Chapter 99: The Three Strongest of Asia Youth
Thanks to book friend "all history is contemporary history" for casting evaluation votes, continue to ask for recommendation votes and member clicks ^_^
The former, although unfortunately divided into the current Chinese team's "group of death", but in the second round of the group stage, one ball behind and even missed a penalty kick, successfully reversed the situation and defeated Nigeria, which later won the silver medal at the World Youth Championship. This match is also one of the most classic matches in the Dutch World Youth Championship.
However, at that time, few Chinese fans would care about the performance of other teams outside the Chinese youth team, so they generally only knew that the South Korean youth team did not advance from the group stage and produced an incorrect impression that this South Korean youth team performed poorly in the World Youth Championship...
The Syrian team not only advanced to the group stage with China, but also had a classic 2-1 victory over Italy. More importantly, their outstanding performance is a microcosm of the rise of Syrian football. Unbeknownst to them, this country, which was originally only at the Asian third-rate level, has rapidly become an Asian second-rate football power. In the eyes of Chinese fans, being an Asian second-rate team may not be worth boasting about, but for Syrian fans, the feeling is completely different. The Japanese team, although they only drew two games, still advanced to the knockout stage of the World Youth Championship. Overall, their performance was the worst among the four Asian teams, but considering the status of Asian football in the world, they did not lose face either.
After all, the performance of these four Asian youth teams in the Dutch Youth Tournament was actually not bad, it's just that the Chinese team was divided into the weakest group, so they got the best results.
And it was the South Korean youth team that picked up this great bargain, so even though they were generally more afraid of Turkey's physical confrontation than stronger teams, they still showed their huge advantage in terms of competitive state and successfully defeated their opponents who failed to enter the state immediately (Turkey's performance in the first 30 minutes of the World Youth Championship was like an amateur team. If it weren't for the national youth team wasting too many opportunities at that time, the outcome would have been decided early on, while the Korean team's ability to seize opportunities is quite prominent in Asia).
"The Korean team's situation is very favorable now, and they might even meet us again in the knockout stage." Gao Jun thought of the knockout stage bracket and suddenly realized that if both China Youth and South Korea advanced from their groups as runners-up, they would definitely meet in the round of 16. And if China Youth won their group while Syria advanced as runners-up, just like in history, then China Youth would face Syria again in the round of 16. The fact that teams from the same continent would meet so early on suggests that the tournament organizers didn't put much thought into arranging the matches, or they simply didn't expect two Asian teams to advance to the knockout stage...
"Whatever, I won't bother with him. Anyway, all obstacles must be eliminated, my goal is the championship! Otherwise, wouldn't giving up on participating in the United Cup be a mistake?" High Jun thought to himself, and his fighting spirit became even more vigorous.
The next opponent of the Chinese youth team is Nigeria, who historically won the silver medal and are obviously very strong. However, African teams have always been unstable in their performance, so the Chinese youth team still has a good chance. Moreover, even the Korean youth team in history defeated this Nigerian team, why can't the current Chinese youth team, which is stronger than them, take it down?
Moreover, the head coach of the Chinese youth team, Klaus, had coached in Africa before and was very familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of African teams. Before the second game started, he gave two important instructions. The first one was to ask Feng Shao Ting not to frequently participate in the attack like in the previous game. This is because Nigeria's attacking power was very strong, and their counterattack speed was also very fast. If Feng Shao Ting participated too much in the attack, it would inevitably lead to huge loopholes in the team's defense. The second point was that African teams, especially youth teams, generally had poor defense and advocated for offense, rarely setting up a large bus in front of the goal. With the strong attacking group of the Chinese youth team, they could ensure that they could take the castle without letting Feng Shao Ting, this central defender, risk assisting in the attack.
And Klinsmann's second instruction was to let Hou Yifan fully play his strengths in this game, the African youth team's defensive organization is generally loose, and Hou Yifan's sharp breakthroughs should be able to create many opportunities for the team. Moreover, due to their physical advantages, African players tend to have larger defensive movements, but in a top-level international competition like the World Youth Championship, the referees' standards are relatively stricter, so Hou Yifan's breakthroughs should still be able to win many front-court positioning balls and possibly create many yellow cards or even red cards.
In the first match of the national youth team, many Chinese Dutch and overseas students rushed to the stadium to cheer for the Chinese team. In addition, some domestic fan organizations of several main players of the national youth team also organized an expedition to the Netherlands to assist in the battle. During the game, red flags were flying high, drums were beating loudly, giving the young national youth team members a great boost.
And after the Chinese youth team won their first match, there was a significant increase in the number of fans who came to cheer them on, including a small number of overseas Chinese and Chinese students from outside the Netherlands. They successfully drowned out the cheers of the Nigerian team's fans, giving the Chinese youth team a sense of home advantage in this distant land, and boosting their morale even further...
"CCTV, CCTV, hello to all our audience friends, welcome to watch the second round of Group F in the 2005 World Youth Football Championship held in Emmen, Netherlands, between China and Nigeria. Today, the Chinese team is wearing white jerseys, and the match starts at 2:30 local time...". Famous CCTV football commentator Huang Jianxiang finished his routine opening remarks during the national anthems of both teams before the match kicked off.
No matter how much the Chinese Football Association values this, after all, it's just a youth team match. CCTV won't reserve 30 minutes or more for commentators and guests to do pre-match analysis like they would for national team matches. However, for those veteran fans, it's not necessarily a bad thing because they don't need to listen to those low-level commentaries and instead hope to see the exciting and intense match as soon as possible...
At first, the high-military Baidu Tieba was built ahead of time, and Hu Weiguo (net name "a_hwg"), a brain-dead fan who has been serving as the bar owner until now, is an old ball fan. Huang Jianxiang's passionate commentary was ignored by him, and only Gao Jun's performance on the field could make him excited and crazy. However, at the beginning of this game, Old Hu found that Gao Jun had rarely returned to midfield to receive the ball, and he couldn't help but feel a wave of surprise in his heart, "Is he going to......"
Even "a_hwg" this brain-dead fan didn't think of it, let alone the opposing team's players. Gao Jun was still mainly playing with empty shots and passing in the previous game, but in this game he ran to midfield to ask for the ball, so he inevitably reacted half a beat slower...
Starting point welcomes readers to visit, the latest, fastest and most popular serialized works are all on the starting point of original!
