Chapter 69: The Arab League and Cup
Sitting on the flight back to Buenos Aires, the players of the Olympic team, who had gone crazy, fell asleep, even Santiago.
The players of the national Olympic team did not stay in Beijing for long, and did not wait for the Argentine delegation to return home first, after all, some European leagues have been started in advance, which can not be delayed for too long for everyone who was determined to participate in the Olympics in the first place.
When they finally arrived in Buenos Aires after a long flight, the players were unexpectedly greeted by many Argentine fans at the airport, and when the cheers rang out at the airport, most of the players were unexpected. They could have imagined that there would be fans coming to pick them up, but they never imagined that there would be so many people, and at a rough glance, there would be hundreds of people! It's not like winning an Olympic gold medal, it's like winning the America's Cup!
In the face of enthusiastic fans, the players who had a hangover the night before were in good spirits, and while waving their hands continuously, they also satisfied the fans' desire to take photos and sign autographs.
Since Messi took a flight directly from Beijing to Barcelona, the two most sought after in this team are undoubtedly Riquelme and Santo Tiago, and Santhiago's feelings are particularly intuitive. He felt as if he had just returned to the time when he had just won the Golden Boy Award, when he was extremely sought after!
While dragging his suitcase and constantly signing autographs for the fans, he was very happy in his heart, without the slightest impatience, and enjoyed this time very much.
These lads did not think about the bloody beating of old rivals Brazil and the victory over old rivals Nigeria to complete the defence of the title in Argentine domestic football, looking at the achievements of the Argentine senior national team in recent years. Although it is known as one of the most successful national teams in world football, in fact, since winning the World Cup twice in 1978 and 1986, and winning the runner-up in the 1990 World Cup, the Argentine team has rebuilt its glory in the following World Cups, not to mention that it failed to reach the semi-finals, all of them were stuck in the quarterfinals, and even went home in the group stage of the 02 South Korea-Japan World Cup.
As for the America's Cup, it was stuck in the quarterfinals throughout the 90s, and although the results rebounded after entering 2000, it was also pressed to the runner-up position and could not turn over.
In this case, in addition to the World Youth Championships, the gold medal won in two consecutive Olympic Games has become the most valuable championship in Argentine football in recent years!
Therefore, although this achievement is not generally favored in world football, it has actually been written about in Argentina, and this is the reason why many players of the national Olympic team have been directly recruited into the senior national team.
It's not easy to get a result once, but it's a world champion! The Argentine Football Association, which has always been criticized, will not give up such a great opportunity, and under the direct instruction of the Football Association, these young men are almost described as pillars of talent, national heroes. In particular, several people who performed well were enthusiastically pursued by the media, and the coach of the national Olympic team, Batista, was very angry when he saw this situation.
As an older generation of players, a traditional manager, he has always believed that such excessive media attention, for the sake of topicality, and excessive manipulation for the sake of attracting people's attention is likely to affect the future development of young players. Such examples are also endless, but how can the Argentine Football Association listen to him, it is simply to highlight the prosperity of the golden young generation, not only does not stop it, but adds fuel to the fire, creating a feeling that domestic football is brilliant and talented.
Under such circumstances, seeing that he was powerless to stop this, Batista could only take advantage of the end of the Olympics to hastily disband the national Olympic team, while he sat at home and waited for the dust to settle for the final national team manager, according to Batista's judgment, the results would be out after two World Cup qualifiers at the latest.
And Santhiago after the disbandment of the national Olympic team is also with Riquelme, Monzon and the two returned to Boca Juniors, ready to participate in the league competition, at this time the first three rounds of the La Liga Spring League have ended, in these three rounds of Boca Juniors 4:0 defeated Zuzul Ganasya, 4:2 victory over Newell Old Boys, 2:1 victory over Lanus, obviously despite the absence of the main core Riquelme, there is no problem with its strength.
As the highest level club league in Argentina, the La Ligue currently has a total of 20 teams and adopts a cross-year home-and-away double round-robin, which is the so-called spring league and autumn league. The spring league is usually from August to December, while the autumn league is from February to June, not only in terms of months and seasons, but also different from the winter break between the European leagues, the spring and autumn leagues of the league are relatively independent individuals.
Why?
That's because every six months, i.e., at the end of a single round-robin season, there is a champion, and then another champion is produced in the second half of the season, which is the Spring League Championship and the Fall League Championship.
The championship is determined by 19 rounds of points per single round-robin, and at the beginning of each year, when Argentina plays the autumn league, which coincides with the winter break of the Europa League, the Copa Libertadores is the highest honor for South American clubs, and the club that wins the Copa Libertadores can participate in the Club World Cup and compete for the highest honor of the world club.
At this time, the spring league time that is in full swing coincides with the new season of the European League, and during this period, there is also an intercontinental cup competition of the Copa Sudamericana to compete for, which can be participated in at the same time as the Copa Libertadores.
However, after winning the South American Cup, it cannot participate in the Club World Cup, and can only participate in the South American Cup Winners' Cup, which is the nature of the European Super Cup, so the degree of attention is low in the outside world, and it was once misunderstood as a sub-level competition like the UEFA Cup.
Therefore, playing in the Argentine Liga is generally a two-line battle, even if you enter the Club World Cup or the South American Cup Winners' Cup, it will not have much impact on the team's original schedule, and the Argentine Cup in Argentina has been stopped for a long time for various reasons, so in this case, the players almost have enough physical strength to display their talents, and there is usually no large-scale fatigue from top clubs due to the intensive schedule like the Premier League.
This is very good news for Santiago, because the Liga is almost a stable weekly match, and in the allocation of places in the Copa Sudamericana, there are 8 teams in the Brazilian Liga, which are the league champion + fifth to eleventh, Argentina has 6 teams, Mexico has 3 teams, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela each send 2 teams, and the United States has 1 team, using the principle of home and away knockout matches between teams from the same country to advance to the round of 16.
Looking at the total number of 34 teams, some people must ask how did they qualify for the round of 16?
In fact, the top 16 places in the Copa Sudamericana are distributed as follows: 1 place for the defending champion of the previous edition; Mexico has 3 teams and 2 seats; 1 seat for the United States; Brazil has 8 teams and 4 seats; Argentina has 4 seats for 6 teams, while the rest of the country has a total of 4 seats.
That is to say, from Bolivia to Venezuela, although the national leagues have two teams in each league, they still have to have a round of catch-and-match after the civil war, and there is no way, their strength is much worse than the former national leagues.
In the rule that the six teams in the A-League are divided into four promotion places, the two major clubs Boca Juniors and River Plate, as the top players, do not need to fight in the first round and directly guarantee the round of 16, so Santilago has plenty of time to familiarize themselves with the league and constantly re-train their bodies, which is a very good season time.