Seeing Nie Jiang's task, Zhang Sheng couldn't help but think of him who was now participating in the World Junior Championships in distant South America.

The opening match of this year's World Junior Championships was on October 17, but the Chinese national junior team led by Rick Link arrived in the host country of Chile in early October.

As the champion team of last year's Asian Junior Championship, the Chinese national junior team is divided into a not too strong group - Group E, which includes South Africa, Costa Rica and Russia in addition to China.

In fact, the World Junior Championship is still very close to Chinese football, because the first World Junior Championship was held in China in 1985, and the Chinese national junior team, as the host, became the seeded team in Group A. The Chinese team won 2 wins and 1 draw in the group stage and qualified for the first place. Although they lost 2:4 to the world's top West German team in the 1/4 finals, players such as Xie Yuxin and Cao Liangdong of the National Youth Team at that time became the mainstay of the national team, and finally the team also won the eighth place.

Since the first World Junior Championships, although the Chinese national junior team is not as good as Nigeria (4 champions) and Brazil (3 champions), the results are okay.

After that, although in 1989, 1991, 1993 and 2003 did not qualify for the group four years, but in 2005 again out of the group, and finally won the seventh place, and in the 2005 World Junior Championships, there were outstanding players such as Wang Dalei, Yang Xu, Yu Dabao, Deng Zhuoxiang, among which Wang Dalei was also favored by Inter Milan and got the opportunity to try.

Of course, this is not without some bullshit, such as in the 2000 Asian Club Cup, in 1993, when the AFC officials in charge of the World Junior Championship suddenly discovered that Li Xiaopeng, Song Lihui and others in the Shandong Luneng team also participated in the World Junior Championship that year, and according to the age of registration, these players are overage players, and China's notoriety for using overage players has also been completely spread.

The overage player incident is not only a true portrayal of the dark side of China's domestic football at that time, but also laid the groundwork for the subsequent five consecutive years of not being able to enter the World Junior Championships, because the domestic football environment was even worse after that.

After hosts Chile were held to a 1-1 draw by Croatia, the first round of matches was in full swing, and soon a big upset appeared, with the South Korean national junior team from Asia defeating the three-time champion Brazil junior team 1-0.

Next, in the attention of Chinese fans, the Chinese national junior team and the Russian national junior team began.

The Russian team followed the style of the previous Soviet team, attacking sharply from the flanks, with a central striker with a strong impact forward and a typical number ten in midfield.

This team has a strong style and pays attention to physical confrontation, but in general the tactics and player styles are relatively backward, but one thing that has to be considered is the particularity of the World Junior Championships, in such a young age game, there are one or two players with outstanding ability, which will greatly affect the outcome of the game.

For example, Russia's left winger Rebrov, center forward Fyodor Charov and the core of the midfield Gallarin, such as Nie Jiang of the more outstanding Chinese national junior team.

And the game is the same, shortly after the opening, the Russian national junior team used its stronger physical characteristics to strangle the midfielder of the Chinese national junior team, in which Zeng Prosperity, who was the core of the midfield of the national junior team, was focused on "taking care".

In the eighth minute of the first half, Russia's fast winger Rebrov broke through Xiang Tiange, and his low cross from the wing found Gallarin who was inserted from behind the midfield, but fortunately, the central defender Dawn was very focused on the defense, and he used his body to block Gallalin's shot from the bottom line.

Rick Link's reaction was also very fast, he let Zeng Prosperity retreat slightly, and the Chinese national junior team began to slowly use the way of passing and controlling to wear down the opponent's patience.

This tactical adjustment of the Chinese national junior team made Russia very uncomfortable, because it was very difficult for them to grab the ball, especially Shen Jun and Cao Jinghao on the left side of the national junior team, these two players are the kind of players who have strong running, short passing, and tactical execution ability, plus the cooperation of Zeng Prosperous, so that the left side of the national youth team is very strong.

The Russian team had to send a large number of players over to play against the left side of the national junior team.

As a result, when their large number of defensive resources were tilted to the left side, Cao Jinghao's long pass was reflected.

In the 22nd minute of the first half, as many as five Russian players were attracted to the left side, but Cao Jinghao received Zeng Wang's return pass, and after a long pass without stopping, he found Xiang Tiange who suddenly accelerated the front court on the right side.

Xiang Tiange, who had been "bullied" by Rebrov once, succeeded in taking revenge, he shook off the opponent while receiving the ball, and then he increased his speed to the extreme, breaking through the left wing-back of the Russian team again.

Seeing Xiang Tiange's beautiful long-distance run, Miao Lin, the LeTV commentator in charge of the commentary, exclaimed: "Xiang Tiange's speed and breakthrough, maybe Rybrov himself didn't expect that 'he is actually faster than me'." Xiang Tiange crossed from the bottom, Nie Jiang's header was beautiful, the deadlock was broken, Nie Jiang's header broke the goal, and the Chinese national junior team led 1:0. ”

"Nie Jiang's running position is too smart, first on the right side, seeing Xiang Tiange start to speed, leaning towards the middle, and slightly retreating a little, eliminating the hidden danger of offside, and then using the cover of his teammates, he walked the diagonal line to the front point in the penalty area, and then received the header to the near corner after Xiang Tiange's pass, and the opposing defender was completely confused by his running. Xiang Tiange is to go to the horse as fast as flying, and to ride alone for thousands of miles, while Nie Jiang is a treacherous soldier, and he will hit with one blow. Miao Lin, the general, said that he was commenting on the story at every turn, and he chanted a poem when he had nothing to do.

The next game entered the rhythm that the Chinese junior team wanted - the junior team seemed to be entangled with the opponent in the midfield, the opponent ran a lot, kept grabbing, and often pressed the pass of the junior team back to the backfield, and even a few times their long pass in the midfield, looking for the winger and striker in front of the 30-meter area of the junior team, so the scene looked like a tiger, but in fact, the actual threat to the goal of the Chinese junior team was not great, but it was rushed fiercely, grabbed fiercely, and consumed a lot of physical energy.

On the contrary, the offense of the national junior team seems to be advancing layer by layer, and it is not very passionate, but the actual situation is more stable.

After nearly 20 minutes of entanglement, the national junior team took advantage of its long possession time and less physical consumption to play a successful attack towards the end of the first half.

This offensive organization came from the careful planning of the midfielder Zeng Prosperity, who took advantage of the opponent's serious physical consumption, suddenly accelerated past a person in the midfield, and then handed the ball to Li Ming, who had high hopes in history.

After receiving the ball, the player with little practical experience but full of aura turned around on the spot to get rid of the opponent's top defensive central defender, and then his long-range shot forced the goalkeeper of the Russian team to save the ball, Nie Jiang cleverly found the second landing point and pushed the empty goal successfully, while scoring two goals himself, the score was extended to 2:0.

Shortly after the goal, the first half of the game ended, and the ability of the Chinese national junior team on the field made those scouts on the sidelines excited, especially Nie Jiang's performance was even more eye-catching, and many scouts stared at him while recording in their notebooks.

After the second half, Russia also gave up the previous way of rushing and slamming, completely handed over control of the midfield, and honestly began to play defensive counterattacks.

If they had used this tactic at the beginning, it would have been a wise choice, but it was too late to start using it after two goals were down now.

The national junior team firmly controlled the situation on the field, and it was not until the thirteenth minute of the second half that their striker Charoff used his physical advantage to crush the central defender Zhu Chenjie trained by Genbao Base, but his header hit the national junior team's goal post and popped off the bottom line after being held up by Huang Dawei.

As a player valued by the old coach Xu Genbao, Zhu Chenjie has always been the captain of the team, this player is very introverted, focused on playing, but has certain weaknesses in steals, especially in the position and headers, this time Charlov took advantage of him and almost scored a header.

After slowly figuring out the situation of the Chinese national junior team, Russia began to fight high, specifically looking for Zhu Chenjie.

Fortunately, Dawn has a lot of experience, as a player with excellent header ability, although he is still in the task of "concentrating", he still has made great progress in concentration, and seeing that Charoff wants to bully his teammates, he took the initiative to take over this task.

In the confrontation with Charlov with many high-altitude balls, Dawn did not fall behind at all, and Russia's 45-degree oblique play also lost its effect.

Unfortunately, in the 30th minute of the second half, Dawn's weakness of bad position was once again exposed, and in a corner kick of the Russian team, he misjudged the landing point of the incoming ball, allowing Charlov to head in a header.

The Russian team tied the score at 2:1.

The Russian team was greatly encouraged by this goal, and mustered up the last remaining strength to launch the last waves of attacks.

Just when their offensive was in full swing, too many troops were invested in the attack, and the weakness of insufficient physical strength was seized by Nie Jiang again.

After Sun Qinhan, the defender of the national junior team, broke off the ball of Gallalin, a big ** gave Nie Jiang, Nie Jiang ran at high speed all the way, and after connecting the two players from Russia, he shot decisively from a distance, and the ball was saved by the opponent's goalkeeper.

After this goal, the Russian team completely lost hope of equalizing, they replaced a midfielder, replaced a striker, and gave up the game, hoping to concede a few fewer goals to prepare for the later games in the group stage.

In the end, the Chinese national junior team ended the first game of the group stage with an overall advantage of 3:1, and scored all three points against the recognized strongest opponent in the group, completing their pre-game scheduled tasks.

After this game, Costa Rica in the same group has defeated South Africa 2:1, so that the Chinese national junior team is ranked first in Group E with a goal difference.

It's just that the South Korean team's defeat of Brazil was too big before, so everyone focused on the team from Asia, and the Chinese team's complete victory was ignored.

After the start of the second round, South Korea won the game again, beating Guinea 1-0, so that they have declared themselves qualified and once again attracted everyone's attention, and everyone agreed that this team will be the biggest dark horse of this tournament junior championship.

As the Chinese national junior team that defeated South Korea to win the Asian Junior Championship and entered the World Junior Championships, it did not disappoint, and when facing the weakest opponent in the group, South Africa, the national junior team easily defeated the opponent 2:0.

In this game, even if the South African team made great restrictions on Nie Jiang - whether he was in the penalty area or withdrawn from the penalty area, there would be people staring at him tightly, and Nie Jiang still found an opportunity.

In the first half, Nie Jiang used his skills at his feet to get past the South African team's midfielders and central defenders in succession, and then broke the deadlock with a long-range shot from the edge of the penalty area.

In the second half, it was Nie Jiang who attracted the defensive attention of the opposing two players, and found Li Ming in the middle with a cross from Xiang Tiange, who pushed the score to 2:0.

In this way, the Chinese national junior team has also won two victories and successfully qualified.

The qualifications of China and South Korea have made the world football exclaim that the future of Asian football is promising.

Another advantage of the Chinese national junior team in this group is that now in addition to China's two wins, Costa Rica drew with Russia in this round, so the Chinese team has now confirmed that it is the first in the group, and in the third game, they can completely line up some substitute players to examine the state of these backups, and at the same time give them a chance to warm up.

In the third game, the Chinese national junior team let Nie Jiang, Zeng Fanfang, Shen Jun and Xiang Tiange all sit on the bench, and Zhong Yangyang and Wang Xing played.

Because Wang Xing, a famous high school striker, was on the field, the national junior team this time was completely a tactic of making a cross from the bottom and hanging at a 45-degree angle. Defensively, the national junior team put two defensive midfielders in the midfield, constantly sweeping in front of their own 30 meters, and the two fullbacks who are known for their speed and breakthrough keep counterattacking.

In the end, the national junior team relied on the back line commanded by Liming, and Huang Dawei's excellent play and Wang Xing's header from a corner kick forced Costa Rica to draw 1:1.

After the end of the three group games, the Chinese national junior team in Group E is China and Russia are the first and second, in the next eighth of the final Chinese team will face the Ecuadorian national team, according to the analysis of the outside media, if nothing else, most of the main team rested a Chinese national junior team will have a greater chance of winning.

Before this game, Rick Link also organized the players to watch a quarter-final between South Korea and Belgium, and the dark horse South Korea, which was unanimously favored by the outside world, lost in the face of Belgium's physical crushing, and finally Belgium defeated the South Korean team 2:0.

At the same time, another Asian team, North Korea, was eliminated, and Nigeria, the biggest favorite to win the World Junior Championship, swept the North Korean team with a score of 5:0, maintaining the hot form in history.

Just when the Chinese national junior team qualified, the Longteng team also competed in the Chinese Super League.