Speaking after the match against Sporting Gijón, Simeone admitted that the Champions League rotation had a negative impact on the team's form, but fortunately: "We won the game in the end, but luckily we had a high ......"

Everyone agrees with him.

Fortunately, Atletico Madrid has Gao Zheng.

Otherwise, if this game is not good, it may really capsize in the gutter.

Gao Zheng once again saved Atletico Madrid and made headlines in the major media the next day, but this is no longer an uncommon thing for Gao Zheng.

He has long been accustomed to all kinds of fancy praise from the media and fans.

What he values more is that Atletico Madrid has three points, and can continue to maintain the pressure on Barcelona and retain the hope of winning the title.

After the match against Sporting Gijón, he left Madrid to return home to prepare for the round of 40 against the Maldives.

At present, the top 40 matches are coming to an end, and the Chinese team has played six games, winning all of them, accumulating 18 points, and there are two games left.

Their rivals Qatar also have six games, five wins and one loss, with 15 points, and also two games remaining, including one away game against China.

China's hopes of progressing to the round of 12 are already high, as long as they don't lose to Qatar by a big margin at home.

Some optimistic Chinese fans can't help but look forward to the round of 12.

It was the final stage of the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup, with the 12 teams divided into two groups, with the top two teams in each group qualifying directly for the World Cup finals in Russia, while the third-placed teams in the two groups played two more play-offs, and the winning team could not directly participate in the World Cup finals, but had to fight Oceania for the last World Cup spot, which is likely to be New Zealand after Australia switched to the AFC.

Only by beating New Zealand in the play-offs will you get a ticket to the World Cup.

For the round of 12, this Chinese team is extremely unfamiliar - no one in the team has participated in the final stage of the World Cup qualifiers.

Zheng Zhi, the oldest member of the team, also missed the 2001 round of 10, and since then, the Chinese team has not reached the final stage of the World Cup qualifiers, which was previously called the top 10 and now called the top 12.

Qualifiers for three consecutive World Cups, a full twelve years.

During this period, all the veteran players who participated in the top 10 tournaments retired cleanly.

Even the staff within the Football Association are mostly inexperienced in the round of 12 - those who have experience are basically arrested.

Football is a game of experience, and no experience means not knowing how to prepare for the round of 12.

The Round of 12 is more than just 10 matches.

There's a lot going on here, from logistical support, to the selection of warm-up opponents, from training to matches...... It's interlocking, and if something goes wrong with one of them, it may affect the whole picture.

No experience means not knowing how to do these things and what to do.

This is the disadvantage of the Chinese team.

Many people are worried that the inexperienced Chinese team will fail in the round of 12 and will not be able to participate in the World Cup.

But it's not only disadvantaged, Gao Zheng and Wu Lei, the two La Liga-level forwards, can at least solve the problem of the Chinese team's weakness.

Football comes down to scoring more goals, and as long as it can score, the Chinese team is not without hope of qualifying for the finals of the World Cup in Russia.

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On March 24, on their home turf, the Chinese team defeated the Maldives 4-0, Gao Zheng scored twice and contributed an assist.

This score is exactly the same as the previous "away" win over the Maldives.

But at this point, it doesn't really make sense to win a few goals.

Only the last game against Qatar remained, and the Chinese team scored 37 goals, conceded one goal, and had a goal difference of 36.

On the same day, Qatar beat Hong Kong 2-0 at home. They scored a total of 29 goals, conceded four goals and had a goal difference of 25.

Whether it is the number of goals or the number of goals difference, the Chinese team is far ahead of Qatar, and in the last game against Qatar, as long as the Chinese team does not lose to Qatar by 11 goals at its home stadium, it will definitely advance to the round of 12.

But no matter how bad the Chinese team is, no matter how much it is scolded for "mud can't support the wall", how can it lose double digits on its home turf?

So after the match with the Maldives, some Chinese fans can't wait to start celebrating the Chinese team's return to the top 12 after 14 years.

Even the mainstream media is unanimously optimistic that the Chinese team will reach the top 12, and the media is full of various expectations and analyses for the next top 12 matches.

Not much attention has been paid to China's home game against Qatar five days later.

The Chinese don't pay much attention, but Qatar does. Because it will determine whether they will be able to participate in the round of 12 or not.

According to the AFC's rules on the Asian qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, in the round of 40 stage, the first group of each group directly advances to the round of 12, a total of eight teams, and the other four group winners with the best results advance to the next stage of the competition, and the eight group winners form the round of 12.

With the final round remaining, Qatar have 18 points and are second in the best of the eight groups.

But it's not safe, as there are three other teams that could threaten Qatar's position.

On the premise that Qatar lost to the Chinese team away:

The UAE currently have 16 points in Group A, and if they beat Saudi Arabia at home in their last game, they can surpass Qatar with 19 points and 18 points.

Jordan in Group B also have 16 points, and a win over Australia in their last game away will also be 19 points.

North Korea, in Group H, currently has 16 points and will play the last game away to the Philippines.

In fact, if Qatar wants to be out, the conditions required are very harsh.

All three teams must win at the same time for Qatar to be eliminated.

But even if there is a theoretical possibility of going out, Qatar has to guard against it.

They can't control the games of the other three opponents, so they can only hope that the Chinese team will raise their noble hands and not play a dead hand at home.

After arriving in China, Qatar's head coach Daniel Carreño kept touting the Chinese team and Gao Zheng in front of the media, just like Gao Zheng's fan brother.

At the same time, he also paid attention to various reports about the Chinese team in the media.

From phrases such as "The national football team prepares for the Qatar match, the players laugh and laugh during training. They seemed very relaxed after advancing to the top 12 in advance......" In such news, he found that the Chinese team was really relaxed and didn't seem to take the next game to heart.

This made Carreño happy...... That's it! Just don't take us to heart! Go celebrate your qualification for the Top 12, and we'll settle the account when we reach the Top 12!

The reason why his team is so embarrassed, and in the end it depends on the face of the Chinese team, is entirely because they did not win against the Chinese team at home. So in Carreño's mind, this account will be remembered until he leads the team to complete his revenge.

In order to have a chance to get revenge, he now has to make compromises, hoping to curry favor with the Chinese team and keep his team alive in the World Cup qualifiers.