The next round of the Football Association Cup will not be until July 10, and the next round of the AFC Champions League will not be until the end of August. This period of time is a rare respite for Zhao Kangming.
Teams no longer have to play double games every week.
These days will continue until the AFC Champions League resumes its war.
But this does not mean that the team can really sit back and relax.
Even though the team is currently ranked fourth in the league, Zhao Kangming still has a Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.
He was always worried that starting from the Olympic team training, without these absolute main players, Flash Star’s performance would plummet.
Out of concern for this future, Zhao Kangming decided to score more points in the league while Hu Lai, Chen Xingyi and Wang Guangwei were still there.
If this statement spreads, many people will find it unreasonable. You are now fourth in the league!
Who is fourth in the league worried about being relegated?
The fourth place in the league should consider ensuring that they can qualify for the AFC Champions League, right?
But Zhao Kangming is really not showing off, but is really worried about relegation.
Not just for the Olympics, many of his main players will be absent from the game for about two months.
The Chinese Super League will not be suspended in the past two months, and it will miss about seven rounds of league games.
There are only thirty league rounds in the entire Chinese Super League season.
Although Flash Star is currently ranked fourth in the league, Nanjiarui Lions, who are fifth in the league, are only one point away from them. Capital Tenglong, who is sixth, is only two points behind them, and Shanhai Lanyue and Flash Star, who are seventh, are only one point away.
The difference is three points.
The next four teams from eighth to 11th place are tied with fifteen points.
There is a five-point difference between these four teams and the Flash Stars.
Judging from the points situation, although Flash Star ranks fourth, the advantage in points is not that big.
From the fourth place in the league to the eleventh place in the league, that is five points, the difference is only two goals.
In other words, if Flash Star makes a mistake in two games, the ranking may drop a lot.
Not to mention that after Hu Lai and the others joined the Olympic team, they missed about seven games.
With this mentality, in the away game against Chongshan Qianfan on the weekend, the main players of Shining Star played their best.
Zhang Qinghuan, who was absent from the Tenglong game in the capital, also appeared.
Even though it was an away game, the Flash Stars, who played with all their main players, defeated Chiho Shigeyama 2:1 and escaped with three points.
One week later, Flash Stars returned to their home court and welcomed the Huanghai Jade Birds, who were ranked last in the league. There was nothing good to say about this opponent. Flash Stars simply defeated their opponents and took all three points.
3:0, each of the front three has one ball.
Flash Star also relied on this two-game winning streak to move up one spot in the league rankings to third place.
Shanhai Mariner, who was originally ranked second, fell all the way to fourth due to three consecutive draws.
The sailor seemed to be a warning to Flashing Star, deepening Zhao Kangming's sense of crisis.
You must know that the Shanhai Mariners have been ranked first in the league this season, and they are not the kind of temporary first place in the league. They have been at the top of the league for several rounds.
As a result, it has slowly slipped from the first place.
From leading the league standings alone, to being caught up with the South China Tigers, then being at a disadvantage in terms of goal difference, and becoming second place with the same points as the South China Tigers.
Now simply go from second place to third place in the standings, and then to fourth place.
Even though the South China Tigers are currently ranked first, under fierce competition, no one knows what their final league ranking will be.
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After the game against Huanghai Jade Bird, the league was temporarily suspended and the national team match day came.
The Chinese national team will participate in the top 40 of the World Cup qualifiers.
The Olympic team has two warm-up matches.
Ding Yuanhai and Zhang Qinghuan participated in the Chinese team’s World Cup qualifying match.
Hu Lai, Wang Guangwei, and Chen Xingyi once again represented the Olympic team.
These two warm-up matches are also the last two warm-up matches before the training of the Olympic team.
After these two warm-up matches, when the league ends in June, the Olympic team will gather again for a month-long training camp.
For the first half of the training, they will train in China.
The second half will be spent flying to Europe, arriving in Spain for training in advance, adapting to the local weather and diet, and preparing for the first time the Chinese Olympic team will go abroad to participate in the Olympics.
In these two warm-up matches, the Olympic team finally achieved one win and one loss.
Different from the warm-up match in March where no player could play the entire game, the lineup of the Olympic team in these two warm-up matches was relatively fixed. Players in several key positions all played and played for a long time.
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Hulai even played the entire game.
Obviously, with the Olympic Games approaching, Shi Wuyin no longer conducts unlimited personnel combination tests, but instead tries to fix the lineup and step up the running-in of this lineup so that they can perform at their best level in the Olympic Games.
Through these two games, the outside world can also see to some extent what the main offensive lineup of the Olympic team will look like.
Center Hu Lai, Chen Xingyi on the left, Luo Kai on the right, and behind them is Guo Junfu.
This is the main offensive lineup of the Olympic team.
How good their offensive firepower is, this has been demonstrated and proven in the U23 Asian Cup.
In the entire U23 Asian Cup, the Chinese team scored the most goals among all participating teams. Of course, this was also due to Hulay’s five goals in nine minutes against the Qatar Olympic team. In that game, the Chinese team scored seven
This is more goals than many teams scored in the entire U23 Asian Cup.
In the two warm-up games in June, this main offensive combination played together for a very long time, and Shi Wuyin did not make substitutions easily.
With the ability of the Chinese Olympic team, it is meaningless to talk about the thickness of the bench. It would be good to ensure that the main lineup has combat effectiveness. After all, given the overall strength of Chinese football, they cannot produce so many young players with sufficient ability at one time.
Compared with the thickness of the bench, Shi Wuyin paid more attention to the performance of the main players in these two games.
What gratifies him is that the Olympic team's offensive firepower is pretty good.
Facing the Italian Olympic team and the Cameroon Olympic team, he scored two goals and three goals respectively.
Hulai scored one goal in each of these two games, and the remaining goals were taken by three different players. He scored goals from both the left and right attacks, and there was no limping phenomenon.
After playing the Olympic team game, Hu Lai and his teammates returned to Flashing Star.
However, they can't stay in Flash Star for long. In half a month, they will go to the Olympic team again, and this time they will be away for a longer time.
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Zhao Kangming certainly hopes to gain more points while Hu Lai, Chen Xingyi and Wang Guangwei are still in the team.
But things went counterproductive.
In the fourteenth round, Flashing Star was tied by the tenacious Shangdu Shenwei on their home court.
They took the lead twice in the game and were equalized twice.
After being equalized for the second time, the players were generally impatient, played poorly, and ultimately failed to win. In the locker room after the game, Zhao Kangming rarely lost his temper and made very strict remarks on the players' performance.
criticism.
But this did not help the team win the next game, because next they have to challenge the league leader Lingnan South China Tigers in the league.
The South China Tigers, who lost the Super Cup, are holding back their energy to take revenge in this game.
They finally defeated the Flash Stars 4:1, which finally let out all the bad breath they had been holding in since the Super Bowl.
It was Lin Zhiyuan who guarded the goal for the South China Tigers in this game.
Although the team won the game, his mood did not improve.
Because he still conceded a goal in the game, and the goal he conceded was scored by Hulay.
So in the personal duel with Hu Lai, he still lost...
Winning was originally a happy thing, but now that Hu Lai scored a goal, Lin Zhiyuan felt as if he had eaten a fly and was not happy at all.
Of course, Hu Lai was not happy just because he scored Lin Zhiyuan's goal.
After two consecutive games without a win, Flash Star's league ranking dropped from third to fifth, and they are about to slip towards the relegation zone!
Fortunately, in the next sixteenth round of the league, Flash Star finally broke out and defeated Yunyang Phoenix 3:2 away from home.
With the victory in this game and the draw with Tenglong, Flash Star moved up one spot in the league rankings to fourth place with 30 points.
Before Hu Lai and the others left the team, they managed to stop the decline and prevent the collapse from coming early...
However, in the eyes of outsiders, their feelings are obviously completely different from Zhao Kangming's.
At the post-match press conference after defeating Yunyang Phoenix 3:2, reporters asked Zhao Kangming: "The second half of the league has already begun. Flash Star is currently ranked fourth with as many as 30 points. Is there such a thing?
It is said that if you want to avoid relegation in the Chinese Super League, your points must not be less than 30 points. And Flash Star happens to have 30 points now. I would like to ask Director Zhao, do you think the team has completed the task of avoiding relegation ahead of schedule?"
The atmosphere of the post-match press conference was generally very relaxed, and the reporter who asked the question also asked the question with a smile.
Unexpectedly, Zhao Kangming changed his face when he heard this question, and said seriously: "I don't know if thirty points can help us successfully avoid relegation. I only know that in the next two months, we will be short of major generals."
situation. I don’t know what will happen then, so 30 points is not safe for us at the moment.”
After hearing what Zhao Kangming said, a group of reporters looked at each other, and many of them still had the relaxed smiles on their faces.
What does Zhao Kangming mean?
Sixteen rounds of the league have been played, and the Huanghai Jade Birds, who are the last to register, currently only have eight points, not even double digits.
And the Nanhai team, ranked second from the bottom, currently only has 13 points. It is 17 points behind the Flash Stars.
Does such a huge point difference still not guarantee that Flash Star will successfully avoid relegation this season?
What's going on? You Flash Stars plan to lose seven games in a row?
Chao Kangming’s words really deserve a beating...
Your fourth-ranked team can’t be said to have successfully avoided relegation, so how can the Nanhai team, ranked second to last, be embarrassed?
People who don’t know may think you are mocking the Nanhai Team.
Some people thought Zhao Kangming was joking, but looking at his expression, there was no hint of any joking in it.
After a group of reporters looked at each other, they all lowered their heads.
Okay, let’s write it truthfully.
“…The head coach of Flash Stars, who is fourth in the league, Zhao Kangming said that the team has not yet succeeded in relegation…”