Portugal eventually beat Ghana 2-1 thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo's late winner, but Germany's narrow win over the United States by just one goal meant that Portugal's goal difference with three points was still behind the losing United States.

The two qualifying spots in Group G came to Germany and the United States, while the qualifying spots in Group H were Belgium and Algeria.

With the end of the last four group games, the group stage of the World Cup in Brazil has all come to an end.

The competition in the group stage can be described as a few joys and a few sorrows, and after half a month, the dust of the top 16 has settled.

European teams are tied with South America for the most seats, with five each, while North and Central America and the Caribbean surprisingly occupy three, Africa two, and Asia one.

Brazil and Mexico in Group A, Netherlands and Chile in Group B, Colombia and China in Group C, Costa Rica and Uruguay in Group D, Argentina and Nigeria in Group E, France and Switzerland in Group F, Germany and the United States in Group G, Belgium and Algeria in Group H.

The 1/8 final arrangement of the World Cup in Brazil is the same as in the past, with two adjacent groups staggered for the first round of elimination, that is, A1 vs. B2, B1 vs. A2, C1 vs. D2, D1 vs. C2, E1 vs. F2, F2 vs. D2, G1 vs. H2, H1 vs. G2.

In the eight 1/8 finals, each game is divided into 1-8 games, A1 vs. B2 is the first game, B1 vs. A2 is the second game, C1 vs. D2 is the third game, D1 vs. C2 is the fourth game, and so on, until the eighth game H1 vs. G2.

Then in the 1/8 finals of 1-8 games, the upper and lower halves are set up, the first and third, fifth and seventh games are the first half, and the second and fourth, sixth and eighth games are the bottom half.

Upper half: A1 vs. B2, C1 vs. D2, F1 vs. D2, G1 vs. H2.

Lower half: B1 vs. A2, D1 vs. C2, E1 vs. F2, H1 vs. G2.

The 1/8 final between China and Costa Rica is in the bottom half, which means that China can beat Costa Rica in the 1/8 final, and they will face the winner between the Netherlands and Mexico.

Of course, the 1/8 finals are not yet here, and it is too early to think about the 1/4 finals.

Costa Rica was able to emerge from Group D of the Group of Death, and also qualified as the top of the group, and apart from a certain amount of chance, its strength should not be underestimated.

In the two days before the Chinese team prepared for the knockout round in Recife, head coach Lippi talked more about the mentality of the players, not to take Costa Rica lightly because they are not well-known, and to maintain 100% concentration in the game.

The reason why Lippi focuses on the mentality is entirely because the general mentality of Chinese players is very complex and incomprehensible.

The opponent's strength is weak, which is easy to cause a lack of concentration in the game, and the opponent's strength is strong, and it is easy to give up on himself, so the fans who watched the past games were extremely heartbroken.

After the 3:2 reversal of Colombia in the first round, Tang Zheng had a meeting with his teammates, and his mentality was indeed very right, and he performed very well at the beginning of the second round against the Greek team, but with the Greek team playing one less person, the contempt that Chinese players are prone to is exposed, so there is a draw with Greece under a good situation.

At the end of the group stage, the World Cup in Brazil was given a two-day break.

Portugal was disbanded on the spot the day after it was eliminated, and Cristiano Ronaldo met with Tang Zheng at the hotel where the Chinese team stayed before leaving Recife.

In fact, Cristiano Ronaldo's purpose in looking for Tang Zheng is very simple, that is, to cheer up his club friends in person.

Because Tang Zheng personally came to cheer for the match between Portugal and Ghana, Cristiano Ronaldo, as the captain of Portugal, naturally wanted to thank him personally, and at the same time of thanks, he naturally had some encouragement and support.

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The World Cup has entered a short interval, and the atmosphere of the World Cup in China is unprecedentedly fanatical, and many business premises are full of posters about the Chinese team in the 1/8 finals of the World Cup in Brazil.

What is the all-night football beer for free, the Internet café Internet all-night football football free peanuts, bar beer buy one get one free, etc......

Even many merchants are engaged in pre-ordering, if the Chinese team can beat Costa Rica by one goal, it is 9% off, 2 goals is 8% off, 3 goals are 7% off, and so on. If you can win by 10 goals, it's all free.

I have to say that as the Chinese men's football team has made further progress in the World Cup in Brazil, the domestic economy has also risen.

Although it doesn't seem obvious, it makes many businesses make a lot of money.

You must know that from the beginning of the Chinese men's football team's preparation for the World Cup to the present, the central 1 to the central 5 have been constantly reporting on the preparation of the Chinese team, and as the Chinese team has become the only team in Asia to advance to the top 16, the fanatical football atmosphere in China has become unprecedented.

At this time, the domestic media in Japan and South Korea, which symbolize the pinnacle of Asian football, are embarrassed, especially the Korean media.

In the past, the tail of the Korean media and the Japanese media was very high, saying that their domestic players were the top in Asia and could play the absolute main force in the five major European leagues.

But now it seems that it is useless.

Australia, who joined the AFC in 2006, has gradually become easier to qualify for the World Cup, but there is still a big gap between Australia and the world's top football, losing to Chile and the Netherlands in the first two rounds and being eliminated early.

Iran and Japan were not eliminated sooner, but they only delayed their deaths.

The Chinese team is different, the first two rounds of one win and one draw basically set the tone of the group, if it were not for the second round of the draw against Greece in a good situation, it would have been one round ahead of the group with the seeded team Colombia.

After so many years of ridicule and ridicule by the Japanese and South Korean media, now that the clouds are finally open and the moon is bright, it is inevitable that the domestic media in China will exaggerate.

Therefore, in the few days when the Chinese team was preparing for the 1/8 finals, many Japanese and Korean students had conflicts with Chinese domestic students, and the fundamental reason was that Chinese fans used the excellent results of the Chinese team as a show off, which led to dissatisfaction among Japanese and Korean students, and then quarrels and even physical conflicts.

Getting back to the point, while the Chinese players are actively preparing for the 1/8 finals, Lippi and his coaching team are also studying Costa Rica.

In fact, Costa Rica's ability to qualify from the Central and North American regions is directly related to three players, the first is naturally the number one star in the team, the No. 10 Ruiz who currently plays for Fulham in the Premier League, then the goalkeeper Navas who plays for Levante in La Liga, and the last one is Campbell, a post-90s player on loan from Arsenal.

The three players just formed a central axis, coupled with the fact that they played very well and showed their best self, and in addition to luck, they had the strength to advance to the round of 16.

Therefore, Lippi communicated with his Chinese assistant Li Tie more than once, asking him to ring the alarm bell for the players every day to avoid the recurrence of the situation in the second round of the group stage.

Tang Zheng is China's No. 1 star, he has a high influence in the team, often cooperates with Chinese assistant coach Li Tie to instill the meaning of game concentration, and from time to time explains that the lion fights the rabbit with all his strength.

Moreover, Costa Rica is not a rabbit, and the Chinese team is not a lion.

Although the personal reputation of Costa Rican players cannot be compared with Tang Zheng, it is not much different in the strength of many players, plus Ruiz, Navas and Campbell, three more famous players lead, but they play the strongest strength.

In the blink of an eye, the two-day gap between the World Cup in Brazil passed, and the war was rekindled.

The first matchday of the knockout stage features two quarter-finals, with the first match to be played by hosts Brazil against Chile.

However, due to time constraints, Tang Zheng did not have time to pay attention to this game, because the game time was 2 pm local time in Brazil, and the Chinese team had an outdoor training plan, so he could only watch the live broadcast of the game for a short time during the training break.

In the first 1/8 finals, both teams played very cautiously, and coming to the knockout stage means that no one can afford to lose!

Especially in the first ten minutes of the opening game, neither side invested too much in the attack, and the focus was more on the defensive end.

It wasn't until the 19th minute that Neymar headed in a corner from the left, Thiago Silva, who had scrambled for the post, headed back, and his partner David Luiz fired home from the back post.

The Chilean team, which was behind the score, consciously strengthened the attack, and Scolari, who coached the Brazilian team, was a defensive expert, and he was particularly concerned with the team's defense.

But many times accidents are everywhere, in the 32nd minute of the game, Brazilian left-back Marcelo threw the ball from the backline, Hulk Hulk's return pass was intercepted by Vargas, who passed into the box, Sanchez got the ball on the right rib of the penalty area and calmly fired a low shot into the far corner to equalize.

After that, neither side achieved anything and went into extra time.

Unfortunately, neither side could break through the opponent's goal in extra time and had to go to a brutal penalty shoot-out.

Just as the Chinese team's training session was over, Tang Zheng was able to watch the penalty shootout with his mobile phone.

Brazil sent in centre-back Luiz in the first penalty shoot-out, who slammed the ball into goal, and then Chile's Pinilla, who took the spot-kick, was saved by goalkeeper Cesar.

Brazil's Willian deceived goalkeeper Bravo when he took the penalty in the second round, but his spot-kick went wide of the post.

The next player to take the second penalty on behalf of Chile was Tang Zheng's friend Sanchez, so Tang Zheng, who was holding the frame of his mobile phone with both hands, felt a little nervous.

Alexis Sanchez is Chile's number one star and the pressure on him is so high that once he scores the ball, the penalty score will be 1-1.

I don't know if it was because of the pressure, but his penalty was also denied by Brazilian goalkeeper Cesar.

Sanchez looked very remorseful and painful, holding his head in his hands, as if he couldn't believe that his penalty had been saved by Cesar.

Penalties continued in the third round, with Marcelo and Arangis, who had played for their respective teams, scoring 2-1 to give Brazil the lead.

The fourth round can be said to be the turning point of the penalty shootout, Hulk's penalty was blocked by Bravo with his legs, and midfielder Dias withstood the pressure to score the penalty and equalize.

Brazil's fifth player to start a penalty shoot-out was Neymar, who withstood the pressure and smashed the ball into the bottom left corner of the net.

Jarrah, the fifth Chilean starter, deceived goalkeeper Cesar but his penalty was denied by the crossbar......

As a result, Brazil eliminated Chile with an aggregate score of 4:3 and became the first team to advance to the quarterfinals of the World Cup.

Two hours later, the quarter-final was still a South American derby, with Colombia taking on Uruguay at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

It is worth mentioning that in the final round of Uruguay's life-and-death battle with Italy, the striker Suarez had an obvious action of biting Chiellini during the game, although the game was not seen by the referee, but it was difficult to escape the responsibility after the game.

The FIFA Disciplinary Committee decided to ban Suarez for nine matches, the first of which was the quarter-final between Colombia and Uruguay.

The remaining eight games are the remaining matches of Uruguay's World Cup, and if the quarter-finals are eliminated, the remaining eight games will naturally extend to the World Cup qualifiers.

At the same time, they will not be able to participate in football-related activities for four months and will be fined 100,000 Swiss francs.

The most beneficial for Colombia is undoubtedly Suarez's failure to reach the 1/8 finals, so that Colombia will have much less pressure on the defensive end.

Edinson Cavani is just as capable but will struggle to find opportunities without Suarez up front.

The quarter-finals between Colombia and Uruguay started at 8 p.m. local time in Brazil, and Tang Zheng watched the live broadcast in his hotel room with his teammates as usual.

It has to be said that James Rodriguez is in very good form, carrying the national team's attacking banner when striker Falcao missed the World Cup finals due to injury, and he scored a stunning left-footed volley in the 28th minute of the first half.

No solution to the world wave!

Just five minutes into the second half, it was James Rodriguez again, who scored his sixth World Cup goal with a header from Cuadrado in the penalty area and a direct shot with his foot.

In the following matches, Colombia finally defeated Uruguay 2-0 thanks to a brace from the popular fried chicken James Rodriguez to advance to the quarter-finals, where they will face the host Brazil in the quarter-finals.

Looking at the proud James Rodriguez in the broadcast screen, Tang Zheng was very envious.

Despite the loss of Colombia's biggest star Falcao, Seon was a blessing and the younger James Rodriguez shone to lead his country to the quarter-finals.

So Tang Zheng was wondering if the fourth 1/8 final at the Pernambuco State Arena tomorrow night would lead the national team to defeat Costa Rica and advance to the quarterfinals like Colombia.

At the end of the game, his teammates left one after another, and Tang Zheng was still thinking about the 1/8 finals tomorrow night.

I don't know how long it took, but he came to the window and looked through the glass window at the night view of the city of Recife, and his thoughts gradually became firm.

It's just the 1/8 finals, do you need to worry so much?

When things are at the worst they will mend!