Chapter 104: Powerless Against Heaven

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  Gao Jun smiled and stood up from the bench, patted Yu Hai's shoulder and said, "Don't worry, I didn't let you play before because your center of gravity is too high, and you always use small moves to beat bigger opponents. Before your body is fully developed, if you encounter malicious fouls from players who are much more developed than you, it's easy to get seriously injured, which would affect your career. But now you're already a big guy, 187cm tall and over 150 pounds, and the opponent is just a young player whose body hasn't fully developed yet, what's there to be afraid of?"

  "What? So it can't be used in club and national team matches either?", Yu Hai said with a bitter face as soon as he heard.

  "That's right, and even in this Youth World Cup, I only allow you to use it after entering the 30-meter area in front of the court. You need to know that even if it's a low-probability event, as long as the sample size is large enough, it will still happen, so I don't want you to take unnecessary risks.

  Gao Jun was pouring cold water on Yu Hai seriously, but his words also contained encouragement. "I have always believed that you will become a world-class soccer star, but the premise is that you cannot suffer from serious injuries that will prevent you from playing for more than half a season before the age of 22. You must remember this point yourself.

  Now it's still the time to lay the foundation, don't pursue temporary performance. When your body grows up and starts to exercise strength, and your technical awareness becomes perfect, that's when you can make a breakthrough and rise to fame!"

  In fact, even in the later dark ages of history, China's good wing talents have been emerging one after another. Yu Hai has always received special attention from Gao Hongbo because of his habit of heading and kicking the ball, his excellent team assistance ability, his tireless running and his outstanding defensive ability and consciousness, which are comparable to those of a defender. These four advantages are often not possessed by traditional Chinese-style wingers, but Yu Hai possesses all of them at the same time, which is really rare. And in this era, Yu Hai also has dribbling skills that are not inferior to those of traditional wingers and excellent physical qualities, no wonder Gao Hongbo has always looked at him with a different eye.

  Let's shift our focus back to the field, Lulin's goal helped the youth team tie the score at one point, but his inadequacy compared to Yu Hai was soon exposed. He liked to dribble and break through on his own, but was intercepted multiple times, and his frontcourt counter-attack was not as active as Yu Hai's. Moreover, he couldn't provide all-around support like Yu Hai did, which greatly increased the pressure on his teammates...

  It's fortunate that Yu Wenwen is relatively balanced in ability, if it were still the main left-back Rong Hao who is strong in attack but weak in defense, the defensive loophole on the left would have been even bigger. Not only Lu Lin, but also other substitutes on the field have some obvious shortcomings, they can be used as a surprise tactic with good effect, but if they are allowed to take charge alone, the gap between them and the main players is still very obvious, especially since Brazil does not have the same poor competitive state as those European teams, so when they adapted to the characteristics of these Chinese players, they quickly regained control of the field...

  But Brazil, eager to take down the match, wasted several excellent scoring opportunities in a row. As a result, after 40 minutes of play in the first half, they still couldn't surpass the score again. This was naturally good news for China, and Gao Jun, as an efficient shooter, bluntly expressed his opinion: "This Brazilian team is really strong, especially in terms of ball control. Their biggest weakness is probably their ability to seize opportunities, which isn't up to par. Maybe that's why they've never made it to the finals in history - they're being punished for wasting opportunities during matches."

  No sooner had Gao Hongbo finished speaking than Renato, a midfielder of Brazil, scored a goal with a 30-meter shot from outside the penalty area, breaking China's goal. For this lost goal, substitute goalkeeper Yang Cheng of the Chinese team should bear some responsibility. His position at that time was problematic, making it impossible for him to make an effective save against this long shot which originally did not pose much threat.

  It's a common problem for many Chinese goalkeepers, and the most typical example is Liu Dianzou, who later became the main goalkeeper of Nanchang Shenhua. His goal-line technology and reflex nerves are top-notch in China, but his positioning sense is chaotic, often being humiliated by long shots and lob shots, leaving countless "world waves" in Chinese Super League classics...

  This unexpected goal boosted the morale of the Brazilian team, and the Chinese youth team's anxious mentality to equalize again gave them more opportunities to counterattack. In the injury time of the first half, Brazil broke the ball and launched a counterattack. Renato and striker Sobis made a beautiful two-on-one collaboration, and finally Sobis relied on his excellent dribbling skills to continuously get past China's defensive core Feng Xiaoting and goalkeeper Yang Chen, scoring an open goal and expanding the score to 3:1.

  After the Chinese youth team lost the ball, they launched a big counterattack, but due to the limited time left in the first half, they had to return to the locker room with a two-goal deficit. Perhaps wanting to see how his teammates performed in adversity, Cruyff did not make any substitutions at halftime, but Brazil clearly excelled at seizing key moments to launch a surprise attack (most of Brazil's goals in the history of the Dutch Youth World Cup were scored within minutes of the start of the game and before the end of the half). Just a few minutes after the second half began, Brazil took advantage of Chinese goalkeeper Yang Cheng's mistake to widen the gap again.

  The goal conceded was a heavy blow to the Chinese team's morale, and Klinsmann finally sent Gao Jun onto the field, lest they lose too much and their morale would be difficult to recover in a short period of time, affecting their performance in the knockout stage. Along with Gao Jun, Huo Jiamin, who is good at dribbling and breaking through, also came on, because at this point, China needed the ability to attack and break down defenses rather than counterattack. Similarly, in order to strengthen their offense, Huo Jiamin replaced not Chen Tao, who was playing right forward in this game, but Zhao Yi, a defensive midfielder, and Chen Tao moved to play attacking midfield, changing the team's formation from a flat 4-4-2 to a diamond-shaped 4-4-2. This would naturally weaken their defense, but with China trailing by three goals, Klinsmann had no choice but to take this risk in order to strengthen their offense.

  As soon as Gao Jun came on the field, the head coach of the Brazilian team immediately waved his hand and let his players withdraw their defense line. At the same time, they stopped actively attacking and tried to control the ball to consume time. Although this approach brought a burst of boos from the audience in the stands, it successfully reduced the risk of reversing the score to zero...

  Note 1: To be honest, the root cause is that there is a lack of excellent youth goalkeeper coaches in China. The attribute of positioning sense is relatively abstract, and if the coach's level is not good enough, it is difficult to identify it during the youth period, resulting in the selection of goalkeepers focusing more on visible qualities such as jumping ability and reaction speed.