On the morning of the second day of the national competition, Mao Xiao met Meng Xi in the room of captain Yan Yan.
The first time he saw Meng Xi, he asked in surprise: "Meng Xi, what's wrong with you? Why do you feel so depressed..."
Meng Xi yawned and said with a sad face: "Hey, don't mention it, that boy Hu Lai lied to me and said he didn't snore. But he snored louder than me! I was stunned by his snoring.
I woke up, and then I didn’t fall asleep for half the night... I finally fell asleep, but then I heard a thunder on the ground! This kid was snoring!"
Meng Xi pointed at Hu Lai beside him and said helplessly.
"Ah? Is there any?" Hu Lai asked in confusion, "Why don't I know?"
"Nonsense! How can you hear it when you are snoring!" Meng Xi roared angrily. "Just like that, he woke me up, but he stopped snoring. Just when I finally fell asleep again,
This kid hit me again! If I hadn’t gotten up to confirm in person, I would have suspected that this guy was pretending to be asleep and deliberately trying to hurt me!”
"Meng Xi, look at what you said, how could I be so insidious?" Hu Lai spread his hands.
"If you are not sinister, who is?" Meng Xi asked back.
Seeing his good friend in such miserable condition, Mao Xiao sighed and patted him on the shoulder: "I will go back to the room in a while and give you my soundproof earplugs to use. It was originally to prevent you, but it turned out that Xiaoyu didn't snore while sleeping.
Use it."
When Hu Lai heard this, he whistled nearby, while Meng Xi wanted to strangle him to death.
At this moment, other teammates arrived one after another, and Captain Yan's room was soon filled to the brim.
The same thing happened in another room opposite. The doors of the two rooms were open, making it convenient for everyone to visit and communicate with each other.
Some of the team members were sitting on the edge of the bed, some were sitting cross-legged on the carpet, and some were standing next to them, but more people were standing on the bed together, and even the bedside table was occupied by people, holding lamps - because
There's no place to put it.
Everyone stared at the TVs that had been turned on to watch the draw ceremony of the seventh national competition that was about to begin.
Due to its outstanding performance in the last national competition, Dongchuan Middle School's final ranking in the last national competition was very high.
They finally got a good result of sixth place.
However, this ranking has little impact on the results of this draw.
There are no seeded teams in the national competition, and there is no rule that the seeded teams cannot meet. Everything is completely random, and whoever is drawn will be the one.
If you are unlucky and draw the defending champion in the first round, you might really miss out in the first round of the national competition.
Of course, there may also be a situation like Shuguang High School, where a young student defeats the defending champion and becomes famous.
It is precisely for this reason that national competitions have their own charm, which is all kinds of surprises.
For this kind of lottery arrangement that relies entirely on luck, even if it is better than the defending champion, it is hard to say that it will be safe in the first round - what if the champion and runner-up of the previous competition were drawn together in the first round?
Therefore, finishing sixth in the last competition may not guarantee that this competition will not miss the first round.
If the results of the lottery are not announced for a moment, everyone will not be able to rest assured.
The best lottery result is naturally to draw a team with average strength, such as Xizi Middle School.
In this way, Dongchuan Middle School can at least guarantee promotion to the top 16.
By the time we reach the top 16, everyone no longer takes chances. No matter who they meet, they can only fight head-on, hoping that the possibility of encountering someone who has slipped through the net is very small.
As long as it wins the quarter-finals, then Dongchuan Middle School will equal the results of the last national competition and complete the task. If we put down the burden at this time, maybe we can go one step further?
However, the dreams of Dongchuan Middle School players were quickly shattered.
Because their opponent in the first round was Renmin Middle School from the capital, fourth and semi-finals last year!
※※※
"Oh, the lottery results of the national competition are out?" Chu Yifan's roommates saw that Chu Yifan was watching the live broadcast in front of the computer, and couldn't help but come over to pay attention.
"It didn't come out completely, only part of it came out." Chu Yifan stared at the laptop screen intently.
Just then a name that was very familiar to him appeared on the screen:
Dongchuan Middle School.
Chu Yifan's eyes suddenly widened.
I saw on the big screen on the computer screen, the four characters Dongchuan Middle School flashed out, then shrunk, flew into the matchup chart, and finally landed under another name, forming the first round matchup.
Dongchuan Middle School’s opponent in the first round is...Capital People’s Middle School!
"Ah, fourth in last year's class..." My roommate was stunned for a moment when he saw this result, then shook his head and sighed.
"Da Chu, it's going to be difficult for you Dongchuan Middle School now."
Chu Yifan turned back to look at them and asked in confusion: "Why?"
"Why else? Don't you know why?" The roommates pointed at the screen and said, "That was the fourth one last year!"
"But we were sixth last time." Chu Yifan said.
"Da Chu, I'm not attacking you. Don't you know how you got to be sixth in the last term? It depends on you and Luo Kai. Where is the current Dongchuan Middle School? Without you, there is no Luo Kai.
Is it the sixth level?”
"Yes, Dachu. Lao Wang is right. In fact, the ranking of the previous term can't really explain anything, because once the core players of the team leave, there are many examples of the team's serious decline in strength... But Renmin Middle School is different.
, they were fourth last time, and fifth last time. In the past six national competitions, they have achieved three semi-finals and two top eight results, which shows that their results are not a fluke... This is a national team.
A traditional strong team in the competition!”
The roommates said one after another.
Chu Yifan patiently listened to their words, but he was not angry. Instead, he smiled and said: "But football is round."
When the roommates saw that Chu Yifan was so stubborn, they all screamed and dispersed, ignoring him.
Chu Yifan said to them with a smile: "I will take you to watch my juniors' games then!"
Then he turned his attention to the computer screen again. The live lottery was still going on, but he had already begun to lose focus...
※※※
Capital People's Middle School vs Dongchuan Middle School of Andong Province.
The Dongchuan Middle School players in front of the TV looked at each other and were speechless about this result.
After a while, Meng Xi turned to look at Yan Yan: "Captain Yan, our coach's luck is so... evil! In the Anton Cup draw, the last four semi-finalists were drawn in the first round. In the first round draw of this national competition,
We also got one of the last four semi-finals... Is our coach conflicting with the number 'four'?"
"What nonsense!" Yan Yan, as the captain, naturally has to maintain the authority of the head coach in front of all the players. "What does this have to do with the coach's luck? He didn't draw it out?"
Meng Xi wanted to say something else, but Hu Lai laughed first: "Meng Xi, you said the opposite, right? What do you mean by 'we and the four offenders'? I think it is obviously the 'four' who are against us."
"Where did I say something contrary? Isn't it wrong? We will play the semi-finals in the first round, and the Anton Cup will be played against the Provincial Experimental Middle School..." Meng Xi wanted to refute Hu Lai angrily, but stopped before he finished speaking.
He paused because he realized that he had just overlooked a problem.
Seeing him like this, Hu Lai laughed: "Look, am I right?"
Mao Xiao also reacted, stroking his hands and smiling: "Hu Lai is right, it's the 'Four' who clashed with us. The Provincial Experimental Middle School, the top four in the last Anton Cup, was eliminated by us in the first round, so even if
What if we meet the last top four Renmin Middle School in the first round? It doesn’t mean we won’t win.”
Hu Lai also added: "And, who did we win in the second round of the last national competition? Huitang Middle School, at that time they were also ranked fourth in the previous competition!"
"Oh, what you said is really..." Meng Xi took a breath. "So we still have the tradition of beating the fourth child?"
"So what's there to worry about? The semi-finals? I'm playing against the semi-finals!" Hu Lai shouted.
When he shouted like this, everyone cheered up.
"Just do it!"
"Awesome!!"
There were strange noises in the two rooms.
※※※
Sun Yiming sat in his seat, leaning back slightly against the back of the chair, looking up at the big screen in front of him.
On the big screen is the matchup chart for this national competition. There are animated special effects on the matchup chart, and the names of all participating teams are flashing rapidly.
When the lottery guest shouts "stop", the flashing school name freezes, and the frozen name is the drawn team.
However, Sun Yiming was not attracted by the newly drawn names. His eyes glanced to the edge of the screen, where the results of the top half were displayed.
Under the name of the Renmin Middle School football team he coaches, he stares closely at the name "Dongchuan Middle School".
At the same time, sitting in another seat in the venue, Li Ziqiang also looked at that area, but his eyes fell on the words "People's Middle School".