Chapter 494 The focus of the international competition month

Author: Ant who watches football ruthlessly

After the fifth round of English League One, we entered the first international match month of the new season.

Just ask whether the Premier League and Championship teams will take a two-week break at that time, but it will have no impact on the League One teams.

After all, teams in lower-level leagues generally rarely have national players from various countries.

Of course, York City doesn’t have it.

York City's Westmann is a former German international, Karlström and Isaksson have also officially withdrawn from the national team after the European Cup. Now the only player in the team who can truly be called a national player is Kulusevski.

one person.

He was also recruited by the new Swedish national team coach Jan Andersen to participate in the European Group A of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

The 53-year-old coach led Norrköping to win the Swedish Super League championship that season, and therefore also gained the favor of the Swedish Football Association. He took over as coach after Pan Yi resigned.

Of course, taking over as the new European Cup champion Jan Andersen will be very challenging. After all, Pan Yi has indeed brought Sweden to a historical high point.

For Jan Anderson, the safest plan now is to maintain the main goal framework of winning the European Cup and add some new players.

Young people like Kulusevski and Isaac who were promoted by Pan Yi and performed well in the European Cup will naturally not be the illusions he relies on and will definitely seek to enter the national team.

In the first round, they had to face the powerful Dutch team! In the same group, there is also the powerful French team, so Sweden needs to go all out in every game if it wants to break out of the group.

For York City, the impact of Kulusevski's absence is not great.

On the one hand, Gary Fletcher, Joe Partington and others, who are the main players in League Two this season, can also take up their positions. On the other hand, York City does not want to play in the league at the beginning of the international competition month, but in the league.

No English League Championship.

This competition is actually a cup competition, but it is not as familiar as the FA Cup and League Cup, because there are no top league teams participating in this competition.

The English League Championship is referred to as the English Championship. There are 64 participating teams, including all 48 teams in League One and League Two, as well as the 16 best-performing youth teams of Premier League or Championship clubs (new rules added this season).

The competition is divided into two divisions, North and South, with 32 teams participating in each division. The teams in the two divisions are divided into 8 groups, with 4 teams in each group, and the top 2 teams in the group advance to the top 16.

The group stage adopts a single round-robin system. A tie will directly enter the penalty shootout. A winning penalty kick will be worth 2 points, and a penalty kick failure will be worth 1 point.

After entering the top 16, each team will compete in a single knockout round, with the winner advancing to the Eastern Round until the Southern and Northern division champions are determined.

The champions of the North and South divisions will decide the final championship in a single-game tie-breaker at a neutral venue (Wembley Stadium).

The fact is that in England, such low-level competitions are more than just the British Championship.

Between the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the English Championship, there is the English FA Challenge Cup (or FA Championship), which is participated by teams from the 5th to 8th tiers in England.

To the east of the English FA Challenge Cup, there is still a competition called the FA Vase, and the only clubs that can participate in the competition are the 9th to 10th level clubs.

Of course, being called an FA bottle does not mean that the final champion will get a bottle. In fact, it is also a trophy...

Even if it is such a low-level match, their finals will all be held at Wembley Stadium!

Think about it, as a non-professional league player, you also have the opportunity to compete in the most advanced stadium in the world. How exciting is that?

And that's endless.

In addition to the cup competitions at each level mentioned above, lower-level regional league organizations have their own cup configurations.

The players participating in the Chengdong Horizontal Cup are looking for children who have just participated in football training, and they are looking for middle-aged uncles who play football hotly.

For example, will the FA Cup, which started in 2003, be participated by teams from the 11th level and above?

Of course, they also have a lot to achieve, because the team that wins the FA Cup can represent England in the UEFA Regional Cup, which is also considered a European competition.

The teams that can participate in the UEFA Cup are selected from various regional cup competitions in England.

There are too many regional cup competitions to mention. All the participants are non-league teams, and most people come to participate out of selfishness.

For example, members of the Sunday League have their FA Sunday Cup, and the Amateur Football League also has their Amateur Football Senior Cup...

In short, in the huge system of English football, players of all levels can have appropriate participation opportunities and financial support. This is the secret of the long-lasting prosperity of English professional football, and also whether football in England can be so popular.

One of the reasons for re-seeking is a strong mass base.

Going back to the British Championship that York asked to participate in, due to the flow mechanism between League One and League Two, it is difficult to have a long-term hegemony in the British Championship. After all, the strong teams at that level are more willing to participate in the competition for the British Championship seats, or

Can we strive to go further in the FA Cup and the league?

York City's attitude towards the British Championship was almost the same.

They basically used the offensive lineup to cope with this game, just as if they could keep the substitute players in game condition.

However, their first-round match against the Swansea U23 team was still vulnerable. York City had already won a complete victory 3:0.

A few days later, York City ushered in another cup match, this time a more challenging first-round match of the League Cup.

The wrong leg that time also came from Peterborough United in League One.

For York City, the most important goal this season is to break into the English Championship, so all cup competitions are dispensable.

Of course, it doesn’t mean to give up. Most games require serious play, otherwise the level of attention will indeed be slightly lower, and the players will not be able to play the main force.

Obviously, York City's Peterborough United team will play harder.

The two sides kicked off a goal battle. Peterborough United, who initially played at home, defeated York City 3:2 and knocked them out of the competition!

This was York City's first loss since the start of the season.

——

For Pan Yi, he really has no interest in the cup matches that York City participated in. He only needs to know the score and progress.

He has left it to chairman Jason McGill and head coach Scaloni to handle the team's affairs.

During that international match month, he took Valentina back to Sweden and watched Sweden's home game against the Netherlands in the first round of Group A of the World Cup qualifiers in Stockholm.

Pan Yi's arrival certainly aroused cheers from all Swedish fans, but the Swedish team was unable to win at home.

In the 34th minute, Lustig's breakthrough caused a foul from Dutch team Van Dijk, and Pan Yi's thug soon received a yellow card.

The Swedish team took advantage of that meeting and Guidetti headed the ball into the goal, 1:0.

But in the east half of the game, Swayder also used a man-made attack to score directly and equalize the score.

The score of 1:1 remained until the end.

That was not a good start for Sweden, but it wasn't particularly bad either.

The same is true for the Netherlands.

Whether Sweden or the Netherlands will qualify, whether they qualify or not depends on the match against France...

In that international competition month, the World Cup qualifiers in Asia attracted Pan Yi's attention even more.

First of all, in the first game of the Asian top 12, the Dragon Kingdom team challenged the South Korean team away.

This is a very crucial battle, and it is also a head-on duel between Pan Yi's two disciples, Wu Lei and Sun Xingmin.

In that game, the performance of both players was average.

At half time, Zheng Zhi accidentally scored an own goal, and the Long Guo team fell behind 0-1.

After changing sides, the South Korean team connected the two cities with Li Qinglong and Gu Zizhe 4 minutes away. The Dragon Kingdom team once fell behind 0-3.

However, the tenacious Long Guo team scored two goals in three minutes due to Hai and Hao Junmin. However, in the remaining time, the Long Guo team failed to score another goal, and it was a pity that they lost.

Five days later, the Dragons drew their first point in the top 12 with a 0-0 draw with Iran, the highest-ranked team in Asia, at the Shenyang Olympic Sports Center Stadium.

Compared with the first away game against South Korea, head coach Gao Hongbo made major adjustments to the starting lineup, especially in the midfield and frontcourt. Zheng Zhi, Wu Xi, and Sun Ke were all on the bench, and they were replaced by No in Seoul.

Hao Junmin performed amazingly and young forward Zhang Yuning.

And whether such a change of formation had a good effect, the powerful Iranians did not find an effective way to score goals in the past, and the two sides had a scoreless draw in the past.

After two rounds of the top 12, the Dragon Country team has 1 draw, 1 loss and 1 point. Although the points are not high, due to the theory of whether the first two wrong legs are the strongest, the fate of the Dragon Country team is very much in their own legs.

In the Eastern International Month, which is October and June during the National Day holiday, the national football team will face the third Syrian team in Xi'an.

"The first game in the East is the real key."

In an exclusive interview with Ma Fanbing of "Earth Football", Pan Yi also offered advice for the national football team.

"They can see the progress of the national football team in the games where they miss South Korea and Iran in the frontcourt."

"Especially Wu Lei, after several years of traveling in Europe, he has become more confident on the court."

"Just because I'm on the court, sometimes my teammates can't see his movement in time and send the ball to his feet."

"This also shows the importance of going global, so that we can be in line with international standards in terms of football consciousness."

"In the game against South Korea, on the one hand, he saw that all the players on the team were not too nervous and did not let go. Moreover, the team had a lot of deficiencies in defense;"

"But on the other hand, he also saw that their players had their own ideas on the offensive end, and he also saw that the team did not lack opportunities and could even beat South Korea ten minutes away. That is gratifying."

"As long as the coach sticks to his own ideas and doesn't have to change the tactics on a large scale, let the players let go and fight. If they play against Syria behind them, Uzbekistan has no hope of winning."

"Wrong. Including the goalkeeper position, he also suggested not to make too many changes, so as to avoid the increase in mistakes caused by the decrease in mutual familiarity of the entire back line..."

The reason why Pan Yi made an exception to comment on the national football team's game was actually because in his previous life, the national football team did have regrets during the 2018 World Cup qualifying journey.

The away game started with 2:3 in South Korea, and even when they were three goals behind, they caught up and almost overtook, which showed the good spirit of the team;
To be continued...