Chapter 584: The World Cup Begins!

The club and the players are tight-lipped about all kinds of strong excavations by journalists. Of course, in fact, the players don't know who it is, only that the club has really changed owners, and the new owner is not bad, at least before they met, they have helped the former boss settle the salary arrears for three months.

For now, the focus of the media is on the upcoming World Cup. Their focus was also on the construction of the venue in Brazil, the rehearsals for the guests at the opening ceremony, and the situation in each country.

So there's really not much time to report on a team that is still facing relegation problems in the Chinese First Division, and even the Chinese media have not followed up after some rough coverage.

The only ones who have been tapped are local media in Chengdu and Sichuan.

When Li Zihan arrived at New York's JFK International Airport, Susan told Li Zihan when she came to pick him up and take him back to the hotel that a new contract with Procter & Gamble had been signed, and Procter & Gamble agreed to pay Li Zihan an annual endorsement fee of 3.2 million pounds.

More than three million pounds to sign the current Li Zihan is really not expensive, considering the huge market consumption power behind him and Li Zihan's current hot state, it is definitely worth the money.

Li Zihan signed a contract with Procter & Gamble the next day, and since then his endorsement fee has doubled every year, of course, there are additional terms, that is, the same as the contracts of Puma and Red Bull.

On the occasion that Li Zihan didn't know, the person in charge of Procter & Gamble's contract negotiation with Li Zihan scolded Puma over and over again, okay, what kind of additional clauses

After staying in the United States for two days, Li Zihan didn't have time to go to Canada to enjoy the beauty of the Northern Lights, so he immediately set off for South America.

At this time, it is only one day before the opening of the World Cup in Brazil.

Li Zihan had already planned to go to the World Cup, so he pushed off a lot of commercial activities during this time. For example, the British radio and television station BBC once contacted Li Zihan, hoping to be a special football commentator for the BBC during the World Cup.

But Li Zihan refused, although a million pounds is definitely a lot of money for Li Zihan, who already has a club to support, he still wants to feel the charm of the World Cup in person, which is a feast about football carnival.

On June 13, the opening ceremony of the World Cup officially began.

Li Zihan watched the opening ceremony together with Sichuan football legends Wang Maojun, Yao Xia, Ma Mingyu and Wei Qun, as well as his business friend John Dassler, the young owner of Puma Group, and the head of the sports competition division of Red Bull Group.

For the opening ceremony, this time it was the theme song "We Are Family" sung by Armando Christian Perez, a hip-hop bulldog, and Jennifer Lopez, a famous actress. Li Zihan feels very lively, a nice visual feast, oh especially those Brazilian girls who are dressed in sexy and revealing clothes

However, for singing, Li Zihan thinks that Pique's wife Shakira sings well.

After a series of programs, the opening match officially began.

The opening match of this World Cup is the host Brazil against Croatia, Brazil is known as the kingdom of football, and the strength is naturally top-notch. However, Croatia, as the main country of the former Yugoslavia, their strength should not be underestimated, especially their midfield core Modric, as the midfield engine of Real Madrid, known as the "Silver Horn King" by Chinese fans, is the absolute core of Croatia.

There are also centre-back Lovren, who has excelled at Southampton this season, Inter Milan's talented midfielder Mateo Kovacic and Bayern Munich's centre-forward Manju. Kitchen.

As for this Croatia, everyone agrees that they are a good spoiler.

And the fact that the game had just started seemed to confirm this, and in the face of Brazil's pressing attack, Croatia was not at all anxious, but took the opportunity to play a quick counterattack from Brazil.

In the face of Modric's pass, Marcelo hurriedly stretched out his foot to cut off the opponent and send it to the main center Manjoo. Kitchen's pass, but the way he cleared the tackle sent the ball straight into his own goal.

So far, Brazil's first goal of the World Cup was born, but it was an own goal of the Brazilian team that was embarrassing. Marcelo was pulled up from the turf by captain Thiago Silva, his hands on his hips and his face of helplessness and distress.

The commentators on major TV did not show Marcelo at this time, and they ridiculed the main left wing-back of Real Madrid.

One of the commentators from the BBC said: "This is completely a Real Madrid team's cooperation, from Real Madrid's midfielder Modric passed, and the quickly inserted knife-led left wing-back Marcelo followed up with a tackle to score, a very beautiful combination of attack"

Marcelo's own goal gave hope to the Croatians and made the fans who supported Brazil very worried. Because the game went on for eleven minutes, although the Brazilian team had the advantage, it did not score this time, but it scored a goal, but it was an own goal.

Then Fred, the No. 9 center on his side, forget it, let's talk about Brazil's talented attacking midfielders Neymar and Oscar

When the game went to the full 27 minutes, Brazil still did not equalize, but counter-attacked again, and Neymar was shown a yellow card for a foul.

Just when everyone thought that Neymar was like this, he was pinned on high hopes but he was very ordinary, and even when he was still anxious when he was behind, Neymar went crazy.

He single-handedly crossed the Croatian defence and then scored the ball straight in. Brazil finally equalised, and the fans at the Stadio de São Paulo were in full swing, with the majority of those who came to the stadium to support the home team, except for those who were against them, of course

Part of the credit for that goal goes to Oscar, who was responsible for his pressing and tackles that gave Neymar a good chance to open the scoring.

Encouraged by this goal, Brazil began to press the attack. However, Croatia retreated from all sides and did not give Brazil a chance.

In the end, the two sides went into the halftime break with a score of 1-1, and after a quarter of an hour, the two sides changed sides and fought again.

As the host, Brazil naturally unceremoniously took the initiative to attack, and the attack lasted for nearly 20 minutes. The Croatians finally began to show signs of holding on, and in the 66th minute, Croatian defender Jorluka received a yellow card for a foul.

Then, just three minutes later, the main central defender was also booked by Croatia's highly-anticipated defensive striker Lovren, which was a tactical foul.

However, in the first half, Croatia did not have a single yellow card, but in the past three minutes they received two yellow cards in a row.

"It looks like the Croats can't hold on anymore," Zhan said.

Zhan Jun proved to be very discerning, and in the 71st minute of the game, three minutes after Lovren received his yellow card, Neymar scored again.

Neymar's brace helped the Brazilian team achieve a comeback, which also made everyone full of hope for Neymar again, thinking that this year's Brazilian talent still lived up to expectations.

Despite the lack of attack in the second half, Brazil coach Scolari replaced Fred, the main centre-forward wearing the number nine shirt, with a new centre-forward Jo.

But the center forward didn't take advantage of the opportunity either, and his appearance is the same as his name - "weak"!

"If it's still really weak," even Zhan Jun couldn't help but complain.

"I suddenly miss Fred," said the Brazilian commentator.

If the table is not as good as Fred, at least the tall Fred can help the team withstand the opponent's central defenders, and create opportunities for Oscar and Neymar and others behind him.

Brazil, who are 2-1 up, do not play conservative football, as a Brazilian team is not good at defending, and the pride of Brazilians in football does not allow them to play defensive football.

So Scolari made his second substitution of the game, removing the usual Willian and replacing him with Hulk, a striker who excelled at Zenit St. Petersburg in the Russian Premier League.

This outstanding young man is as strong as a calf, and everyone thinks that he went up to pick up the vacancy left by Fred's center, because Ruo Xiàn is so poor that he has no ability to make the ball behind his teammates.

But what is unexpected is that after the "Hulk" Hulk came up, he did not go to the center position, but went to the winger, and occasionally went to the middle to play soy sauce.

Trailing Croatia came on a comeback in the 80th minute and were looking to score a goal in the final 10 minutes to level the scores. Facing hosts Brazil in the group stage, they were able to get a point that was a victory in itself for the Croatians.

But the Brazilians like them like this, maybe Croatia is passive and Brazil has no way to take them, if they press up against the attack, this is what the Brazilians want to see.

The two sides played well in the final ten minutes, but for the most part it was Brazil who prevailed. When the game reached the 88th minute, the Croatians also gave up, with the idea of winning with less loss.

After all, no matter how much they attacked, they couldn't open Brazil's goal, and they were almost scored by the opponent, so the Croatians gave up.

It was just too late, when the game went into the first minute of three-minute stoppage time. Oscar put on a brilliant show when he received a shot from Neymar in the box and scored the ball into the back of the net.

Brazil came back again, 3-1, and the Brazilians sealed the win.

The Brazilian fans in the stadium began to celebrate passionately, and the Brazilian team made a good start to this World Cup 3-1 and won the game without danger.

In such an important event, the three points are the most important!