After Hu Lai trained under the scorching sun for a month, the 18th Asian Cup in South Korea opened.
Twenty-four teams determined through the qualifiers gathered in South Korea, and they will decide the final champion in eight stadiums in six cities in the country in nearly a month.
The Chinese team went through some changes after last year's World Cup qualifiers. Many senior players retired and some Mesozoic and young players were added.
In this Asian Cup, the average age of the Chinese team is 27 years old. They are neither the oldest nor the youngest among the 24 participating teams.
Before the game, Marcel Wilson, the head coach of the Chinese team, said in an interview that the mission of the Chinese team in this Asian Cup is to reach the semi-finals. In the last Asian Cup, the Chinese team finally reached the semi-finals, but
Many players from that Chinese team at that time are no longer in this national team. The two teams have different personnel configurations and different levels of experience, so there is no way to make a simple comparison.
The top eight can be considered a very pragmatic goal.
The Chinese team successfully entered the top 16, and then met the host South Korea team in the quarter-finals.
The game was scheduled at the Seoul World Cup Stadium.
For a while, online marketing accounts began to circulate a theory that the Koreans did this deliberately to avenge their 0:3 loss to the Chinese team in the East Asian Cup at the beginning of the year.
Many Chinese fans followed suit and scolded the Korean stickman for being petty.
But this time they really wronged the Koreans.
The schedule and competition venues have been determined long ago, and we don’t have to wait for the top 16 to be announced before temporarily arranging the competition venues, so how do we prepare for the competition?
The South Korean team is the host country, and their home stadium must be the Seoul World Cup Stadium where the opening ceremony of the World Cup was held.
In the end, who said that the Chinese team only finished second in the group, so they could only go to the Seoul World Cup Stadium to face the South Korean team?
This is not a deliberate arrangement by the Koreans, but an arrangement of fate.
Three months ago, the Korean Olympic Team, known as the "Korean National Team", was defeated 0:3 by the Chinese Olympic Team, known as the "Chinese National Team" here.
Three months later, fate arranged for the real Korean national team to take revenge on the real Chinese national team here.
Before the game, some Korean media clamored, "Let them see the real Korean national team!"
For this reason, the South Korean team, despite its already superior strength, also put together its strongest lineup and deployed all overseas players, including their number one star, main forward Park Soon-tae. This player is a traditional strong player in La Liga.
The shooter who plays for Villa Navigator is currently one of the top stars in Asia.
At the World Cup in Qatar that ended at the end of last year, he scored two goals for the South Korean team. Although he failed to help the South Korean team reach the knockout round, he was already the top scorer in the South Korean team.
Now 28 years old, he is in his prime. He has participated in three World Cups, and was the main player in two of them. He scored a total of four goals in the World Cup. He is the second scorer in the World Cup finals in the history of Korean football.
Many players. Now all South Korea has high hopes for him, hoping that he can lead the South Korean team in the World Cup to reproduce the glorious results of the 2002 World Cup.
But to be honest, after Hu Lai learned about such a number one figure, he felt that unless the South Korean team hosted another World Cup, it would be almost impossible for Park Soon-tae to lead the South Korean team to repeat the Korean team's World Cup semi-finals that year... After all,
That achievement is not achieved solely by performance in the arena.
Of course, it may be difficult for Park Soon-tae to lead the South Korean team to repeat the semi-finals of the 2002 World Cup, but they are still one of the top teams in Asian football.
In the three games of the group stage, Park Suntae scored three goals and currently leads the Asian Cup scorer list.
For this Asian Cup being held locally, the South Korean team has one and only one goal, which is to win the Asian Cup again after 12 years.
If they win the championship, all players in the team will be exempted from military service. Of course, Park Soon-tae will not be exempted from military service, because he has already been exempted from military service by winning the Asian Games championship.
Compared with the star-studded South Korean team, the Chinese team's lineup is much shabby. Not only does it not have any overseas players, but after Qin Lin retired from the national team, it also lacks a big brother who can support the scene.
After the World Cup qualifiers and the retirement of a group of veterans, the current national team is mainly composed of very young players from the Mesozoic generation. There is no big boss like Qin Lin who can convince everyone with his words. This makes them difficult to face.
When the Korean team has a player like Park Soon-tae leading the way, it seems a little weak and not very confident.
After all, in the past, the Korean team brought up Park Soon-tae, and the Chinese team also had players like Qin Lin who won the Asian Footballer of the Year come out to face off.
And now...even the Chinese football media are particularly ashamed of their reporting angle: "The 'Light of Asia' Park Soon-tae is worth more than the entire national football team combined"...
Before the game even started, morale was gone.
"Our media is also weird enough." Hu Lai complained to Wang Guangwei after seeing the news. "How can anyone use this method to increase others' prestige and destroy their own ambitions before a game? It is simply collaborating with the enemy and treason!"
The two of them watched this game in the restaurant of the training base.
In addition to them, there are all the players of the youth team, and Xia Xiaoyu is among them. This is a special request from the youth training director Shi Jisheng, who asked everyone to stay in the restaurant after dinner in the evening and wait to watch the live broadcast of the game.
With Hu Lai and Wang Guangwei as the core, everyone sat around behind them and watched the China-South Korea war through the projection in the restaurant.
"I just habitually complain about the national football team. It may not be as serious as you said..." Wang Guangwei shook his head.
"Gao Chen is on the bench..." When the TV broadcast swept across the Chinese team's bench, Xia Xiaoyu recognized one of them.
Hu Lai was stunned for a moment before he remembered the story behind the name.
He was injured by a Korean on this court. After he was shoveled by Sun Haomin, domestic public opinion repeatedly mentioned this matter.
And what was the name of the person who injured Gao Chen in the first place... a prostitute?
While Hu Lai was searching for this name in his mind, Wang Guangwei next to him said: "Park Chengxing started this game..."
There was a commotion among the youth team players: "He still has the nerve to start!"
"Maybe Bangzi did it on purpose? He deliberately came to disgust us and at the same time affect Gao Chen's state..."
"So Wilson didn't let Gao Chen start..."
"It's useless to start the game. Gao Chen has long been tortured by that serious injury and is no longer what he used to be. Alas, he was originally a forward with great promise, but in the end..."
After hearing everyone's indignant discussion, Wang Guangwei said to Hu Lai next to him: "It seems now, Hu Lai, you were really lucky back then. If Sun Haomin really hurt you, then all your performances after this season will be ruined."
Already."
Hu Lai nodded: "Yeah, I'm so lucky..."
He sincerely thanked Xianyu System in his heart.
After using it, the [Broken Bear Leg Guard] also entered the official mall. Hu Lai went in to check it out later and found that this leg guard can be purchased again for 30,000 points. And the [Lover’s Red Rope] only costs 10,000 points.
] In comparison, 30,000 points are not cheap. But compared with my future career, 30,000 points are definitely not expensive.
Hu Lai even felt that as long as he had enough points, he should buy one and keep it to be prepared.
So after he received the reward from the East Asia Cup mission, he found that the points system alone awarded him as much as 100,000 points. He immediately used 30,000 points to buy a [Broken Bear Leg Guard] and put it in the warehouse for ready use.
.
Then he would go into the system space from time to time and take a look. As long as he saw the leg guards with the giant bear pattern placed neatly in the system space, he would feel as safe as if he saw an eight-digit balance in his bank account.
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Back to the game itself, the Chinese team is lagging behind the Korean team in terms of overall strength. In addition, this is the Korean team’s home court, so everyone knows how to operate and it is normal.
So even though the players of the Chinese team are working very hard, this fighting spirit is still unable to shorten the gap between them and South Korean football strength.
In the end, the Chinese team lost to their opponents 0:2 amidst the deafening cheers and boos of South Korean fans. They were eliminated in the first round of the knockout rounds, ending their journey to this Asian Cup.
After the game, the depressed Chinese players sat on the court and looked at the cheering and celebrating Korean players with disappointed eyes.
CCTV commentator He Feng is saying: "...Chinese football has owed too much debt in the past. Although we have begun to reform and catch up, the debt we owed in the early stage was so huge that it has taken only a few years to catch up.
It’s not enough for us to catch up with opponents like Japan and South Korea... But after the failure, please let us have a glimmer of hope for the future... Think about the East Asian Cup in March, how our boys from the Olympic team performed
Those young people who defeated the Korean Olympic team on this field... they are the future of Chinese football. Their victory made me believe that Chinese football should be on the right path this time..."
Listening to the commentator's voice, the Star Youth Team players in the restaurant all turned their attention to Hu Lai and Wang Guangwei, of course, mainly to Hu Lai. Because the protagonist of the 3:0 victory was right in front of them!
While everyone was looking at Hu Lai, Xia Xiaoyu puffed up his chest and sat up straight, feeling proud of Captain Hu.
The club's youth training director Shi Jisheng stood up and clapped his hands: "Okay, okay, if you lose, you lose, there is nothing to say... What should I do if my skills are not as good as others? Practice! Go back and rest now, and train normally tomorrow morning!"
Everyone then left the restaurant one after another. As they walked towards the youth team dormitory, they couldn't help but start talking.
"...If Hu Lai were here, maybe the result would be different?"
"Hey, the gap between our national team and the South Korean team can't be made up by just one fool? It's an all-round backwardness..."
Someone turned their attention to Xia Xiaoyu: "Xiaoyu, aren't you the most familiar with Hu Lai? What do you think?"
"Ah? Me? I don't know..." Xia Xiaoyu said, "And there is no point in discussing this topic. Let's just train hard. The national team is too far away."
"Xiaoyu is right, it will be good if we can do our own thing well."
"That's right, you guys are too impatient! Didn't the commentator say it all? We owe too many debts, and we have to pay them back little by little, not so fast...right, Xiaoyu?"
"Yes." Xia Xiaoyu nodded, but clenched his fists where others did not see.