team threw a throw-in, Sun Jihai forced Kim Tae-young to commit a defensive foul and got a throw-in from the frontcourt.

So far in the game, the masked South Korean defender has been captured by live cameras no less than three times.

It is enough to show that South Korea is experiencing passive defense.

Zhao Junzhe took the free kick and went straight to the penalty kick spot in the South Korean penalty area.

This is a typical high-altitude ball tactic of the Chinese team. What they want is to use the header advantage to open up the game.

In the penalty area, a total of five players, including General Fan and Li Weifeng, jumped high.

Facing the Chinese team's five aerial bullies, Li Yun, who was only 1.82 meters tall, took the risk and forced the ball to hit the baseline with his hands.

Seeing the result, Zhaojun waved his hand in the air, indicating that he didn't hit the ball well enough.

The five Chinese players in the penalty area did not say anything, but continued to stand where they were, waiting for the corner kick to be taken.

Subsequently, Zhao Junzhe continued to kick a corner kick in the opposite direction of the goalkeeper.

South Korea squeezed eight defenders into the penalty area and used their numerical advantage to force the ball out of the penalty area.

But that's all.

Outside the penalty area, Ahn Jung-hwan failed to grab the first point in the fight with Son Ji-hae, so he could only watch helplessly as Lee Tie ran to the second landing point of the ball and easily controlled the ball.

When Li Tie turned around after taking the ball, he was already near the midfield.

Such a long distance can somewhat relieve the pressure on the South Korean players.

The assistant coaches on the sidelines shouted wildly and seemed a little dissatisfied with the players' defense.

Hiddink put his hands in his pockets and looked forward silently.

He knew that if South Korea wanted to win, it must resist the Chinese team's attack.

Perhaps the assistant coach's roar had an effect. In the 9th minute, facing another long ball from the Chinese team, Cui Zhen was kicked in the head by captain Hong Myung-bo while fighting for the top.

Bang!

After the ball was cleared, Cui Zhenzhe fell straight to the ground.

Seeing the unresponsive Cui Zhenzhe, Zhao Junzhe, who was so close, felt frightened.

Good guy!

These stick guys are so crazy that they even kick their own people!

After dealing with it briefly for half a minute, Cui Zhenzhe stood up again and got into the game.

Seeing this, the South Korean fans at the scene burst into joy and applauded their "warriors".