The news about the top ten competition really made Su Yun a little sad.
But just before the tenth round of the English League One, Su Yun heard exciting news.
On October 3, 1997, in the third round of the top ten, the Chinese team defeated the visiting Saudi Arabia 1-0 at home.
This news made Su Yun very happy.
The Saudi team is a strong team in West Asia. It is also a strong rival in this group, and it has been recognized as a strong team in Asia in recent years. It won the Asian Cup three times in 1984, 1988, and 1996. It was also the Asian Cup in 1992. runner up.
In the 1994 World Cup in the United States, they even broke through the group stage and entered the top 16.
In the past ten years, Saudi Arabia has been unique in Asian football and has achieved very good results. It is precisely because of this that Japanese and Korean media have looked down on the fate of the Chinese team in the top ten. Iran and Saudi Arabia are not easy to deal with.
So Su Yun was overjoyed when he heard about the 1-0 victory over the Saudi team.
Not bad, not bad.
This will immediately improve the situation of the Chinese team in the group stage. As long as the following games play better, the Chinese team still has great hope of advancing.
Feeling good.
The results of the national team were up and down, which made Su Yun's mood also fluctuate.
On October 4, 1997, the tenth round of the English League One began.
Su Yun is the Reading team who welcomes the away challenge with a good mood.
Speaking of which, Reading is a club with a long history. It has a history of more than 120 years, even nearly ten years before Sunderland was founded. But in terms of results, Reading is lagging behind. It's too far.
Sunderland is the first club in the English league to win three top league championships. The six top league championship trophies are there, showing off their history.
However, in the more than 120 years since the Reading team was founded, there has not been any significant championship.
In other words, their history is a big blank.
In the history of English football, Reading is not even a piece of cake.
Even ten years ago, Reading almost went bankrupt. Fortunately, they were lucky. Just like Jack Walker took over at Blackburn Rovers, Reading also met a wealthy fan of its own. This is through second-hand cars. Madejski, the billionaire who made his fortune in magazines.
This man is also a billionaire.
Like Sunderland owner Murray, although he is not a world-class rich man, he still has a net worth of hundreds of millions of pounds.
Madejski's arrival revived Reading, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.
It also allowed Reading to gather strength step by step, moving from English League Two to English League One four years ago. Even two years ago, Reading qualified for the promotion play-offs, but fell short in the end. However, in the past two years, Reading The team's performance was average.
Before the game, almost all the media believed that Sunderland would easily win this game.
It's really because Sunderland's form these days is so good.
Not only is there a super shooter like Kevin Phillips who has scored 11 goals in nine games. More importantly, Sunderland's defense is very good. So far, they have never conceded two goals in a game. The ball thing happened.
It can be said that Sunderland are now completely invincible in English League One.
Even a strong English team like Middlesbrough can't fight back against Sunderland. What's more, Reading is currently in a bad situation?
Reading's recent situation is indeed very poor.
In the first nine games, the Reading team has only achieved two wins, one draw and six losses. The Reading team has scored six goals and conceded 18 goals so far. It is currently ranked in English League One.
The league's relegation zone, whether it can be relegated or not is still a matter of debate.
When two opponents meet like this, no one is optimistic about Reading.
Even the local media in Reading were not optimistic about the Reading team. Their media generally lamented before the game that it was really not the right time for Reading to meet Sunderland. They were really afraid that Reading would get a humiliating score.
But after the game started, everyone was shocked.
Sunderland had a lot of opportunities in this game. Whether it was a wide player, a central player, or even two forwards, they all had a lot of opportunities. But the ball just couldn't hit the opponent's goal.
Sunderland's top scorer Kevin Phillips was even more cursed.
Phillips had a total of seven shooting opportunities in this game.
Phillips' shooting ability is already very strong, otherwise he would not have scored 11 goals in nine games. Once Phillips gets a chance in the penalty area, he can create enough threats. When he met Reading,
The garbage defense line got a lot of very good opportunities. There were three opportunities to face the goalkeeper alone.
But even with such a good opportunity, Phillips failed to seize it.
Hit the goal post twice during the game.
If it weren't for Phillips' previous achievements, many people would think that Phillips is a big parallel import. He had so many good opportunities but didn't even score.
Quinn also had a header shot from close range. Reading's goalkeeper had already raised his hands in surrender, but the ball accidentally hit the crossbar.
Two goalposts and one crossbar, Sunderland's luck in this game was at a certain point.
Of course that's all, nothing more.
What makes Su Yun most irritated is that the Reading team only took one shot in the whole game. Moreover, the shot was not in the right position and was about to fly out. Unexpectedly, it hit Melville's leg by some strange combination and was refracted.
Go in.
Given defended in the direction of the shot.
Unexpectedly, the ball rolled in from another direction.
This left Ji Wen helpless.
Su Yun looked at the score of zero to one and couldn't laugh or cry.
How could you lose this kind of game?
Why?
After the game, even Reading's head coach even called it a fluke. He believed that the victory was entirely due to good luck. Reading never thought that they could beat Sunderland in this game, and the same was true for the game.
Sunderland had countless opportunities. There were even five or six must-goal opportunities, but none of them were scored.
Reading's head coach does feel lucky.
This is God's help.
Su Yun spread his hands helplessly after the game. "If God doesn't let us score, there's nothing I can do about it. Maybe our English League One team also has the best-of-the-month curse!"
Hearing Su Yun's dumbfounded expression, all the reporters smiled.
The Premier League has a Curse of the Month. That is, if a team wins both Coach of the Month and Player of the Month, the next game will either be a draw or a loss. This is a famous curse in English football. Su Yun just borrowed it.
Wearing this curse expresses your helplessness.
After the game, many media quoted Su Yun's words.
Said Phillips was cursed in this game.
English League One has also begun to suffer from the curse of best of the month.
