Chapter 54: Hold your head high
The opponent of the Jianye team in the quarterfinals of the FA Cup is the Shanghai Shenxin team from the Dragon League.
The Shenxin team has also fought in the field of Longchao, and after being relegated to the first division, it has not given up its efforts to return to Longchao, and the strength of the team should not be underestimated.
However, compared with the Jianye team, there is still a certain gap.
The Dragon Football Association Cup stipulates that all players on the field must be local players, and foreign aid is not allowed to play, and the strong teams of Longchao and Longjia are mostly based on strong foreign aid, and the gap between local players, except for those big international teams, the strength gap of other teams is not obvious.
At this point, although there is only one player with national team experience in the Jianye team, Shen Feng, his comprehensive strength is obviously one level ahead of other players, which is comparable to those big-name foreign aids.
When facing the Shenxin team, Shen Feng, who had been aggrieved for several rounds in the Dragon Super League, finally broke out heartily, and it only took 70 minutes to complete two passes and two shots, helping the Jianye team to take a 4:0 lead.
In order to protect Shen Feng, Jia Xiuquan once again replaced Shen Feng in advance when he established the victory.
In this game, after Shen Feng got off the field, the Jianye team did not repeat the paralysis and carelessness of the previous game against the Huaxia Happiness team, and the remaining players, taking advantage of the victory to pursue, scored another goal before the final whistle sounded, and fixed the score of the whole game at 5:0.
The FA Cup quarter-finals are played over two legs, home and away, but Jianye has basically crossed the semi-finals of this season's FA Cup with a five-goal win in the first leg.
After this FA Cup match, Jianye team welcomed the challenge of the traditional powerhouse Beijing Guoan team of the Dragon Super League at home.
The Guoan team, like the Jianye team, is the first batch of professional football clubs established from the beginning of the professionalization process of Longguo football, and before this season, it was still the same as the Jianye team, and it has never changed the owner or changed the team name.
However, before the start of this season, there was a change in the equity of the Guoan team, Sinobo Group became the owner, and the official name of the Guoan team became Beijing Zhongbo Guoan Football Club.
Among the 16 teams in the Dragon Super League today, only the Jianye team is left alone, and it has never changed the owner since its establishment!
In the history of the team, the team has been crowned the champion of the FA Cup three times, and won the championship of the Dragon Super League in the 2009 season.
However, with the rise of a number of upstarts such as Evergrande team and SIPG team, the Guoan team's record in recent seasons is not too good, and it only won the fifth place in the Dragon Super League last season and missed the AFC Champions League.
Before this round of games, with only 28 points, ranked seventh in the league standings, and the points gap between the third place Jianye team is 8 points, and it is difficult to catch up in the remaining schedule.
However, fortunately, although the Guoan team has been opened up by the three teams in the first group, the points are still relatively tight with several teams in the second group, and there is still hope of competing for the qualification of the AFC Champions League.
Therefore, in this game, although the Guoan team is fighting away and facing the Jianye team, which has performed well recently, in the game, the tactical use is not conservative, and the Jianye team is in a position and fights against each other.
After 90 minutes of fierce fighting, neither of the warring sides finally had no choice but to help the other, and shook hands 2:2.
The two goals of the Jianye team came from Shen Feng.
In this game, the Guoan team also took care of Shen Feng, and in the sports battle, there were almost no opportunities left for him.
However, Shen Feng's current offensive means are not only sports warfare, in terms of set-pieces, he also has a good level after several months of hard training.
Now, Shen Feng's set-piece value has increased to 75 points, although there is still an obvious gap from the real set-piece master, but in good condition, he can also kick a deadly arc that the opponent's goalkeeper can't reach.
In the previous games, Shen Feng, who was restricted in sports battles, actually tried to seek a breakthrough through set-pieces, but unfortunately his luck was not very good, and he was often short of goals.
In this game, Shen Feng's set-piece kicks were full of foot, and he hit a lot of dangerous shots, and under the hard work of the goalkeeper of the Guoan team, there were still two shots on goal and hit the net.
After scoring these two goals, Shen Feng's total goals this season have accumulated to fifteen.
However, the leader in the scorer list is still Zahavi of R&F.
In the last two rounds of the league, Zahavi ushered in a big explosion of goals, and in the last round of the league, he staged a good show of "big four"; In this round of the league, facing the opponent in the same city, the league leader Evergrande team scored twice again, led the team, and won the derby in the same city.
Now, Zahavi leads the scorer list alone with 20 goals, followed by Shen Feng with 15 goals.
Shen Feng wants to compete for the top scorer in this season's Dragon Super League, and in the remaining games, he needs to work harder and score more goals.
After a streak of wins in the previous period, Jianye team has won two consecutive draws in the last two rounds of the league.
The Evergrande team and SIPG, which are leading in the standings, did not open up the points gap with the Jianye team.
Evergrande lost to R&F led by Zahavi in this round of the league derby; SIPG also lost to Luneng away and suffered a defeat.
In this way, after two consecutive draws, the Jianye team further narrowed the gap with the top of the standings, chasing only 1 point.
The last time Jianye came so close to the top of the Dragon Super League was in the 2009 season, when they made history by finishing third in the season, qualifying for the AFC Champions League for the first time and having the potential to win the title before the final round of the league ended.
Coincidentally, in the 2009 season, the head coach of the Jianye team was also guided by Jia Xiuquan!
This season, under the guidance of Jia Xiuquan, who has made a comeback, he is leading the Jianye Youth Army led by Shen Feng, which is expected to reappear, or even break the glory of the year, and create history again!
In the twentieth round of the Dragon Super League, before the Jianye team went to challenge the Suning team of Jiangsu Province away from home, they took the lead in going to Shanghai and played the second leg of the FA Cup quarterfinals with the Shanghai Shenxin team.
With a five-goal lead established in the first leg, the Jianye team did not send all the main forces in the second leg of the competition, and Shen Feng, the biggest contributor to the victory in the first leg, was placed on the bench and did not play for a minute.
In the end, the Jianye team, which played in the second-tier lineup, lost 0:2 to the Shenxin team who fought for face, but still advanced to the semifinals of this season's FA Cup with a total score of 5:2.