Chapter 73: Departure for Doha (The World Cup is coming!) )
The slight advantages that the Dragon Team occupies in the competition with the Syrian team are, to a large extent, the establishment of the eighth round, when the two teams had a direct dialogue, with Shen Feng's killer goal, they scored 3 points.
If the Dragons failed to win that game, then even if the Dragons still beat the Uzbekistan team, at this moment, the hope of advancing is very slim.
Scoring 4 goals in two games, Shen Feng is definitely the biggest contributor to the Dragon Country team's hope of advancing before the final round of the World Cup Qualifiers Asian Zone Top 12!
However, an advantage is just an advantage, and how to turn it into a fact still needs the Dragon Country team to continue to work hard.
The first thing to do is to make sure you win, get the three points and try to get as many clean sheets as possible in the last game against Qatar.
In addition, it is also hoped that the Iranian team, which has already ensured an early qualification for the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia, will not be able to release water in the last game against Syria, at least not lose by a large score.
As for the South Korean team and the Uzbekistan team, although they are currently ahead of the Dragon Country team in points, but in the last round of direct dialogue between the two teams, whoever wins will directly advance to the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia, presumably they will all strive to win.
Because, if the match between South Korea and Uzbekistan ends in a draw, it is very likely that both teams will face elimination, and the Dragon Team and Syria Team who are now behind in points will come from behind!
As an old powerhouse in Asia, the South Korean team has not missed the World Cup finals since 1986, and of course 2018 will not be a special case.
The Uzbekistan team has also touched the threshold of the World Cup finals for the first time this time, and the whole team has fought until now, so it is natural that they will not give up easily.
The World Cup, as the highest stage of football, is the ultimate dream of every football player!
Many footballers have participated in a World Cup once in their lifetime as the highest glory of their careers!
When it is possible to accomplish this dream, the players will give their best spontaneously without any external motivation!
The same goes for the Dragons.
In this Dragon Country team, more than half of the main players are over 30 years old, and the oldest captain Zheng Zhi is over 38 years old, and next year's World Cup in Russia should be their last World Cup!
Now, there is only one last game left before the World Cup, and there is only one day left for the Long March, no one will admit to giving up at this juncture!
After the competition, everyone had a hasty celebration and quickly adjusted their mood and focused on the final round in a few days.
When interviewed, everyone was more restrained and naturally happy about this big victory, but they all agreed that now is not the time to celebrate!
The promotion situation that the Dragon Country team is facing now, although there have been some turnarounds compared with before, but in the group standings, after all, it is still in a backward position, although the points gap has caught up, but the ranking has not changed, in the eyes of people who don't know how to do it, it is still the same!
The Dragon Country team has also encountered such a situation before, as long as the final round wins, and achieves a certain goal difference, you can advance, in order to complete the goal of promotion, and even join forces with the warring opponent to play tacit ball, but the result is still a high-tech competitor Yin, regrettably eliminated.
This time, the opponent facing the Dragon Country team in the last round is the Qatar team, which is a local tyrant in the Middle East, not bad for money, and the diplomatic relations with the Dragon Country are not very good.
However, between the Syrian team and the Iranian team, there is a possibility of playing tacit ball.
Therefore, the current Dragon Country team is indeed not the time to celebrate, and the performance of the players at this time is still quite mature and calm.
The media can't manage so much, especially the emerging online media, self-media, for the sake of clicks, do all kinds of things.
When the Dragon Country team lost, there was a lot of scolding; Now that the Dragon Team has won, and it is an unprecedented victory, those media who were still scolding the Dragon Team a moment ago immediately turned their faces and sang praises to the Dragon Team, and people who don't know the details, seeing these reports, thought that the Dragon Team had qualified from the group and directly qualified for the World Cup finals.
After the end of the match with the Uzbekistan team, the Dragon team made a slight adjustment in Jiangcheng, and the next afternoon, they took a charter flight to Doha to prepare for the final round of the key match with the Qatar team.
After arriving in Doha at 11 o'clock that night, the Dragons felt the first obstacle in the final round of the game - the heat!
In Doha in September, the sun is shining during the day, the temperature can reach 40 degrees, the surface temperature can reach 60 or 70 degrees, and even late at night, the temperature is above 30 degrees.
At this time, although the temperature in the Dragon Kingdom is not low, when in Jiangcheng, the highest temperature is also above 30 degrees, but after nightfall, the temperature will drop to more than 20 degrees, which is suitable for the game.
But in Doha, there is no such good thing.
Although the Qatar team has been eliminated ahead of schedule, the Qatari side still attaches great importance to the upcoming game.
It just so happens that Qatar is the venue for the next World Cup after the World Cup in Russia, and the venue for the match between the Dragons and the Qatar team is the venue for the next World Cup.
In order to better serve the World Cup, Qatar spent a lot of money to install an air-conditioning system for the open-air stadium that can accommodate tens of thousands of fans.
In other words, if the Qatari side turns on the air conditioning system, the temperature on the field will not exceed 25 degrees in this match between the Dragon Team and the Qatar team, which is very suitable for the game.
Although the competition venue has air conditioning, but when training and preparing for the game, the Dragon Country team still has to withstand the test of high temperatures, for this reason, the Dragon Country team has a special regulation that the air conditioning temperature of the players' hotel rooms cannot be lower than 24 degrees, the purpose is to avoid too large a temperature difference, so that the players of the Dragon Country team are cold and sick, affecting the game.
The Football Association attaches great importance to this game, and Cai Zhenhua, deputy director of the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China and chairman of the Football Association, went to Doha to supervise the game.
Although Cai Zhenhua does not have a professional football background, he used to be the national sport of the Dragon Country - a professional player and coach of table tennis, and has a deep understanding of the pre-game psychology of athletes.