Chapter 35: A Powerful Host?
The carnival of Chinese fans and media for qualifying lasted for less than a day, and then everyone realized another question - who is the opponent of the Chinese team after qualifying from the group?
At this time, everyone told by the media was the host Brazil.
Immediately, the joyful atmosphere of the carnival quickly cooled down.
After qualifying for the World Cup group, everyone was still expecting the Chinese team to go further, but they ran into the host.
Is there still a way for the Chinese team to survive?
Let's not talk about Brazil's strong strength, let's talk about the advantages of the host, how can the Chinese team resist?
There are also conspiracy theorists who immediately wonder if FIFA will play tricks behind the scenes, and let the Brazilian team go further in order to secure box office revenues and broadcast ratings and advertising sponsors.
This is an "official whistle", people are openly and honestly blacking you, and they still make you have nothing to say.
But others say this statement is unfounded. In the last World Cup in South Africa, everyone felt that South Africa, as the host, should also qualify from the group, right?
The result was no, and South Africa was eliminated from the group stage.
The only exception is the World Cup in Japan and South Korea, where the Japanese team reached the knockout stage and finally stopped in the round of 16, and it can be said that the home advantage is more restrained.
On the South Korean side, it is simply a complete self-indulgence, two of the top ten black whistles in the history of the World Cup were related to the South Korean team in that World Cup, and the South Korean team profited from all of them. In the end, South Korea made it all the way to the last four of the World Cup, losing to Turkey in the third-place match, but also creating the best result in the history of an Asian team in the World Cup.
It's just that this best result is not glorious, except for Korean fans and media, it is rarely flaunted by people from other Asian countries.
The more optimistic Chinese fans feel that no matter how corrupt the Brazilians are, they still have a very high moral code and a sense of superiority in football, and they should firmly believe that with the strength of the team, it is enough to eliminate the Chinese team, and there is no need to buy the referee to use the next three indiscriminate methods.
But in any case, the Chinese team bumped into the host after qualifying from the group, which is really not good, and makes Chinese fans worry about the prospects of the Chinese team in the World Cup.
There are also fans who have already given up on themselves, feeling that since they have met the Brazilian team, they don't want to be in the quarterfinals or anything, and they just hope that the players of the Chinese team can return to play their own style in the game, don't be cowardly, and the Brazilian team is just right, even if they die, they must stand tall and die, just like fireworks, greet death at the most gorgeous moment, and leave their names in the history of the World Cup forever.
※※※
At the same time as the match between China and Spain, the other match was between Chile and the Netherlands.
China beat Spain 2-0 and the Netherlands beat Chile 2-0, with Depay sealing the win for the Netherlands in the 90-minute mark.
In this way, the final teams in Group B are the Netherlands and China, of which the Netherlands has two wins and one draw to win seven points and ranks first in the group, while the Chinese team has one win and two draws and ranks second in the group with five points.
According to the schedule of this World Cup, the confrontation situation after qualifying from the group is a cross-match between the top two in Group A and the top two in Group B, that is, the first place in Group A against the second place in Group B, and the first place in Group B against the second place in Group A.
In the last two group games of Group A on the same day, Brazil beat Cameroon 4-1, while Mexico beat Croatia 3-1 in the other match.
In this way, both teams have seven points and the goal difference is compared if the points are the same. Mexico suffered a 1-0 win over Cameroon in their first game, missing Brazil by two goals on goal difference and finishing second.
In this way, China's one-eighth final opponent is Brazil, not Mexico.
If the Chinese team matches Mexico, I am afraid that the fans and media of the Chinese team will be more confident that the Chinese team can eliminate Mexico and reach the quarterfinals of the World Cup.
The news that the quarter-final opponent was Brazil diluted everyone's joy and made many fans and media worry about the future of the Chinese team in the World Cup.
But within the national team, Lippi is constantly instilling the exact opposite philosophy in the players of the Chinese team.
"Brazil is not strong, or not strong enough to crush us, we are not without chances against the Brazilian team, and it can even be said that the chances are not small, at least bigger than the outside world thinks. I don't believe in conspiracy theories, in football it's all about strength and presence. The strength of this Brazilian team should be considered the weakest Brazilian national team in the history of Brazilian football......"
Lippi is exaggerating slightly, but he is trying to build the confidence of Chinese players, or to dispel the myths and superstitions of the football kingdom in the hearts of Chinese players.
He is not talking empty words, making people feel that his words are unfounded, and he also shows data examples to prove that what he says is true.
Because Brazil is the host and does not have to participate in the World Cup qualifiers, this seems to be a beautiful difference, at least there is no need to worry about not being able to participate in the World Cup. But in fact, for a team that wants to win the championship, on the contrary, it is not a good thing, but a bad thing.
Because of the lack of high-quality consecutive games to train the team, it is difficult to maintain the team's form.
Some people say that you can play warm-up games. Of course, every international break, the Brazilian team arranges warm-up matches, but the intensity of the warm-up matches is completely different from the real World Cup qualifiers, as the opponent's team strength is different, the opponent's mentality is also different, and the final performance is in the game, the effect is very different from the real qualifiers.
If you play in the qualifiers, of course, there is a possibility that you will not be able to enter the main round of the World Cup. For example, the Dutch team in the 2002 World Cup lost its qualification to enter the World Cup in Japan and South Korea because of a poor performance in the qualifiers.
But the harder the qualifiers are, the more they are a workout for the team, in which the coaching staff can constantly identify problems, then solve them, and then verify that they are solved through the next qualifier. The players are also able to maintain their form through quality play, and qualifying is a process that allows players to gradually get into the rhythm of the national team game.
In the case of the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Brazil had a very difficult qualifying match for that World Cup, and at one point it was thought that they would miss the main tournament for the first time in history. In the end, after changing a number of head coaches, he finally stumbled into the finals. The Brazilian team was of course not favourites because of their poor performance in qualifying, and they were not the favourites to win the tournament.
Also underperforming in qualifying for that World Cup were Germany, who even lost 5-1 at home to arch-rivals England in qualifying.
As a result, these two teams did not play well enough in the qualifiers, but finally reached the final of the World Cup in Japan and South Korea, and the Brazil team, which had a more bumpy qualifying process, defeated Germany 2-0 in the final, and won the World Cup for the fifth time in history.
This is a prime example of the importance of qualifying.
In this World Cup, the Brazilian team, as the host, did not play a single qualifier and relied on the support of warm-up matches. But how did they fare in these warm-up games?
Since the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2011 Copa America and the 2012 London Olympics have actually been regarded as "warm-up matches" for Brazil's preparation for the World Cup on home soil.
It stands to reason that after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Brazil's national team coach Dunga was sacked, leaving plenty of time for his successor, Menezes, who had four full years to adjust and develop the team.
However, in the 2011 Copa America, Menezes' Brazilian national team won one win and two draws in the group stage, accumulated five points, and only won the group by virtue of one more goal difference than Venezuela, but after entering the knockout stage, the Brazilian team, which has always given the impression of a strong attack, could not break through Paraguay's goal in 120 minutes, and the two sides entered the penalty shootout 0:0. In the penalty shootout, Brazil failed to score in the first three rounds, and Paraguay eliminated Brazil after only two penalty kicks.
Not even reaching the semi-finals of the Copa America, the performance of this Brazilian team is really difficult to satisfy.
The most important competition after the Copa America is the London Olympics.
Brazil is a football kingdom, having won five World Cups in its history, but has never won an Olympic football event.
So the Olympic gold medal is very important to Brazilian fans and the Football Association.
Menezes coaches the Brazilian Olympic team as the head coach of the Brazilian national team. The Brazilian squad has a number of players who have played in European leagues, as well as long-established stars such as Neymar, Marcelo, Thiago Silva, David Ruiz, Ganso, Hernandez, Danilo, Pato, Hulk, Coutinho, Ronaldinho and many more.
This line-up is a testament to the importance that Brazil takes to win gold at the Games.
The result?
Brazil did reach the final of the Olympic Games, but against the Mexican Olympic team, Rafael's mistake in the opening 28 seconds of the return pass made Brazil's Olympic gold dream come to naught.
The successive defeats in the Copa America and the Olympic Games have made Brazil very dissatisfied with Menezes' performance, and Brazilian star Mazzola believes that it is absolutely impossible to win the World Cup by relying on the current team, and the Brazilian team needs players with character.
Although the defeat at the London Olympics exposed the Brazilian team's weak attack, weak attacking ability and lack of leaders, Menezes firmly denied that there was a problem with the direction: "We lost in the final, but we won the silver medal and we are very close to our ultimate goal, we don't need to change all directions......"
Although hard-mouthed, this does not change the outcome of Menezes' defeat.
In the second leg of the "South American Super Derby", Brazil lost to arch-rivals Argentina, and the final nail was hammered into Menezes' coffin.
Subsequently, the Brazilian Football Federation announced a change of coach, and Scolari, who had previously led the Brazilian national team to the 2002 World Cup championship, succeeded him, with only one goal, the Brazilian World Cup champion.
In the 2013 Confederations Cup held on Brazilian soil, Scolari led the team to the championship, especially the 3-0 victory over world champions Spain in the Confederations Cup final, which seemed to give Brazilian fans hope of lifting the Hercules Gold Cup on their doorstep.
But the warm-up match that followed sent the hearts of Brazilian fans to rock bottom - under the leadership of "Big Phil" Scolari, the Brazilian team set an embarrassing record of five consecutive games without a win for the first time since July 2001.
The warm-up game was not played well, basically there was no effect, and the role that should have been played was not played.
It's finally time for the official World Cup, so what kind of performance did the Brazilian team show?
The first game against Croatia was very difficult to win. It wasn't until the last minute that the win was sealed.
In the second game against Mexico, everyone expected Brazil to beat Mexico and become the first team to qualify from the group in this World Cup, but they played 0:0 with Mexico in the favor of countless people.
It is a big upset in this World Cup.
In the last game, Cameroon, the weakest team in the group, won 4:1.
However, it is worth noting that their backline still conceded goals.
And the eventual qualification as group leader also managed to cover up the problems faced by this team.
It's really not good news for Brazil.
“...... Brazil is not as strong as people think, and we are not as weak as they think. After a detailed analysis of the current Brazil team, Lippi has this to say to his players.