At the press conference before the first match, Rick Link did show a very low profile, and when asked by reporters what he thought of Nigeria's opponent, he was like discussing with the UAE coach in Asia, and boasted to Nigeria: "They are definitely the strongest team in this World Junior Championship." The players are very individual and their tactical discipline is very good. We've made history and the next thing is to enjoy the game. ”

In private meetings with the players, Rick Link kept unloading the players: "We've reached the semi-finals, it's the best result in our history, and every step forward, we're making history." But what I want to say is that the reason why we have come to this point is not because of who sent us through, but because of our strength. It's time for the world to see what we're like in this next game. ”

"What I said before was not a lie. Rick Link continued, "Nigeria is really strong. But if you think about it, why do we rarely see African teams in this position in the World Cup? It's because they also have a lot of weaknesses, and they are very obvious. ”

"First of all, their tactical execution is really average. Rick Link analyzed the players, "Secondly, their psychological quality is really average, which means that they can only play downwind." ”

After all, Rick Link came out of Europe's old football powerhouse, and his analysis was very spot-on.

In youth football, African teams do do well, but there's a reason for that.

In youth football, especially in the Under-17 age group, the impact of physical superiority on the game is simply too great. For example, in the last game, Wang Xing relied on his body to make the Mexican team completely puzzled.

And the African team is even more exaggerated, the black people are the earliest in all races, and because of the disordered household registration system in most African countries, there is an extreme flood of overage, cheating, and even players who don't know if they are aged.

In recent years, African junior teams have taken this advantage to the extreme, especially Nigeria, a country with a certain football foundation, in the selection of youth teams more and more in the direction of physically developed strong players, which is also the reason why Nigeria's achievements in the World Junior Championships in recent years are extremely dazzling.

But when it comes to other levels, such as the World Cup, or even just a little higher at the World Youth Championship (Under-20 age group), the excellence of African teams basically disappears.

At the age of U20, the physical growth of the players has basically matured, and the execution ability of ball skills, ball quotient, and tactics has only taken the first place, and African teams basically have no advantage at this level.

Specific to the most critical tactical execution ability, the Chinese national junior team is not without opportunities in this game.

First of all, because of economic reasons, many Nigerian players play football for a very clear purpose, that is, to live and get ahead for money to go to Europe, so they especially want to show themselves, in order to show off on the field, using their bodies to simply crush and then break through.

Secondly, when the team scores first, their tactical execution can be relatively in place, once they fall behind or even in the stalemate stage, they are easy to be impatient and easy to mess around.

Therefore, the tactics arranged by Rick Link for the team is to open the attack, once there is a goal, the whole line of defense counterattack, using the advantage of several players in the front court to seize the opportunity; if the opening attack fails, after 15 minutes, do a good job of counter-robbery and defense, use more foot technology in the midfield to control the ball, drag the game to the later stage, the later the national team will have a greater advantage.

At 7 o'clock in the morning before the first leg of the AFC Champions League final, the semi-finals of the national junior team in the World Junior Championships officially began.

Originally, the IP of the World Junior Championships was not very valuable in the IP of sports events, but this time LeTV Sports was right, because of the excellent performance of the Chinese national junior team, it historically reached the semi-finals, which made Chinese fans who have been angry about the lack of achievements at the national team level in recent years very popular.

Coupled with LeTV's momentum through various media, the game of the national junior team has become a hot topic in Chinese domestic football recently, and the corresponding click rate has increased a lot, once exceeding the value of some popular TV videos.

So in this game, LeTV continued to send a combination of Li Xin and Dong Lu, after all, this pair of commentators still has a certain influence in China, and their commentary style is indeed sought after by many fans.

Before the game, Li Xin and Dong Lu analyzed the starting list of the Chinese national junior team: "In this game, Rick Link still lined up a 4-2-3-1 formation, Wang Xing, who performed extremely well in the last game, did not play, but the faster Yang Yilin was on the front line, plus Nie Jiang and Liu Ruofan, two fast horses, this is a typical defensive counterattack lineup." ”

"If Rick Link wants to play a quick counter-attack, the right side should be the main attack. Dong Lu's analysis is more in-depth, "Yang Yilin on the right side plus Xiang Tiange, the speed of these two people is first-class, with Liu Ruofan who responds in the middle lane and Nie Jiang who is in front, the Chinese national junior team will definitely fight this side if they want to fight back." ”

Soon the competition officially began.

Nigeria's line-up was as strong as ever – a 4-3-3 attacking formation that showed their desire to win big.

Nigeria's formation is the same as what their head coach Almunik and his disciples said before the tournament – they have only one goal – the World Junior Championship title.

Almnik is a legend in Nigerian football, having helped Nigeria win their first Olympic title as an overage player and later playing for the world's top clubs such as Barcelona, and he is the quintessential African talent - with delicate skills, incredible speed and amazing jumps, and a large part of the players selected for this Nigerian Under-17 national team have been selected according to this standard.

It's just that because Amunik's playing characteristics are too hurtful - he is the kind of fast-break expert who kills the enemy with a style of play and loses 800, so at the peak of his career, frequent injuries began to limit his play, and the poor performance after the transfer to Barcelona made him a "parallel import".

Historically, he also came to China for trial training during the A-A period, but the injury made him in a very poor state, and he was not favored by the Yunnan Hongta team at that time.

Almnik is a typical player-turned-coach, who was promoted to head coach of the Nigerian national youth team after leading the Nigerian U17 national team to the World Junior Championship, and later entered the senior national team as a technical advisor to the Nigerian national team and assistant coach of the national team's attack.

At the end of the press interview before the game, when a Chinese reporter asked him about his experience of trying out in the first A and his views on the Chinese national junior team, Amunik seemed a little unhappy, and that experience was not a good time worth recalling.

And in the pre-war meeting with his disciples, Almnik expressed his desire to abuse the Chinese national junior team: "Our opponent is known as the biggest dark horse in this World Junior Championships. However, the reason why dark horses are called dark horses is because everyone didn't care about them before, and now everyone has seen their strength. The offensive line relies on their No. 9 Nie Jiang, and the defensive problems are not small, their two main central defenders, one often makes mistakes, and the other has average header and filling ability. We're much better than them, so we're going to get them back in shape in this game, and I'm asking for not a simple win, but a big win!"

Amunik's words echoed his players: "Do the Chinese play football? Don't they only sell some poor quality daily necessities in the market?"

In fact, the Nigerian player's words are also the impression that most Nigerians have of Chinese - because China began to attach importance to trade with Africa, there are now many Chinese doing small business in Nigeria, and some profiteers often sell some domestic cottage inferior products, resulting in many Nigerians not having a good impression of Chinese.

Therefore, after the start of the game, the Nigerian team, which got the right to kick off, pressed the strong attack on all fronts at the beginning of the game.

Rick Link's mouth was about to smile when he saw this, because the situation in Nigeria was too good to be beaten back, and if he knew that some rude questions from the Chinese reporter would anger Amunik, he would probably send the reporter a big red flower to thank him for his divine assistance.

However, Nigeria's attack is not so easy to defend.

In the second minute of the first half, Nwakari, the captain of Nigeria and the core of their midfield, used his extraordinary physical flexibility and the explosiveness of the black man to force the Chinese national junior team's defender Zhang Huachen to succeed, and then he tested Huang Dawei's ability with a long-range shot, and the latter pressed the ball to the ground with a flying side pounce.

The Chinese national junior team, which won the ball, immediately played a counterattack. Huang Dawei's hand tossed the ball to Yang Yilin on the right, who also immediately started to face Nigeria's defender Ag Chukudi.

Yang Yilin is not tall, only over 1.7 meters, and is even more different from Ag Chukudi in terms of physical strength, the latter has always been designed by FM, FIFA and other games as a demon in the back waist, and he does have this ability - strong frontal interception, extremely strong body, a typical African "beast waist" type player.

But in this kind of counterattack, the speed of the player occupies too many advantages, as a famous fast horse player in the young generation in history, Yang Yilin's one-on-one ability is indeed very strong, he uses his flexible body advantage, a simple high-speed dribble in the change of direction to complete the breakthrough.

It's a pity that Nigeria's left wingback Anumdo is also the kind of player who is very fast, after seeing his teammates being broken through, he used his speed to catch up with Yang Yilin, and then a physical collision directly knocked Yang Yilin almost flew sideways, and the ball also rolled directly out of the sideline, and the physical gap between the players on both sides was very obvious.

The referee didn't say anything about Anumdo's defense, meaning that it was a normal physical confrontation.

At this time, Nie Jiang, who was waiting for Yang Yilin's pass in the middle of the run, did not complain about his teammates, he stretched out a thumbs up to Yang Yilin, indicating that the opponent played well, and then when the Chinese national junior team was in a good defensive position, Nie Jiang said to Yang Yilin: "You can try to cut inside and hit the goal, if you feel that the opportunity is not good, you can pass it to me." ”

Facing the team's big brother, Yang Yilin nodded sensibly and said, "Got it." When I get another chance, I'll pass you the ball and you decide. ”

After defending the Chinese team's counterattack, Nigeria did not make any retreat, and continued to press the formation to attack the Chinese team.

Li Xin said a little worriedly: "There is still a difference between this Nigerian team and the previous Nigerian team. In addition to their attacking power, they are also very good defensively, and the clean sheet against Brazil in the last game proved their defensive quality. The Chinese team wants to fight back and forth, and the threat will not be too great. ”

Dong Lu also said: "So the Chinese boys must be very resolute in seizing the opportunity to counterattack, but the first thing is to be able to defend it first." ”

The reason why Dong Lu said this is because now on the field, Nigeria's Nwakari almost caused a breakthrough in the middle, Zhang Huachen faced his attack very hard, and relied on Zeng Prosperous's return defense to cut off his dribble.

'Nwakari is really good as a person. Seeing the situation on the field, Dong Lu said, "Actually, his brother is also very powerful. In the last World Junior Championship, his brother Chidiber Nwakari won the title with the team as a main left wing-back, and then moved to Manchester City, and now he should be on loan in La Liga. This time, his younger brother Klezi Nwakari is the core of this Nigerian national junior team, and this family is really talented in football. ”

After Nwakari's ball was cut off just now, Zhang Huachen passed the ball back to Liming, and Liming passed the ball back to Huang Dawei, which was arranged before the game, trying to attract Nigerian players, and the Nigerian players who were eager to attack did press up for grabs.

Huang Dawei distributed the ball to Xiang Tiange on the right after seeing the opposing player pressing, who looked very confident in the face of Nigeria's left forward Abel Orgi's tackle, he received the ball lightly, and immediately accelerated after avoiding the opponent's tackle.

Abel Orgi is a striker after all, and his defensive actions are more reckless, and after being passed, he completely lost his defensive position, allowing Xiang Tiange to rush up.

Xiang Tiange, who rushed up, made Nigeria very jealous, Yang Yilin was playing for the first time, and the other party was not familiar with it and didn't feel anything, but Xiang Tiange, as an absolute main player who appeared as a starter from the first game, Nigeria was deeply impressed by his breakthrough on the side.

This time, the Chinese team's counterattack, they seemed to be more prepared.