Chapter Seventy: Asian Maradona
New book on the rise, still seeking recommendation votes, member clicks and collections ^_^
Due to the previous strong offense, when China's big foot broke through, Iran's team, except for the goalkeeper, almost all of them were pressed over their own midfield arc top line, leaving a large open space behind. This allowed Yu Hai to gain enough sprinting space, and since Iran's players needed some time to turn around and defend, it only took a few seconds for Yu Hai to leave all Iranian players except the goalkeeper behind him. However, at this moment, Yu Hai saw that Gao Lin, who was also making a forward run in the middle, was actually more than 5 meters ahead of him...
In terms of absolute speed, Gao Jun is still slightly inferior to Yu Hai. Although he has stronger explosive power and is doing a no-ball sprint, it's impossible for him to be that much faster than Yu Hai. The reason he was able to overtake by such a large distance in such a short time can only be one thing: Gao Jun's forward thrust is even earlier than Yu Hai's.
The result of doing so led to Gao Lin falling into the offside trap early, but what's the big deal? Gao Lin believed that Yu Hai would definitely be able to get past Iran's entire backline, at which point there would only be one opponent in front of them - the Iranian goalkeeper - and the offside issue would naturally cease to exist...
Yu Hai did not disappoint Gao Lin's expectations, and as soon as he saw Gao Lin's red figure, he immediately sent the ball out along the grass, due to the tacit understanding formed between the two over the years. This pass had enough advance, making it very comfortable for Gao Lin to receive. However, what happened next was beyond everyone's expectations: Gao Lin's reception seemed to have stopped suddenly, and the Iranian goalkeeper was overjoyed, abandoning his hesitation and rushing out of the goal. But after a few steps, his face suddenly changed, because Gao Lin's speed was too fast, seemingly having a better chance of touching the ball first...
If the Iranian goalkeeper had continued to attack decisively after realizing his mistake, he might have caused some trouble for Gao Lin, but his hesitation allowed Gao Lin to receive the ball with enough time to dribble horizontally and create an angle before easily scoring into the empty net, thus tying the score 2-4!
"When the team is in such a difficult situation, Gao Jun can stand up and turn the tide, this is the performance that the core should have! ", Huang Jianxiang also felt surprised at Gao Jun's sprint speed just now, "Gao Jun's sprint speed just now feels like it's not inferior to Hao Dong's peak period, and during the Asian Cup, his starting speed compared to 34-year-old Hao Dong didn't show a particularly obvious advantage. In just half a year, there has been such a huge improvement, it's really unbelievable."
"I've noticed this for a long time, Tao Wei thinks it's nothing to be surprised about. 'This is normal, Gao Jun is at the age where he develops the fastest during puberty. I remember when we signed up for the Asian Cup, his height was less than 1.7 meters, and now he looks like he's almost 1.75 meters tall! His legs have grown longer, so naturally, he's faster. And it's not just his height that has improved, all of his physical abilities have been enhanced overall. Plus, his technical progress is also significant. Have you noticed how smooth and simple his dribbling movements are? It may not be flashy or good-looking, but this way of dribbling allows him to best utilize his super-fast starting ability. At such a young age, he already has great ball sense, his future prospects are truly limitless...'"
Although the Iranian team launched a stormy attack after losing the ball, they were unable to expand their lead again as the first half of the game was about to end. Seeing the hope of equalizing, Ali Han also decisively replaced Li Yi with Wei Xin at halftime. In the second half, Wei Xin took over Xu Yunlong's position as right-back, while Xu Yunlong took over Li Yi's position as center-forward. However, when the Iranian team attacked, he had to retreat to his own half of the field, even to the penalty area, to participate in defense. This was not a difficult task for Xu Yunlong, who was a top-notch player in both forward and defender positions domestically. However, Li Yi, who was substituted out, was furious, and Gao Jun's relationship with most of the old national team players began to deteriorate rapidly. But Gao Jun, who had been prepared for this, didn't take it to heart because he already had a plan to resolve this hidden danger...
After the second half of the game, due to personnel adjustments, China's defense has improved significantly compared to the second half of the first half. However, Ivankovic realized that the Chinese team was more difficult to deal with than he had expected, so he actively let the Iranian team's formation retreat, on the one hand limiting China's quick counterattack, and on the other hand luring China's formation to press forward, in order to play out the speed advantage of core players Karimi and Mousavi.
This move quickly produced results, and Karimi, who was relatively quiet in the first half, finally showed off his incredible speed that could run 100 meters in 11 seconds and world-class dribbling skills after the start of the second half. When he first debuted at the age of 19, Karimi could easily break through the double-team defense of Fan Zhiyi and Li Weifeng, who were already top-notch central defenders in Asia at that time. Now, at the age of 27, his ball skills have been honed to perfection, and once he gets serious and fully commits himself, getting past China's defenders is as easy as eating a meal...
"Iran's team intercepted the ball, and Madavikia accurately made a long pass to Karimi, who had shaken off his defender. Karimi easily kicked the ball away from Li Tie, this was too easy... Li Da Tou rushed up, ah! Karimi used an acrobatic move to shake him off, ah! Li Da Tou flew in with a tackle from behind! But Karimi's speed was too fast, Li Da Tou's tackle couldn't even reach...". In Huang Jianxiang's series of exclamations, Karimi incredibly dribbled past four Chinese players in a row, sending the ball into an empty goal. The score on the field was once again widened, and the Chinese team, which had just seen a glimmer of hope, was once again plunged into despair...
Ali Karimi's fame in China may not be as high as Ali Daei and Madavi Kia, but his strength is only above the two. Otherwise, he would not have been called "Maradona of Asia" by Iranians. In fact, many fans, even professionals, generally believe that if only personal attacking ability is considered, Karimi is not only the best in Asian football history, but also can be ranked among the top ten in the world at that time...
In the history of Asian football, there is no second player who can easily get past world-class defenders one-on-one like Karimi (in warm-up matches, even players like Ballack and Lahm at their peak couldn't stop him, and in Champions League matches he once made Inter Milan look helpless with his sharp breakthroughs). Like Robben or Ribery, top-notch breakaway experts can only be restricted by a team's overall defense through multi-player coordination. If it weren't for playing in the low-level, slow-paced UAE league for an extended period, where the pay was unusually high, Karimi would not have developed four fatal weaknesses: poor off-the-ball movement (the UAE league has little competition, and with Karimi's physical quality and technical level, he could receive passes while standing still, making off-the-ball positioning unimportant), arrogant personality (playing alone in the league made him prone to being self-important), lack of stamina (he was unbeatable even when walking on the field, so naturally his endurance training didn't improve), poor shooting (of course, this is measured by world-class standards; within Asia it's not too bad, or else he wouldn't have scored that many goals), and a lack of motivation to improve (playing in West Asia already earned him a lot of money, so he had no drive to play in Europe until Bayern invited him at the age of 27, but by then it was too late). These four weaknesses ultimately meant he didn't even reach the achievements of Hidetoshi Nakata, wasting his exceptional football talent...
PS: The league of oil-rich West Asian countries is indeed ruining people without getting tired. I don't know how many talented football stars from relatively poor Asian Muslim countries like Iraq and Central Asia have been ruined here, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing for the national team ^_^
