Chapter 020: Asian Cup
Real Madrid won the 2014 Club World Cup with goals from two leading stars, Tang Zheng and Cristiano Ronaldo, beating Copa Libertadores champions San Lorenzo 2-0 at the Stade Marrakech.
The next day, at one o'clock local time in Italy, the official website of "Turin Sports Newspaper" announced that the winner of the 2014 European Golden Boy Award, Chinese player Lu Liang, who plays for Dortmund, won the award.
In fact, as early as this year's shortlist came out, the results were basically settled, Lu Liang's performance in the past 2013-2014 season was quite eye-catching, wonderful goals and sharp dribbles are impressive, this summer's Brazil World Cup also entered the quarterfinals with the Chinese team, and the contribution to the offensive end of the Chinese team is obvious to all.
Lu Liang, who was interviewed by Depaola, editor-in-chief of "Torino Sports Newspaper", answered surprisingly, his first thank you was not for Dortmund's cultivation, nor for the silent support behind his parents, but for Tang Zheng's kindness.
In this regard, the domestic and foreign media have mixed opinions on Lu Liang, but at least it shows that Lu Liang knows who brought him to today's step.
Maxima often has, Bole does not often have.
Without Tang Zheng's recommendation, it would be impossible for today's Lu Liang to win the second Chinese player to win this honor after Tang Zheng, and it is very likely that tens of millions of college students in China will live a day after day study career on campus, and then do a job that goes out early and returns late in order to live......
After playing the Club World Cup, Real Madrid's players entered the winter break early and were disbanded on the spot, while Tang Zheng took an international flight to Shanghai and then to Guangzhou to meet with the national team before preparing for the Asian Cup in Australia next month.
The 2014 Chinese Super League ended as early as November, so the Chinese Super League players trained in Guangzhou after a half-month break to prepare for the Asian Cup.
Tang Zheng was the first to return to Europe among the players, and when he appeared at Guangzhou Baiyun New Baiyun Airport, the reception gate was greeted by thousands of fans as usual, and this was still under the control of the relevant departments, otherwise the airport in this international metropolis is likely to be overcrowded.
Every time Tang Zheng returns to China, he is very low-key, but as an international star, no matter where he goes, there will always be leaks, so there is no exception to the large number of fans at the new Baiyun Airport, he smiled and waved to the enthusiastic fans as usual, and then signed autographs and took photos with the fans when the situation allowed.
With Tang Zheng training with the national team in Guangzhou, other players in Europe have returned to China one after another, **, Wu Sanshi, Lu Liang, Sun Jingbo, Hao Junmin, Yan Junling, Shi Ke, Zhang Xizhe arrived in Guangzhou on Christmas Eve to meet with the national team and prepare for the Asian Cup in Australia.
China were drawn from Group B at the Asian Cup in Australia, with Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and Baresta up against the other three group stage opponents.
According to the rules of group emergence in the Asian Cup, the top two teams in the group advance to the quarterfinals, and the two teams from the adjacent groups cross to play the quarterfinals, that is, A1 and B2, B1 and A2, and the two groups of C and D are the same as the two groups of A and B.
Before the start of the Asian Cup in Australia, the Chinese team had two warm-up matches, first a warm-up match with the Thai team at the Tianhe Sports Center in Guangzhou, and then flew to Melbourne, Australia to play the last warm-up match before the Asian Cup with New Zealand.
The Thai team is the most improved representative team in Southeast Asian football, and they are not tall and they are pursuing technical improvement, so the Chinese team suffered a lot in the warm-up match at the Tianhe Sports Center in Guangzhou.
Many internationals feel that the current Thai team is fundamentally two teams from the previous Thai team, and they are also very good at defending with more ground attacks.
However, after all, the Chinese team has an absolute advantage in technology, and it is a home game, and in the twentieth minute, Tang Zheng contributed a shocking world wave under the cheering and shouting of the 'Dragon Team Fan Club' at the Tianhe Sports Center.
He suddenly picked up his right foot 35 meters from the goal, and the Thai player who defended him did not react at all, and the ball shot out was like a cannonball, and the Thai goalkeeper Hataratanku, who was born with insufficient height, reacted but failed to touch the football, and the football hung directly in the upper right corner of the goal.
The Chinese team, who were the first to break the deadlock, seemed to find a sense of goal in the subsequent game, with Lu Liang and Wu Sanshi each contributing before the end of the first half to help China lead Thailand 3-0.
At the start of the second half, the manager rotated his squad widely, giving those Super League players more opportunities to find their game.
In Lippi's view, if the Chinese team wants to compete for the Asian Cup championship, it must rely on the performance of players in Europe, but domestic players can not be ignored either, football is a whole, and all players must be pinched into a whole.
The World Cup in Brazil this summer can enter the quarterfinals, not that the overall strength of the Chinese team has reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup, it can only be said that the luck of the Chinese team is good, the group draw and the 1/8 final opponent meet well, otherwise it will be very difficult to qualify from the group.
However, there is a significant difference in the strength of domestic players and European players, and the offensive players in the second half are basically domestic players, and they are not decisive enough in passing and receiving the ball, even if Tang Zheng is a world-class star to organize the attack, he failed to break through the goal of the Thai team again, and the score of 3:0 continued until the end of the game.
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Due to the imminent start of the Asian Cup in Australia, the traditional New Year's Day Chinese team has no holiday, they must prepare for the Asian Cup in full swing, and at the same time, in order to adapt to the different climate of Australia, they will fly to Melbourne after the warm-up match with the Thai team.
The warm-up match between the Chinese team and New Zealand is on New Year's Day, New Zealand's overall strength is not particularly strong, but the body is very strong, except for Tang Zheng and ** can maintain control of the football under the collision of New Zealand players, other players will always stumble.
In the face of such a strong opponent but not much technical content, Tang Zheng strengthened his running range, and his teammates around him also knew Tang Zheng's intentions, so they accelerated the speed of passing the football at his feet and reduced the time of holding the ball at his feet.
Slowly, the New Zealand players found that their pressing was useless, and the football often passed to another Chinese player before they could run to the Chinese player with the ball.
Many people say that power football controls technical football, but in fact, it is not, as long as technical football reaches a certain level, it can crush power football.
Of course, this statement is only used in the midfield vs. football scramble.
Once the Chinese team's attack entered the 30-meter area of New Zealand's defense, the problem of not being strong enough was exposed, but the Chinese team with Tang Zheng as the core played in a very orderly manner, and would use the speed advantage of the two wings to create offensive space when the middle penetration was in trouble.
** The attacking line formed by Wu Sanshi on the right side is full of speed and impact, and the attack on the left side may not be as impactful as the right side, but the new European Golden Boy Award winner Lu Liang can take the ball and cut inside on the left side, and then create opportunities for his teammates in the middle and on the right.
However, it has to be said that New Zealand was extremely disciplined, did not mess up in the continuous passive defence, and the first half ended in a draw.
In the second half, Yibian fought again, and Sun Jingbo came out as a substitute for Wu Sanshi to strengthen the side breakthrough.
With Sun Jingbo coming off the bench, the Chinese team's two wings of the attack were vigorous, and the offensive was like a tide.
Tang Zheng showed the value of a superstar in the 60th minute of the game when he received a delicate cross from Sun Jingbo from the right and headed the ball into the net with New Zealand goalkeeper Stephen Marinovic.
And this goal was also the only goal of the game.
Although the Chinese team has a lot of attacking methods, there are not many players who can really rely on it.
Gao Lin plays very hard and likes to make balls for his teammates, but his real position is a striker, which is used to score goals.
Lu Liang and Sun Jingbo have outstanding abilities, but unfortunately their physical fitness needs to be improved, and it is easy to be confused once they encounter difficult opponents.
However, fortunately, in the group stage of the Asian Cup, apart from Saudi Arabia, the opponents are relatively strong, Uzbekistan and Palestine are not very strong, and they can win the game through strong technical ability.
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After playing a warm-up match against New Zealand, the Chinese team flew to Brisbane to prepare for the first group game against Saudi Arabia.
Before the start of the Asian Cup in Australia, Tang Zheng was concerned about Real Madrid's first La Liga game after a short winter break, visiting Mestalla to challenge Valencia.
Valencia's strength has dropped significantly in recent seasons, but it is often able to burst into great energy in the strong dialogue.
The game was played at the home stadium of the Mestalla, and the performance was as good as ever.
Real Madrid, which lacks Tang Zheng, does not know how to organize the attack under the pressure of Valencia players, Cristiano Ronaldo, James Rodriguez have all fallen into their own battles, and Benzema is even more isolated.
Had it not been for vice-captain Sergio Ramos' second-half controversial corner, Real Madrid would have suffered their first defeat of the season at Mestalla.
Although Real Madrid did not lose at the Mestalla, they still did not share the world record of 24 consecutive wins in all competitions with their rivals Coritiba.
Tang Zheng, who watched the live broadcast of the whole game, shook his head and sighed, he thought that there would be problems when the team lost his game, but he didn't expect that the problem would be infinitely magnified by the opponent.
Luckily, there were no strong teams in the next month, otherwise the points would have happened again.
In the blink of an eye, the opening match of the 16th AFC Football Championship 2015 kicked off at the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium in Australia, with hosts Australia and Kuwait between the two sides.
With an absolute advantage in strength, Australia defeated Kuwait 4:1.
The first Asian Cup match of the Chinese team was played in Brisbane a day later, and at 8 p.m. local time in Australia on January 10, the first round of the Asian Cup Group B match between the Chinese team and Saudi Arabia kicked off at Brisbane Stadium.
The 52,500-capacity Brisbane Stadium was almost full, and apart from the thousands of Saudi Arabian fans who came to watch the game, the stadium was almost occupied by the Chinese Dragons fan club wearing red jerseys.
"Whoa"
From the first second of the game, the Dragons fans will create loud chanting, deafening wave after wave.
The Chinese team made a splash in last year's World Cup in Brazil, reaching the quarterfinals, and finally lost to the Netherlands on penalties before missing out on the World Cup semi-finals, so both Chinese citizens and Chinese Americans feel great pride.
Before the start of the Asian Cup in Australia, the Chinese team was tied with the host Australia, South Korea and Japan as one of the four most likely to win the Asian Cup, but many European media believe that the Chinese team is the team that has the absolute strength to compete for the championship in the true sense.
South Korea, Japan and Australia are evenly matched in overall strength, but the Chinese team is not bad in terms of overall strength, and there is also superstar Tang Zheng in charge.
Coupled with the assistance of powerful players such as Lu Liang, Sun Jingbo, Hao Junmin, **, and Yan Junling, and with the world-class head coach Lippi at the helm, as long as there is no situation where he dies, there is basically no suspense for the championship.
Saudi Arabia's offline decline in the past few years is very obvious, in addition to the physical advantage, the technical ability is completely crushed by the Chinese team.
Of course, this crushing refers to the midfield, because the Chinese team's ball control ability in the midfield and backfield needs to be strengthened.
Lippi did not underestimate the opponent in the first Asian Cup group stage of the Chinese team because of the decline in Saudi Arabia's strength, and he knew that the lion and rabbit also used all his strength to play the truth, Tang Zheng did not play as an attacking midfielder, and he partnered with the veteran Zheng Zhi in the back two.
Speaking of which, I have to mention the captain Zheng Zhi, according to his career plan, he retired from the national team after fulfilling his dream of the World Cup, and devoted himself to playing for the club, but the head coach Lippi looked at the entire Chinese Super League, and there were only a handful of players who could have the strength to partner with Tang Zheng in the position of defensive midfielder, and only Zheng Zhi was qualified, so after trying various combinations, he personally persuaded Zheng Zhi to return to the national team and partner Tang Zheng to participate in the Asian Cup.
Zheng Zhi played in the 2004 Asian Cup in China, but he played as a central defender at that time, unable to show his best level, and then witnessed the Japanese team's Hand of God snatching the Asian Cup championship at home, and he was very helpless.
And now there is another opportunity to win the Asian Cup again, Zheng Zhi does not want to miss it, he is almost 35 years old, he has no time to wait for the next Asian Cup, so he will return to the national team naturally.
The Chinese team under Lippi had a very new tactic, pressing high from the start of the game, forcing the Saudi Arabian defenders, who were not particularly technically capable at their feet, to choose to blindly move forward.
If you are lucky, you can give Hazzaz to the front, and if you are unlucky, you will give up control of football to the Chinese team.
Under the continuous pressure of the Chinese frontcourt players, Saudi Arabia finally exposed the problem in the 23rd minute of the game, Tang Zheng prejudged the ball at the feet of Abid by Caliri and then sent a penetrating through ball on the spot.
Lu Liang on the left side appeared tacitly on Tang Zheng's passing route, facing the frontal defense of central defender Shahrani, he pushed the ball to the right, shook off the angle, and directly shot a cold arrow on the left side of the penalty area.
The ball rolled against the turf towards the far corner of the goal, and goalkeeper Walid Abdullah reacted, but did not touch the ball......