Outside the Lijiapo National Stadium, ticket window.

A white man in a suit and leather shoes, slapping a stack of money on the window with a cigarette, casually talking in English as if he were in his own world.

His name is Marsden, and he is the secretary of the New Zealand Pavilion in Lijiapo.

"200 January 10th match!

"I'm sorry, sir, but it's sold out. The female conductor is also fluent in spoken English, and there is no barrier to answering.

Although 97% of the population in Lijiapo is Chinese, 100% of higher education is taught in English, and 70% of compulsory education is taught in English.

Marsden laughed: "What? still limit the traffic? When I am reselling? I know 200 is a bit much, if it weren't for ......"

If it weren't for this kind of improvised, the ticket was not formal enough to be booked by phone, and he would have solved it in other more convenient ways.

Or was sent by the Counselor to run errands?

"Sir, it's not that we control the sales, we sold this game open, and it was really sold out!" the female conductor could only explain patiently.

Marsden was really shocked: "It's really sold out? It's impossible! Didn't you just start selling tickets two days ago? This is a temporary match, tickets were sold out two weeks before the start of the game, and now there are 12 days left, how can it be sold out?"

The female conductor's smile did not change: "18,000 public tickets, all sold out." If you are a representative of a special legal person, you can apply through the relevant channels, and there will be some free tickets in the VIP area of the rostrum. ”

The entire Lijiapo home stadium is barely close to 20,000 seats, and after the 18,000 tickets are removed, there are only about 1,000 VIP free tickets, press seats, and photography seats.

If it's New Zealand's dignitaries who want to cheer for the national team, that's fine.

But the Counsellor asked Marsden to get the tickets, in fact, to help host several livestock and dairy tycoons, as well as the groups of relatives and friends they brought for sightseeing. These people are not qualified to use the diplomatic and press booths.

"Damn, how can this be replied to Counselor Pidero?

After leaving the ticket window, he took a closer look around and realized that he was not the only one who was surprised—there were also many white people who appeared at the ticket window one after another, and then got a disappointed answer and complained and left.

Lijiapo is a country composed of Chinese businessmen, so it is particularly unmartial. The pattern of social appreciation dominated by the rich has also made football a sport that has no local market, and football tickets are usually not sold out at all.

White people, despite making up only 3% of the population, are seen in the usual stadium at a much higher rate. Of the total population of 3 million, 30,000 adult males out of the 100,000 white population are the main ones who usually watch the game.

"Is there anyone reselling tickets! I'll buy them for $10!" Marsden was helpless, regardless of whether he was suspected of receiving scalpers tickets, and openly shouted at some Chinese who looked like roe heads and rats in the square outside the stadium.

The price he paid was, of course, several percent more expensive than the public price at the window, and he thought he could attract scalpers.

However, the mud cow entered the sea and did not react.

He could only go back to his life in despair.

In order to comfort himself, he speculated: "Maybe the scalpers are not here at all!" Well, this must be no problem -- those unsightly scalpers have lost their tickets, and if they can't finish selling them on the day of the game, they will definitely be in a hurry to sell them frantically! Even Li Jiapo's football tickets dare to be speculated, and these people don't know how to lose when the time comes!"

……

More than ten days have passed in a flash, and in a blink of an eye, it is January 10th.

In the morning, two pleasure boats from Xiangjiang docked at the passenger ferry terminal, but they did not attract anyone's attention at first.

Lijiapo is the throat of the strait and the country of shipping, with an average of more than 130 10,000-ton ships calling at the port every day, so there are no more than two passenger ships.

The only thing that makes people feel strange is that the people on these two passenger ships don't seem to be treated the same.

There are no restrictions on the boat that the workers of the Xiangjiang dock are on, and tourists can gather in groups to visit Star Island for a while. And the ship that transited through the Xiangjiang River in Tianjin was strictly guarded by the local side.

The entrance to the shore of the trestle bridge is all fenced with iron fences, and it is not allowed to go away on its own, and can only lead to the designated place to take a bus.

Dozens of buses waiting there began to pull people back and forth, not allowed to get off halfway, and the level of defense is estimated to be similar to those visa-free cruise tours from China to Nagasaki and Busan in later generations - the visa-free groups in later generations also require everyone to only move within the designated range of the port area, so as to avoid stealing.

This is already the best condition that the charter king can obtain after negotiating with the relevant departments of Li Jiapo to relax visa restrictions.

After tossing all morning, when the 5,000 group performers were pulled to the Lijiapo National Stadium, everyone was hungry. However, due to the limited conditions, it was impossible to organize a trip to the canteen for everyone, so they all relied on the kettle and bread in the marching backpack.

Football matches start at 3 p.m. local time and don't start letting fans in until 2 p.m. (Tropical countries should avoid the hottest period, January is already the cooler season in Lijiapo)

So the 5,000 men sat in the square in front of the stadium, between the temporary iron railings. Then there was only the slightest rustle of bread and water, and nothing else.

The reason why it is red and black pressed is because everyone is issued a uniform red cotton T-shirt and white canvas pants, and with a unified small flat hairstyle, it is red and black pressed.

The British guard next to him who had to shake his arms flat when he walked right was stunned, and his back was hairy.

This may be the reason why dogs that bark don't bite, while real beasts tend to be silent.

"What's going on? Why are the Chinese so quiet? Why don't I see the ticket sellers who you said, 'It must be the Chinese profiteers hoarding the odds, and no one will look at them when the time comes?' Why didn't I see it?"

It turned out that at this moment in the corner of the square, it was a convoy of New Zealanders coming.

Counselor Piedro was dissatisfied, because Secretary Marsden had lied to him.

It looks like no one wants a refund.

Fortunately, he and the VIPs had a good eye and knew that they couldn't get tickets, so they specially arrived at the stadium an hour or two in advance, and there was a lot of time difference to find scalpers.

"I, I'll do it, Mr. Counselor. Secretary Marsden sweated slightly.

"Could it be that the patriotic Chinese businessmen of Nanyang have organized the Chinese to watch the ball?" Mr. Moslian, the animal husbandry magnate who participated in the car, rolled down the window and squinted for a while.

Counsellor Piedro followed Mr. Moslian's words and said, "Possibly, fortunately, there are a few thousand people at most." It should be the difference between these thousands of people, which caused the originally generous votes to be insufficient all of a sudden. But it doesn't matter, we bought it from other official fans at a high price, and as long as the price is high enough, there will always be people who are willing to give it up. ”

"S$100 a piece is fine, we don't want to spend it. ”

Secretary Marsden immediately got into action, he approached the bulk fans who seemed to be waiting to enter the stadium, and began to wave the money: "Gentlemen, are you here to see the afternoon game? You have made a fortune, and someone is willing to pay 100 yuan a ticket for the ball! ”

The men gave him an envious look, but then immediately looked at each other with alarm, and then at Marsden, the look was like a pen.

The tickets are not in the hands of each of their dock workers at all, they are in the hands of their foremen, and they will have to be checked centrally for a while.

And if the foreman dares to sell the ticket, the price is that he will be fired by the boss if he goes back. A person who can achieve a certain leadership position is worth more than a few thousand dollars.

"No one sells S$100?" Marsden was shocked.

He had no choice but to go back and continue to ask for instructions.

Counsellor Piderow scolded angrily: "Fool! You can't do this little thing? You don't want to think about how much Mr. Moslian has to pay for a plane ticket from Wellington! And how precious his time is! You have to buy even a thousand tickets!"

The original price was only S$8, equivalent to 20 Hong Kong dollars.

There are more than 10,000 people, and there will always be people who are not strong-willed, and there is no way to do it.

What's more, among the people organized by the charter king, in addition to the 5,000 who came from Xiangjiang, there are nearly 10,000 local port workers in Lijiapo - the charter king is the king of Asian ships, and there are tens of thousands of dock workers in Lijiapo.

In the end, the two small local foremen in Lijiapo saw that the New Zealanders' offer had risen to more than S$600, so they sold dozens of tickets in their hands.

Then they handed over the cost to their co-workers, and ran away with the difference - the job and position were gone, and the position of a small grassroots foreman was not worth tens of thousands of dollars.

But this price also made New Zealanders stunned by the dog leash.

When did the Nanyang Chinese fans become so backbone? The 8 yuan ticket was held back to 600 before anyone made a move? They were as nervous as selling arms, and they abandoned their careers and fled after collecting the money?

After entering the venue, they saw an increasingly desperate scene.

The number of people dressed in uniform was far more than they imagined, far more than the five thousand people who were silent in the square just now.

"We feel like we're surrounded. Counselor Pidero said bitterly.

"The number of enemies is dozens of times that of us, well, at least twenty times. Secretary Marsden shirked the phrase inappropriately, as if the second half of the sentence was "So even if we lose, it's not our fault."

After all, people who can't afford to buy scalper tickets at a premium of at least 50 times will not be able to get in. And how many people can afford to pay a 50-fold premium? Unless it's an extremely hardcore New Zealander.

Mr. Moslian was more discerning: "Why do they all have trumpets? It seems that there are several trumpets in every stand." ”

In their anxious waiting, players from both sides entered the field.

At the beginning of the competition, the flag must be raised and the song must be sung.

The players of the Chinese team did not know the arrangements of the solidarity group in advance, they just saw the red and white stands.

But when it was time to sing, everyone's morale was instantly raised.

Because it was different from usual, not only the sound of the accompaniment coming from the loudspeakers in the stadium, but also the singing of the crowd far overshadowed the accompaniment.

And thousands of bugles can be heard spontaneously playing to accompaniment.

The New Zealanders looked at each other and couldn't help but tremble.

"Why don't we do the Maori war dance with Mochado?" Captain Sumner suggested when he saw that the situation was not right.

Sumner is New Zealand's number one regular and the only international player to play in the West Ham team.

And the Mochado he refers to is one of the few Maori indigenous players in the team.

Originally, according to custom, in order to respect these Māori Aborigines, the New Zealand team was allowed to dance the leg shaking and chest beating dance during the music, but the purebred white people never danced.

But at the moment, the legs are shaking like that, so it's better to jump together to cover up.

From Stephen Wooding to Grant Turner to young Duncan Cohen, they found that once they writhed like Mochado like that, they really didn't seem so afraid.

"What's going on with these guys? How are they like the Indians in American films? I've fought two fights with the New Zealanders, and I've never seen the whole team popularize this custom. The Chinese team players on the opposite side were very puzzled.