Chapter Sixty: Asia's Best Newcomer

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  But because of this, the two men's physical strength was not fully recovered before the last group match between the national football team and Hong Kong on November 17, and they missed the opportunity to start. However, Gao Jun, who came off the bench in the second half, still easily scored two goals alone, allowing Hao Haidong, whose state had been declining for three months, to retire from the national team with peace of mind. Another veteran, Li Ming, also retired from the national team at the same time.

  Due to the Eastern team being idle in the second-to-last round of the 2004 China League One (as there were an odd number of teams that year, one team was always idle each round), Gao Lin was again named Asian Young Footballer of the Year by the AFC. By the time he returned to the team after attending the awards ceremony, the final round of the China League One had already kicked off, so Gao Lin did not play in this match either. Fortunately, the Eastern team still managed to win the 2004 China League One title with a one-point advantage, leaving no regrets.

  Although Gao Jun missed nearly half of the games, he still incredibly scored 34 goals in this year's China League One, with an average of more than 2 goals per game. Not only is there no precedent for this, but it can also be said that there will be no one to follow in the future. After all, under normal circumstances, it is difficult for a top scorer from a mid-table team in the five major leagues, who relies solely on scoring goals for a living, to play in China League One and even be overlooked for a period of time...

  Apart from the incredible 34 goals, Gao Jun also completed 9 direct assists and had even more threatening passes. If there was a Golden Ball award in China League One, he would be equally deserving of it. Of course, if you compare the honours of China League One to those at an Asian level, they are really insignificant. Especially when Gao Jun won the Best Young Player in Asia award at just 16 years old, breaking the record for the youngest winner of this award, which is truly astonishing.

  Actually, even with such an honor, many Chinese fans still feel sorry for Gao Lin. They generally believe that with Gao Lin's god-level performance in the Asian Cup, he is more qualified to be the 2004 Asian Footballer of the Year than Iran's Karimi. However, the AFC believes that Gao Lin is too young and it is not good for his future development to receive such a high honor too early. Moreover, he did not win enough honors in club matches, so they decided to award him only the Best Newcomer Award. Anyway, Gao Lin is still very young and has plenty of opportunities to win the Asian Footballer of the Year award in the future...

  To appease the Chinese Football Association, the AFC awarded the 2004 Best National Team award to the Chinese national team. However, the Best Coach award was given to Adnan, who led the Iraqi Olympic team to win the bronze medal at the Olympics. The Chinese national team coach Arie Haan narrowly missed it.

  However, Chinese football is still the biggest winner in the AFC awards ceremony. In addition to the Best Newcomer and Best National Team, they also won the Best Women's Team (Chinese U19 women's youth team) award.

  It's also worth mentioning that China's "Golden Whistle" Lu Jun originally won an award, but was involved in a scandal just before the awards ceremony and was subsequently stripped of his honor, causing great embarrassment to the Chinese Football Association.

  Actually, the China League One championship is not a very prestigious club honor, but the FA Cup championship, which has almost become a certainty for Dongfang, can still be taken out to show off. Although it's not as heavy as the AFC Champions League or even just the Super League championship, on the basis of Gao Lin's stunning performance in the national team, adding this honor would have been enough to put him on the throne of Asian Footballer of the Year. Unfortunately, the FA Cup final was played after the AFC Awards ceremony, so Gao Lin can only wait another year...

  Apart from presenting these awards, the AFC Congress also had another major event, which was the draw for the 2005 World Cup Asian Qualifying Round of 8. Since it was already determined that the top 8 teams would be seeded based on their previous World Cup performance, South Korea and Japan were placed in the first pot, while China, who did not exit early like they had historically, was grouped with Saudi Arabia in the second pot. Iran was relegated to the third pot along with Uzbekistan, while Bahrain and North Korea made up the fourth pot.

  This way, the Iranian team became the biggest troublemaker. Whichever group it was assigned to would become the "group of death". Chinese Football Association officials who knew about China's fear of Iran were secretly worried and thought: hopefully we won't be in the same group as Iran. But what they feared most came true - China was drawn into Group B, along with Japan, Iran, and North Korea...

  According to the quarterfinals rules, the top two teams in each group advance directly, while the third-place team must play an additional match against the third-place team from another group for a spot in the playoffs. The winner of that match then plays the fourth-place team from the North and Central America and Caribbean zone for a spot in the World Cup finals.

  With the strength of the Chinese team, if they finish third and have to play in the playoffs, the possibility of advancing through two rounds is extremely low. If they want to compete for a top-two spot and directly advance, they would need to squeeze out Japan or Iran, which is also extremely difficult. After all, there will be no home-field advantage or referee favors in the quarterfinals, and key matches may even be "blackened". The history of Chinese football already has too many dark memories like this.

  It's also an inevitable thing, since Xie Feng's death, the influence of Chinese football in AFC has been greatly reduced, and the poor performance of the national team has made Chinese football lack status in Asian football, being black is also an inevitable thing, after all, even in the World Cup final stage matches, referees will still be biased towards strong teams.

  After a brief disappointment, Yan Shiduo, the vice chairman of the Chinese Football Association (note 1), suddenly felt relieved because he realized that being in the "group of death" also had its advantages. Since it's called the "group of death", with China's strength, not advancing to the next round is normal, so even if they fail to make an impact on their World Cup journey again, he won't have to bear too much responsibility.

  Since the hope of making it to the quarterfinals is not great, he can shift his focus to the Olympics, which top leaders care more about. With players like Gao Lin, known as the "Diamond Generation" in the media, and playing at home in Beijing, the possibility of achieving good results should still be quite high, at least easier than making it to the quarterfinals with the national football team.

  Note 1: He is also the director and party secretary of the Football Management Center, which is actually in charge of Chinese football. At that time, the chairman of the Football Association, Yuan Weimin, was basically just a figurehead. Therefore, at that time, Yan Shiduo, although not the chairman of the Football Association, had much more power than the chairman of the Chinese Football Association after 2010.