Chapter 59: Narrowly Advancing

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  In the end, both sides drew a blank in the first half. After the intermission, Ali Han replaced Hao with Li Yi, hoping to change the situation with his impact, but what he didn't expect was that Kuwait scored just one minute after the second half began!

  The left back of the Chinese team, Sun Xiang, passed the ball and was intercepted by Kuwait, who quickly launched a counterattack. Soon, they formed a breakthrough on the right side and made a low pass into the box. Bashar fell to the ground near the penalty area and headed the ball back, but after the halftime substitution, Zhu Jiaqi came on and scored with a powerful shot, putting Kuwait 1-0 ahead. Inspired by this goal, Kuwait's offense became even more fierce, posing multiple threats to China in succession. Fortunately, Kuwait players' ability to seize opportunities was average, otherwise, the score might have been widened again.

  Liu Jianhong was even more outrageous, "In the first half, Kuwait rarely attacked on the right side, but after the second half started, they continued to attack on this side and immediately took effect. It's clear that they did it on purpose. Ali Han must come up with a countermeasure as soon as possible, otherwise China will be in trouble." At the same time, Liu Jianhong also continued to criticize Ali Han for using Xu Yunlong, ignoring the fact that Xu Yunlong performed well in this game.

  And when Ali Han noticed the loophole on the left and replaced Yu Hai to strengthen the defense, Liu Jianhong accused him of saying, "Now that China is one goal behind, Ali Han actually chose to strengthen his defense. Is he going to maintain this score for the rest of the game and then compete with Kuwait for a clean victory in the final round?"

  Fortunately, guest Tao Wei was once a football player and said a few fair words to Ali Han, "Yu Hai's attacking power is not weak either, and his tacit understanding with Gao Jun is better. Sending him on the field also has the intention of activating Gao Jun..."

  Liu Jianhong has found a new target and started criticizing Gao Lin's performance, "Compared to the Asian Cup, Gao Lin's state is obviously much worse. In this game, he hasn't even had one shot on goal so far...", completely ignoring his teammates' lack of support for him and the opponent's extremely tight defense...

  You Hai's physical strength had not fully recovered to its best state at this time, but he was at least more energetic than the starting players on both sides who were already on the court. As soon as he came on, he began to actively participate in defense and quickly plugged the defensive loophole on the left side. On offense, because You Hai and Gao Jun had a better understanding of each other, Gao Jun's support increased greatly. Later, when Huo Jiaxin also came off the bench, he was even more unstoppable...

  In the 65th minute, China's front court right pass into the penalty area, Shaojia used his height advantage to head the ball in the middle of the penalty area, Li Yi jumped up with all his might but didn't touch the ball. However, Gao Lin, who had not shot a single goal in this match, successfully shook off the defender and appeared at the back post on time, heading the ball into the net. China finally equalized!

  "Not much time left for the Chinese team...... Let's see this attack, right-sided Hou Jiamin slants a pass into the penalty area, adds a header, Li Yi didn't get to the ball, it's in! It's Gao Jun, he scored on his first shot of the game! He successfully shook off the opponent's defense near the far post and headed the ball into the net!" Liu Jianhong's voice suddenly rose high-pitched, excitedly shouting, immediately followed by "This is the role of a soccer star", completely forgetting how he had previously criticized Gao Jun......

  Afterwards, the Kuwait team launched a wave of attacks regardless of everything, and repeatedly created deadly threats. However, due to Liu Yunfei's brave performance and the obstruction of the crossbar, they were unable to rewrite the score again. In the last 10 minutes of the game, the physical strength of the Kuwait team completely collapsed, and many players fell to the ground due to physical exhaustion. The previous fierce counterattack could not be sustained, and in the end, the Chinese team drew 1-1 with the Kuwait team away from home, advancing to the top eight in the Asian zone of the 2004 World Cup qualifiers one round ahead of schedule!

  Although promoted in advance, the process was quite thrilling. Some people at home have begun to realize the hidden worries of Chinese football's lack of successors, and are also worried about next year's top eight match. Although Gao Lin and his teammates have been called "the strongest national youth team in history", apart from Gao Lin and Yu Hai, others can't take over for the time being. More importantly, the strength of Asian powers is still progressing, and even those teams that were not originally opponents of China are gradually becoming a threat, which is really worrying.

  But what Gao Jun is more concerned about is that due to the Football Association's lack of attention to the China League One, when arranging the schedule, they did not take into account the national team matches, resulting in Gao Jun missing nearly half of the China League One matches this season, which almost delayed Dongfang's promotion plan. And if Dongfang stays in China League One for another year, the growth rate of many young players will definitely slow down a lot, after all, for young players, the level of the competition platform will directly affect their growth rate and even their ceiling.

  Fortunately, the two foreign aids dug up by Gao Jun after the Toulon Cup were extremely strong, and even when Gao Jun and Yu Hai were absent, they could still lead the team to continue winning, and even when the national youth team recruited a large number of players, they still won more than lost. Otherwise, it would be hard to say whether this year's promotion would be successful. Despite this, two foreign aids that are not even world-class led a group of young players in the game and were able to compete with the strong teams in China League One, which made Gao Jun sigh at the low overall level of Chinese football...

  Even with Gao Jun and Yu Hai absent for a long time, and even when most of the main players were absent, Dongfang's ranking was always maintained in the top three of China League One. When the team's lineup is complete, no China League One team can compete with it. Although almost every China League One team chooses to retreat and counterattack against Dongfang, and strictly guards Gao Jun, Dongfang's strong attacking power still makes people feel that the two teams are not in the same league, and Gao Jun's terrifying scoring rate of more than 2 goals per game is even more embarrassing for various China League One teams.

  In addition, it must be mentioned that although Ali Han is stubborn, he is not completely unreasonable. In the last match of the Asian group stage in the World Cup qualifiers, which was already meaningless, Ali Han took into account the actual difficulties of Dongfang team and agreed to let Gao Jun and Yu Hai join the training camp a little later. As a result, the two were able to play 7 consecutive matches in the China League One, helping Dongfang team return to the top of the table, increasing their lead over the second-placed team to 3 points, and securing promotion two rounds ahead of schedule.