On October 6, the Chinese team played a warm-up match against the UAE national team.

However, this game is not an international A' level event, it is a real warm-up match, the referees are all casually found, and there is no restriction on substitutions, mainly to practice before the official world preliminaries.

Cheng Hai didn't play the whole game, only played the first half, scored 3 goals and assisted 1.

In the end, the Chinese team defeated the United Arab Emirates 6-1 at home, which was a victory preview for the next official World Preliminary Tournament.

The 3 goals scored by Cheng Hai in this warm-up match cannot be counted as career goals, nor can they be counted in the annual total goal record, but they can be counted as Cheng Hai's career total goals, just like the 1,000-goal record of football king Pele.

If you only count career goals, no one in the world has reached more than 1,000 career goals, whether it is Pele or Gerd Muller, their more than 1,000 goals are counted in warm-up games, friendly matches and other games, to reach more than 1,000 goals.

Therefore, these 3 goals are counted as Cheng Hai's football career total goals, but not professional match goals.

After this warm-up game, everyone continued to train hard.

Although this time it was a home game, but in the face of Iraq, which is similar in strength to Jordan, the Chinese team, which was only defeated by the Jordanians in the last game, did not dare to have any careless thoughts about the enemy.

Including Cheng Hai.

Although he has already achieved the miracle of reaching the triple digit level of annual goals, he has sparked global buzz and is widely regarded as the youngest world superstar in the history of football.

But the lesson of losing to Jordan in the last World Preliminary Tournament also made Cheng Hai remember it vividly, in this game against Iraq, Cheng Hai, like his teammates, did not have any contempt, but made up his mind to go all out.

Five days later, at 20:15 on the evening of October 11, 2011, the Pengcheng Universiade Center Stadium was full.

In the cheers of more than 60,000 Chinese fans, with the referee's whistle, the third round of Group A of the top 20 group stage of the 2014 Brazil World Cup Asian Qualifiers officially began.

There is nothing wrong with the caution of Cheng Hai and his teammates.

Iraq's strength is similar to Jordan's, and seeing the Jordanian team defeat the Chinese team led by Cheng Hai in the last game gave the Iraqis unlimited confidence and courage.

Therefore, they were as tough as the Jordanians in this game. Even the Iraqis, who have suffered so much from the war that they have to play their home games at neutral venues, are even more fighting than the Jordanians.

Coupled with the inspiration of Augsburg's strict defense against Cheng Hai in the 8th round of the Bundesliga, Iraq, like Augsburg, used an extreme defensive strategy against Cheng Hai in this game.

They are betting that the rest of the Chinese team doesn't have the same goalscoring ability as the rest of Borussia Dortmund's.

Unfortunately, they made the wrong bet.

Although other players such as Zheng Zhi and Yu Hai of the Huaguo team are not as good as Dortmund's Gundogan, Kagawa Shinji and others, Iraq's own defensive players are not as good as Augsburg's players!

Although a lot of chances were wasted, with Cheng Hai attracting most of the Iraqis' defensive attention, in the 31st minute of the first half, the Chinese team finally seized the opportunity, and Deng Zhuoxiang assisted Yu Hai to open the scoring and score the first goal of the Chinese team.

The Chinese team leads Iraq 1-0.

At this time, the Iraqis will not be able to hold on.

They are not really like Augsburg, to stop Cheng Hai's annual record of 100 goals, all their tactics have to serve the victory.

Even if you can't win away, you have to try to get a draw and get a point!

Therefore, when the score is behind, the Iraqis have no choice but to continue to defend while starting to look for opportunities to counterattack.

But Iraq's own strength is not as good as that of the Chinese national team, and it is an away game, when they have to strengthen their attack, wouldn't it provide Cheng Hai with an opportunity?

Previously, the Iraqis defended him like Augsburg, and he didn't find a chance, but when the opponent stepped up the attack, Cheng Hai, who retreated to the midfield, had too many opportunities.

Before the end of the first half, in the 43rd minute, it was the Iraqi team's attack that was cut off, and Zheng Zhi immediately made a long pass after breaking the ball and sent the ball to the feet of Cheng Hai near the center circle.

Although Cheng Hai has two Iraqi defenders around him to defend him, the two Asian-level defenders have too much chance of breaking through for Cheng Hai.

This time, Cheng Hai played a good state.

He first took advantage of the stoppage to wipe out the first man with a stoppage, and then immediately followed up with a bull's tail to shake off the second defender, and then rushed with the ball towards the empty Iraqi backfield.

Because it was the Iraqis attacking just now, although they did not invest all their troops, in order to avoid the disconnection between the front and back fields, the forward pressure of the overall formation was inevitable.

As a result, when Cheng Hai broke through two of his close defenders to reach Iraq's half, there was actually only one centre-back left in front of him, Ali Hussein.

Although there were still people behind who were chased by the two players who had just broken through by Cheng Hai, their speed was too far behind Cheng Hai.

Cheng Hai's speed and dribbling, even with the ball, are faster than them, making them chase farther and farther.

Although Hussein had the heart to retreat and defend and wait for the support of his teammates, his retreat speed was also much slower than Cheng Hai's.

Before he retreated to the top of the arc of the big penalty area, he was caught up by Cheng Hai, and was forced to stop and half-squat on Cheng Hai's way forward, ready to stop Cheng Hai even if he fouled.

However, Cheng Hai's ability to control the ball is too strong.

Before the two of them got close, Cheng Hai used the perfect cycling.

At this moment, Hussein was a little blind, he couldn't judge whether Cheng Hai's movements were fake or really breakthrough, and he could only rely on his body instinct to shake the center of gravity back and forth with Cheng Hai's movements.

As a result, Cheng Hai only pedaled the bicycle three times, and Hussein lost his center of gravity and fell to the left.

Cheng Hai took this opportunity to flick the ball to the right, and he was about to break through from Hussein's right.

Hussein knew that something was wrong, anyway, he hadn't entered the penalty area yet, and even if he fouled, he wouldn't be awarded a penalty, so Hussein immediately threw his whole body out, ready to block Cheng Hai's single ball even if he fouled a tackle.

However, after the defensive training of the Jordan team, Augsburg, and the opponent in the first half of this game, Cheng Hai had already expected that the opponent might do anything to prevent him from breaking through and scoring goals.

As a result, Hussein's shovel threw the body out, but it did not tackle the ball or knock down the person.

Cheng Hai accelerated violently with his powerful explosiveness, touched the ball one step in advance, slid the ball to the right front, and jumped up immediately, just avoiding Hussein's tackle.

The rest is simple.

Cheng Hai caught up with him on the right side of the penalty area, and in the face of the attacking goalkeeper, he dodged a gap through a change of tempo and volleyed into the far corner.

Because the distance was too close, goalkeeper Caster made a save, but it was still too late.

The ball flew past his feet before struck the inside of the far post and bounced into the net under the desperate gaze of all Iraqis.

In the 43rd minute of the first half, Cheng Hai scored his first goal of the game to help the Huaguo team take a 2-0 lead.

At the same time, this is also Cheng Hai's 101st goal of the year, and he is still continuing to refresh his annual total goal record, heading towards more and more unattainable heights.

Now every goal of Cheng Hai is a new record, so everyone at the scene broke out into warm applause and cheers to pay tribute to Cheng Hai's goal.

Not long after Cheng Hai scored, the referee blew the whistle at the end of the first half, and the two sides entered the halftime break with a score of 2-0, and the Huaguo team, which was playing at home, temporarily led by two goals.

After a 15-minute break, the two sides changed sides and fought again, and Iraq, which was two goals behind, was forced into a desperate situation, and they had no choice but to defend Cheng Hai strictly, and they had to strengthen their attack.

Moreover, the Iraqis, who had been plagued by the war and were extremely tenacious, really pulled a goal back in the 53rd minute.

They swooped into the Chinese penalty area with a long pass from the back, and centre-back Dewey was defeated in a one-on-one duel before Iraqi No.10 striker Younis Mahmoud snatched the first header and was ferried to teammate Mustafa Karim, who was plugged in at the back.

Karim fired a powerful volley into the bottom right corner of the Chinese goal on the edge of the penalty area.

Although goalkeeper Yang Zhi made a save, Karim's shot was too powerful, too fast, and too awkward, so that he couldn't reach it, and he could only watch the ball go into the net in front of his eyes.

Iraq finally pulled a goal back and were only one point behind.

This goal gave the Iraqi players a boost of confidence and morale, and then they were more determined to score goals by strengthening the attack to equalize and even reverse the score.

However, they were never able to play the same kind of attack again.

In fact, it was a bit of luck that Younis was able to grab the first point in the case of the ball just now.

Grabbing the first point and being able to accurately ferry the ball to a teammate in the back row without making a mistake, it also takes luck.

As for Karim's final shot, the power, speed, and angle were all good, and he had not been destroyed by any Chinese team player flying to block the gun's hole, and the luck component was even greater.

He doesn't have the perfect shooting skills of Cheng Hai, even if Karim is asked to receive the same pass in the same position and then hit the goal, let him play five kicks may not be able to hit the shot just now.

As a result, after scoring the first goal, Iraq never saw their second goal again.