Chapter 225: The League Begins
Barcelona lost the Spanish Super Cup on their home turf and Enrique's plans for a five-time title were completely ruined. This year, they are left with only one Club World Cup to fight for.
Even if Barcelona win the Club World Cup, this year may not be perfect for them.
And it's not just about losing the Spanish Super Cup.
Pique was sent off for insulting the linesman during a match, which could result in a four-match ban and a maximum of 12 games. According to the rules, insulting the referee is an aggravating circumstance, and Pique is considered to have hit the muzzle of the gun.
The red card ban in the Spanish Super Cup will be carried over to the league, so Pique may miss a few games at the start of the next La Liga season.
It is not known if he will be absent until the third round of the league, where Barcelona will face Atletico Madrid......
On 22 August, Atletico Madrid welcomed the first round of La Liga, and their opponents were promoted Maras Palmas.
Playing at home, the opponent is still a promoted team, and considering that the team has just played two Super Cup games, Simeone has made some rotation in this game.
However, Gao Zheng is still in the starting lineup.
The game kicked off at half past two Beijing time, and CCTV naturally broadcast it live.
Although the kick-off time was late, there were still many Chinese fans waiting in front of the TV to watch the game.
The Spanish Super Cup was very lively, and Gao Zheng scored a hat trick against Barcelona, but because CCTV did not have the broadcast rights, not everyone saw Gao Zheng's outstanding performance.
For Chinese fans, La Liga is the real start of the new season.
Since it's the beginning, naturally I can't be absent.
Everyone rested for a summer, just waiting for the new season to continue to cheer for Gao Zheng.
And Gao Zheng did not disappoint the Chinese fans.
Sixteen minutes into the game, he opened the scoring for Atletico Madrid with a direct free-kick to break the deadlock.
And this goal was also the only goal of the game - with Gao Zheng's goal, Atletico Madrid defeated promoted Maras Palmas 1-0 at their home stadium and scored three points.
Their rivals Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 1-0 away and Real Madrid were held to a 0-0 draw away by Sporting Gijón.
After Carlo Ancelotti's resignation this season, Real Madrid brought in another tactician, Rafael Benitez, as the team's manager.
But judging from the first round of this league, Benitez's coaching journey may not be so easy......
A week later, Atletico Madrid travel to Sevilla in their first tough game of the new season.
Everyone thought that Sevilla, who were playing at home, could be evenly matched with Atletico Madrid, but both the process and the result of the game were very surprising.
Sevilla were overpowered on their home turf and in the 35th minute, Koke took the lead for Atletico Madrid. In the 79th minute, Gabi extended the score to 2:0.
Gao Zheng sealed the win for his team in the 85th minute, and his goal helped Atletico Madrid beat Sevilla 3-0 away to make it two wins in a row.
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After two rounds of La Liga, there will be a temporary hiatus, followed by the national team break.
As the indispensable core of the Chinese national team, Gao Zheng naturally has to fly back to China to participate in two top 40 matches.
Their opponents are Hong Kong and the Maldives.
In the minds of Chinese fans, the six points of these two games have been booked in advance.
Neither Hong Kong nor the Maldives can threaten the Chinese team.
This group can really make the Chinese team feel a little threatened, I am afraid that only Qatar.
According to the rules of the Asian qualifiers, the eight group winners in the top 40 stage will directly advance to the round of 12, and the remaining eight group runners will select the best four group winners to advance to the round of 12.
However, due to the Indonesian government's interference in football affairs, the Indonesian national team was banned by FIFA from participating in the following World Cup qualifiers before the start of the round of 40, and all matches involving the Indonesian team were cancelled.
As a result, the rules for calculating the best team will also be changed, and the group runners-up of the other seven groups without Indonesia will not be counted as the two-legged result with the last team in their respective groups when comparing the results.
According to the expectations of Chinese fans and the media, the Chinese team with Gao Zheng will definitely win the first place in the group, so they don't care about how to compare the results of the second place in the group.
As the third place in the Asian Cup, it shouldn't be difficult to win the group of the top 40, right?
Qatar may have some strength, but whether it is Bhutan, Maldives or Hong Kong, China, they are all the targets of the Chinese team to score points.
And not only to win the game, but also to win by a big score, so that when competing against Qatar, the goal difference advantage may come in handy.
Therefore, in the eyes of Chinese fans and media, Bhutan, Maldives, and Hong Kong are all targets for the Chinese team to win the goal. If you can't get enough clean sheets on them, you're a failure.
It is precisely because of this that when the Chinese team only defeated Bhutan 7-0 away, the domestic public opinion reaction was so strong...... After all, in their minds, the score of this game should be in double digits.
So far, Hong Kong has played two games, one more than China and Qatar.
They beat Bhutan 7-0 at home in the first and Maldives 2-0 at home in the second. For the time being, they are top of the group with six points and nine goal difference.
However, they also beat the Maldives by only two goals at their home stadium, which shows their quality. In the eyes of many Chinese fans, the Chinese team has at least five goals to win at home against Hong Kong, China.
The Chinese team will play Hong Kong, China at home, and then go to the Maldives away five days later, when the home stadium was arranged, with this in mind, the Chinese Football Association arranged the home stadium in Shenzhen, so that after playing the game with Hong Kong, China, they can fly directly from here to Malé, the capital of the Maldives. The journey is much shorter, which also allows the players to get more time to rest.
However, in late August, the turf at the home turf of Malé, the capital of the Maldives, was badly damaged by a large celebration, and the AFC concluded that the turf was not in condition for the World Cup qualifiers. The Maldives hopes to switch home and away games with the Chinese team, that is, the home stadium of the Maldives on September 8 will be replaced by the home stadium of the Chinese team, and the home stadium of the Chinese team will be replaced by the home stadium of the Maldives in March next year.
However, this request was rejected by the Chinese Football Association, on the one hand, because the home games of the Chinese team have long been contracted out, and now the temporary request to switch home and away games, the loss of the Chinese side will be great, and it is too late in time. On the other hand, it is naturally because the Chinese team's two World Cup qualifiers in March next year are at home, and this schedule is beneficial to the Chinese team. If it is reversed now, the Chinese team will have to travel thousands of miles to play away at that time, and the labor expedition is only afraid that it will be detrimental to the results.
Anyway, the problem is the Maldives, and the Chinese team naturally has no need to think about them.
In the end, the Maldives could only give up this home stadium, and the Chinese Football Association took advantage of the situation to apply to the AFC to arrange this game in China, so that the Chinese team was equivalent to an extra home stadium out of thin air.
The Maldives wants to find a neutral venue, but time is tight and the task is heavy, and the neutral venue is actually so easy to find? They had no choice but to agree to the Chinese team's application.
So now after the Chinese team plays the match with the Hong Kong team in Shenzhen, it will go north to Shenyang to play the "away" match against the Maldives.