Chapter 61: FA Cup Final (Part 1)

  Thanks to book friend "Yu Ming Shi" for his generous reward, and continue to ask for recommendation votes ^_^

  Ali Han and Gao Jun both had rather solemn expressions, the former especially so. After all, even if Gao Jun failed this time, he still had a next chance, since he was still young. But if Ali Han failed this time, being dismissed from his post would be unavoidable...

  Because he did not cooperate with the Football Association's leadership in interfering with the national team's roster, and was unwilling to reuse those media and many fans' favorite stars, Ali Han even led the Chinese team to win the first Asian championship without precedent, his position as head coach is still very unstable. As long as there is a barely passable excuse, he will be immediately surrounded by a group of people and pushed down from the national team's head coach position. Therefore, even if it is a death group, he must advance, there is no second way to go...

  Although the players and fans of Dongfang had already taken the FA Cup championship for granted after eliminating Shandong Qilu in the semifinals, on December 18, 2004, at the Helong Stadium in Changsha (at that time, the FA Cup final was still held at a neutral venue), when the whistle blew to start the game, everyone found out that Sichuan Quanxing were not as easy to deal with as they had thought.

  Although Sichuan Crown City is not ranked high in the Chinese Super League, their actual strength is not weak. They are just being constrained by the "Shide system" and cannot fully exert themselves in the Chinese Super League matches, which also makes the players' morale low. However, in the FA Cup matches, there is no such constraint, and the players are willing to go all out for honor and prize money.

  In addition, the Eastern team is now famous, and Sichuan Crown City does not need to fight against the Super League team for face. Once they are determined to set up a big bus in front of the gate, the Eastern team's offense will inevitably encounter great obstacles. After all, Sichuan Crown City is also an old-fashioned Super League team with strong defensive intensity, which is far from comparable to the China A league team. Moreover, Feng Xiaoting, the core defender of Sichuan Crown City, is a national youth team player for most of the Eastern team's main players, and he is more familiar with their characteristics, so the defensive targeting is very strong, which further restricts the Eastern team's offense.

  What's even more fatal is that the opponent's mouse didn't come out of the hole, and the Dongfang team wanted to win the game had to take the initiative to press up and attack. In the overall situation of the Dongfang team's front pressure, the single-defense ability of the two central defenders was completely exposed. The Sichuan Crown Team's tactics of quickly passing through the midfield also weakened the effect of Korner's large-scale sweep to a certain extent. As a result, not long after the game started, the Dongfang team was scored by the Sichuan Crown Team using a quick counterattack. Fortunately, Ribery, who had made rapid progress in the past six months, used his personal breakthrough to win a penalty kick during the injury time of the first half and scored by Gao Jun, which barely tied the score.

  At halftime, the players of the Oriental team were naturally criticized by Coach Xu, and some players even cried on the spot. However, the morale that everyone had previously failed to muster up due to underestimating the opponent was finally concentrated, and the proactive counter-attack after losing the ball in the frontcourt greatly reduced the threat of Sichuan Jincheng's quick counterattack. Meanwhile, Gao Jun continued to frequently pull the sidelines at the beginning of the second half, just like in the last ten minutes of the first half, which was even more frustrating for Sichuan Jincheng...

  In this game, the Sichuan Crown team was able to completely freeze out Gao Jun because they adopted a three-man pincer movement, always following Gao Jun within a few meters. These three people almost intercepted all passes to Gao Jun, and no matter how good Gao Jun's shooting and passing were, he had to get the ball first. Being defended so tightly, he didn't have any opportunities at all...

  However, this tactic also has a huge hidden danger. If three people are always assigned to guard Hao Haidong tightly, the other attacking players of Dongfang team will undoubtedly have much more space to play. But because in this game, Sichuan Quanxing team was determined to defend and counterattack, their defense line was extremely withdrawn, often with eight or nine people shrinking within 30 meters of their own penalty area. Moreover, those three people could also take care of some peripheral defense, so the space that other attacking players of Dongfang team could get was not too large. Furthermore, the ability to grasp opportunities for other players of Dongfang team is far inferior to Hao Haidong's, even if they are given a few shooting chances, it may not be fatal, so the problem is not very big.

  But as soon as Gao Lin pulled to the side, Sichuan Crown Team fell into a dilemma. If those three people didn't follow him, Gao Lin would be free, but if they followed him to the side road, then the middle road would be completely empty, and the space was really too big. In the first half, it was because Sichuan Crown Team sent someone to follow him that a gap appeared in the middle road, allowing Ribery to dribble into the penalty area and create the equalizing penalty kick.

  So in the second half, Sichuan Crown City team can be said to have learned a lesson from their previous mistakes. If Gao Jun pulls out wide, they would only send one person to follow him and add another person to assist in defense. With Gao Jun's dribbling ability, which is not even top-notch domestically, the "1+1" configuration was enough to prevent him from cutting inside with the ball. As for crosses, it was impossible to defend against them anyway, so there was no need to try. After all, Gao Jun's crossing ability was also not particularly outstanding. Moreover, Crown City team had a numerical advantage in the penalty area, so if Gao Jun wanted to cross the ball, they would just let him do so...

  But Gao Jun did this naturally has his reason, indeed, Gao Jun started practicing transmission not long ago, the technical level is just domestic second-rate, but Gao Jun clearly knows that Sichuan Crown team's back defense mainstay Feng Xiaoting only has 1.87 meters height, the ability to control the air is very tragic, Dongfang team frontcourt has a tall and strong body with good heading ability of Ao Lin, although not fully grown up yet but also can win over Feng Xiaoting in competing for the top, there's also Ribery and Korneev who are not tall but have excellent jumping ability to insert into the attack, even if the transmission accuracy is not high enough, Gao Jun believes they can grab the opportunity to head the ball...

  "The players of the Guancheng team did not come up to intercept, and Gao Jun calmly passed the ball from the right route to the bottom, the ball went to the back point, and it was in! The ball is in! It's Aolin, he scored a header at the back point, pressing down on Feng Xiaoting who is taller than him. The score on the field became 2-1, and the second half had just passed for less than 20 minutes, when Dongfang team achieved a reversal!

  CCTV commentator Huang Jianxiang exclaimed excitedly, and then made a brief comment on the performance of both teams' players: "Under Guancheng team's unusually strict defense, Gao Jun has not had the opportunity to shoot himself, but he has shown his value through assists. Aolin's performance is also excellent, although he is only 18 years old now, he already has a strong physique close to that of European players. Feng Xiaoting is taller, but her physical strength is far inferior, and it's not possible to win the header..."