The knockout stage will start with Japan, who will face their opponents Uzbekistan in the quarter-finals. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Shinji Kagawa was quite good in this match, scoring twice to help Japan beat Uzbekistan 3-2.

It was also his first time scoring in the Asian Cup.

Not long after the Japanese team's match, the Chinese team appeared.

Their opponent is Jordan.

The final score was 2:1, and the Chinese team defeated Jordan and entered the semifinals!

The person who scored for the Chinese team was Gao Lin, who also scored twice in this game, and Zhou Yi who assisted him to score twice.

After the game, there was a celebration on the Internet in China, celebrating that the Chinese team had reached the semifinals of the Asian Cup again after seven years, and some netizens ridiculed Gao Lin and said that after Zhou Yi, Gao Linsmann really became Gao Linsmann, not Gao Linsmann.

The two assists that Zhou Yi gave to Gao Lin can almost be called "nanny assists", that is, the striker picks up the player without any technical content to score the football......

In four games, Gao Lin scored four goals and was already the top scorer in the Chinese team.

Before Zhou Yilai, Gao Lin was more often in this team not to score the task, but to have a tactical task. He is a fulcrum of the Chinese team's attack in the front court, with body and skills, and can hold the ball and make the ball. And although he is a center forward, he also has a large range of activities in the front court, he can be seen on the left, middle and right, and he plays hard and runs actively, which is quite a bit of a model worker.

These characteristics of his are very consistent with Gao Hongbo's tactics of requiring the national team to cooperate on the ground, so although Gao Lin has been criticized for his poor shooting skills, he is still Gao Hongbo's favorite player in the national team, and Gao Hongbo will always give priority to him as a starter.

No one expected that after Zhou Yi came, Gao Lin suddenly became the top scorer!

And not only in the team, in this Asian Cup, Gao Lin is now tied for the top scorer with South Korean player Gu Zizhe with four goals.

Zhou Yi tops the assist list with five assists, and no one can threaten his position...... This performance at least shows that Zhou Yi is now a first-class midfielder in Asia, although he is only 19 years old......

I won't be 20 until February this year

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The Chinese team, which reached the semi-finals, is just one step away from the final.

As long as they can beat their semi-final opponents...... Australia.

While Chinese fans and the media were just as happy as the Chinese New Year, Klopp was sure he didn't want to hear the news at all.

In addition to Zhou Yi, Shinji Kagawa's Japanese team also broke into the semifinals.

This means that his two important main players will have to play the entire Asian Cup before they can return to the team......

Even if both the Chinese team and Japan lose the semi-finals, they will have to play a third-place or fourth-place final!

The only thing that comforts Klopp is perhaps ...... The third- and fourth-place finals are played one day earlier than the finals, and if the teams of two people are in the third- and fourth-place finals, they can return a day earlier......

But by that time, it was January 28th, and the whole month of January was coming to an end.

When the Asian Cup was in full swing, the second half of the Bundesliga also began, and Dortmund was still the first to play, in the eighteenth round of the league, Dortmund, who were missing Zhou Yi and Shinji Kagawa, were defeated 3-1 away by Bayer Leverkusen.

Without the influence of Zhou Yi and Shinji Kagawa, it was revealed.

From the perspective of the field, without Zhou Yi and Shinji Kagawa, Dortmund did not run as smoothly as in the first half of the season.

Zhou Yi is the core of Dortmund, and his absence has not had a little impact on Dortmund, but it is very large. Shinji Kagawa is similar to lubricant in the front court, a machine can't do without lubricant, so Shinji Kagawa is also important to Dortmund.

The absence of these two important figures has left them a little scrambling against an aggressive third-place Bayer Leverkusen away from home.

After the midfield control dropped, Bayer Leverkusen easily took the initiative. In the end, he lost 1:3.

The defeat in this game shortened Dortmund's lead in the standings from 10 points to 7 points in an instant.

This is not over, in the next 19th round of the league, Dortmund was forced to draw 1:1 at home by Stuttgart.

Counting the last round before the winter break, Dortmund's defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt is Dortmund's third consecutive league winless streak, which has never happened to Dortmund in the first half of the season.

It's no wonder that Jurgen Klopp wants both China and Japan to go home after the group stage......

Originally, the Chinese team had the hope of going out of the group stage, but unfortunately with Zhou Yi, the situation was different.

Then there is the 20th round of the league, Dortmund away to Wolfsburg, this game is played on the afternoon of January 29, Zhou Yi and Kagawa Shinji will definitely not be able to catch up.

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At 9:15 p.m. Beijing time on January 25, the semifinals between Japan and South Korea began.

After 90 minutes of fierce battle, the Japanese team and the South Korean team played a 1:1 draw, and both sides also scored one goal each in extra time, and finally tied 2:2 in the last 120 minutes, and the two sides could only enter the penalty shootout.

In the penalty shootout, the first three players of the South Korean team were all missed, and the Japanese team only Yuto Nagatomo kicked away, and finally in the penalty shootout, the Japanese team eliminated South Korea with a score of 3:0 and took the lead in the final.

Later, China made their debut against Australia in the semi-finals.

Since joining the AFC in 2006, although Australia is geographically a country in Oceania, its FA organization is affiliated with the AFC and can participate in the Asian Cup.

For Australia, joining the AFC naturally has their interests. That is to increase their chances of participating in the World Cup. Because before the Oceania Football Association, there were only two teams that could be regarded as professionals, Australia and New Zealand, and the others were those island countries in the Pacific, and their football level was very backward. FIFA allocates only half of the World Cup quota to Oceania Football Confederation.

In this way, if Australia want to participate in the World Cup, they will first have to finish one place in the Oceania qualifiers, then compete with the fifth place in South America for that half of the spot, and sometimes they will have to compete with Asia.

It's okay to compete with Asia, but it will be too difficult for Australia to compete with South America for a qualifying spot.

After all, the level of South American football is much higher than that of Australia.

So Australia has always wanted to break away from the Oceania Football Confederation and join the AFC.

The AFC, which admits Australia, also has its own interests.

For a long time, the level of Asian football is not very high, but there are many members. So in the World Cup, you can get four to four and a half places. However, due to the general lack of good results of Asian teams in the World Cup, the AFC needs to improve its own strength if it wants to win more places in the World Cup. If Australia, which is not bad, can join the AFC, it will help improve the overall strength of the AFC and win more resources.

So this is something that is beneficial to both parties, and it is naturally a perfect fit.

The effect of Australia's accession to the AFC has been significant, as Australia had only played in two World Cups over the years, in 1974 and 2006.

After joining the AFC, they immediately qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Now, with the 2014 World Cup qualifiers in Brazil just around the corner, Australia are well on their way to reaching the World Cup finals again......

As for the interests of the AFC...... The benefits of Australia's accession are still completely apparent.

It was the other teams in Asia who fell victim.

For Asian teams, Australia is like a tiger breaking into a flock.

Although their skills are crude, they can rely on their strong bodies against those Asian teams with delicate skills.

This is probably one of the important reasons why they were able to make it out of the Asian qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Although the physical fitness of Chinese players is better than that of Japanese and Southeast Asian teams, it is still slightly inferior to teams such as Iran and Uzbekistan. Not to mention Australia.

Playing Uzbekistan, the Chinese team was physically suppressed very badly, and it was completely dependent on Zhou Yi to lead the whole team to play and cut to cooperate, so as to compete with the opponent.

And this game will definitely provide a reference for Australia.

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In an interview before the game, Zhou Yi said that although Australia is a strong team, since it has reached the semifinals, how can it easily admit defeat?

"We have a saying in China that 'all are coming'. Zhou Yi said with a smile to the reporter on the official website of the AFC who interviewed him. "If you're here, you're just one step away from the final, how can you be content to just stop at the semi-finals? ”

The reporter on the official website of the AFC was a little surprised, and she asked rhetorically: "Definitely?"

"Definitely. Zhou Yi nodded and confirmed again.

And Zhou Yi's opponent in this game, Australia's star Cahill also expressed his confidence in reaching the final in an interview.

"Zhou Yi is a very good player, but football is a team sport, not an individual sport. Cahill shrugged. What he meant was that the overall level of the Chinese team was too poor, and it was useless for Zhou Yi to perform well alone. "We're going to be in the finals because we're stronger!"