After playing Uzbekistan, all the members of the Dragon Team went to Qatar after a short rest to prepare for the last match of the Asian round of 12 in this World Cup qualifiers.

The importance of this game goes without saying, as long as the Dragons can remain unbeaten on the road, they can theoretically hold South Korea down and finish second in the group.

This is mainly due to the fact that the Dragons have a big advantage in goal difference, considering that Uzbekistan itself is also competing for third place in the group, and it will definitely beat South Korea, so it is obviously unlikely that South Korea will earn enough goal difference on Uzbekistan to overtake the Dragons.

In other words, if the Dragons draw with Qatar and South Korea beat Uzbekistan, both sides will have 17 points, but the Dragons will still qualify under normal circumstances.

In other words, it's almost a "tie and qualify" game!

This seems to be a kind of curse of the Dragon Kingdom, and I don't know how many times, they have all fallen under such a good situation.

Therefore, Pan Yi and Lippi also repeatedly emphasized in the team that they should not play with such a mentality.

It is to treat Qatar as an opponent in the final, fight for the opponent, strive to win, and don't leave any regrets for yourself!

In fact, Qatar, which has been out of the game ahead of schedule, does not have the idea of so-called "releasing water".

Although the morale of their players has been greatly reduced due to the early elimination, they still hope to end this qualifying match with a victory.

Not to mention anything else, they are the hosts of the next World Cup, that is, the 2022 World Cup, and they definitely don't want their performance to be too humiliating!

Therefore, there are still many Qatari fans who come to the scene, hoping to witness their team beat the Dragons, which is also a kind of revenge for the defeat in the first leg! ——

After defeating five different opponents in the same group in succession, the Dragon team can be said to have won all the applause, especially the tactical execution and spirit shown by the team, which has been affirmed by the media and fans.

The media and fans are generally optimistic about the away challenge to Qatar, and Lippi said in a rare way before the game that he is full of confidence in winning the game.

Such a statement is to tell the players from the side that this game is to win, and don't think about anything that can be qualified if you draw.

In the locker room before the game, Pan Yi also hoped that everyone could continue the performance and spirit of the recent game, and called on the players not to be pressured, let go of their hands and feet, perform to the fullest, and fight to the end.

"Before we go on the pitch, I want everyone to think about how we got to where we are today.

Pan Yi's words made the locker room silent for a while.

Each international player is immersed in memories and reflections, and they are all thinking about what made this team go from being at the bottom of the first four rounds to almost qualifying for the World Cup after five consecutive wins.

What is it that makes them, the national football players who were ridiculed and despised by various media and fans in the past, become national heroes and make people praise?

Are they superior?

Apparently not!

Although a large part of this is due to the new coaching staff, especially the addition of Lippi and Pan Yi, the team's technical and tactical level has been greatly improved, but a large part of it is also due to their mental transformation.

They all remember how they shed blood and sweat in the past games, supported all the way, and fought hard.

They have been able to get to where they are today because of a hard work that will never give up!

"Five wins in a row has brought us closer and closer to the World Cup, but we haven't really gotten that ticket yet."

"In the decades of dragon football history, there has never been a lack of black experiences of losing everything at the last minute, and I sincerely hope that we will not repeat the mistakes of our predecessors."

'This game is important and I want each and every one of you to give it your all and not give up hope. Even to the last minute, we have to do everything we can to get three points away from the road and make sure we qualify for next year's World Cup. ”

"I don't know, in your hearts, the weight of the World Cup is heavy or light, there is no basis for words, you can only show me on the pitch and show everyone!"

——

Although it was an away game, the Dragons still insisted on using the team's usual 4-3-3 attacking formation.

The goalkeeper is Zeng Cheng, the back line is Jiang Zhipeng, Feng Xiaoting, Mei Fang and Zhang Linpeng, the three midfielders are Wu Xi, Zheng Zhi and Huang Bowen, and the front is a combination of Wu Lei, Zhang Yuning and Huang Zichang.

The biggest change in today's lineup is to let Huang Zichang start, and he is playing on the right side today, while Wu Lei is on the left side.

From this change, it can be seen that today the Dragon team is to use the speed of the two wings to suppress Qatar.

Complementing it is to deploy three players with better defensive ability in the midfield to ensure the quality and thickness of the midfield's defense.

It's a game that doesn't need to be mobilized at all.

Every player gave their all on the pitch and kept running and covering from the start.

And Qatar is obviously prepared for this game, they understand that the offensive ability of the Dragon team is not easy to mess with, and they have also learned the lesson of the loss in the first leg, and they have taken the initiative to show weakness at home.

They abandoned the traditional back four and adopted a back five formation, making it clear that they were going to fight back with defense in this game.

However, Long Guo also expected this, and at the beginning of the game, they quickly launched a midfield press and successfully snatched the ball within 30 seconds.

After the ball was broken in the front court, Huang Zichang crossed the arc ball from the right side, and Zhang Yuning grabbed a header in the penalty area to attack the goal, but the ball was slightly off.

This attack quickly ignited the passion of the Dragon Country team, especially the Dragon Country fans who came from afar in the stands were even more excited, waving the red flag in their hands and cheering loudly.

Today, they are going to be on the scene to witness the Dragon Team breaking into the World Cup again!

Three minutes later, it was the midfielder from the Longguo team who broke the ball, and the captain Zheng Zhi suddenly dribbled the ball to the front along the way, and directly kicked a heavy shot on the periphery of the penalty area, hitting a very high-quality long-range shot, which was lifted off the crossbar by the opponent's goalkeeper.

Subsequently, Huang Bowen took a corner kick, Feng Xiaoting's header in the penalty area was ferried, and the Mei side attacked the goal in the penalty area, but the angle was too positive and was saved by the opponent's goalkeeper, which resolved the wave of attack of the Dragon Country team.

The Dragons slowed down their offensive appropriately when two consecutive waves of attacks failed to work, but still maintained the pressure on Qatar's midfield.

Just when everyone thought that Qatar was going to survive the opening three of the Dragons, and the Dragons were about to slow down their attack, there was a passing error between the Qatari defender and the midfielder.

Huang Bowen suddenly preempted the opponent's midfielder Sain, intercepted the ball, and dribbled to the defensive line.

When Huang Bowen approached the penalty area with the ball, the opponent's central defender Guka finally couldn't help but grab, but at this moment, Huang Bowen suddenly passed diagonally behind him, and the center forward Zhang Yuning quickly caught up, and after blocking the opponent's central defender with his body, after a beautiful pull ball turned around, his left foot suddenly shot at close range.

The ball passed under the opponent's goalkeeper with lightning speed and drilled into the goal behind him, 0:1!

Zhang Yuning finally scored again!

This goal completely ignited the passion of the national team and also made all the fans in the stands very excited.

After some frantic celebrations, the internationals returned to the pitch.

At this time, the Dragon team fans in the stands shouted "The Dragon Country must win" cheering, completely covering up the sound of Qatari fans wearing white bandanas beating the unique Arab drums.

Such a voice also deeply infected all the Dragon Country players on the court.

The morale-boosting Dragon Team had the posture of attacking Qatar in one breath, and once again planned waves of offensives on the field.

It's just that although the international players created scoring opportunities again and again, either they missed the scoring opportunities, or the opposing goalkeeper and defenders performed well, and in the end they failed to score.

Twenty-five minutes passed, and Lippi saw that Qatar was gradually regaining the feeling of the game, and immediately signaled the team to stabilize their position, stop fighting, and hurry up to defend first, maintain a one-goal lead, and wait for the opponent to make a mistake.

It's just that the current players of the Dragon Country team are a little red-eyed, and in the case of complete control of the ball, they are still a little too pressed, always thinking that they can take advantage of the victory to chase and score another goal to establish the victory.

But what I didn't expect was that soon Qatar seized an opportunity and played a counterattack.

Their right midfielder Ishyett seized the defensive gap left by Jiang Zhipeng's forward attack, quickly inserted a counterattack, and after receiving a pass from his teammate, he rushed into the penalty area and crossed the middle, and striker Abra followed up to push the shot, and successfully equalized the score.

1-1, the race was back on the same line.

This goal hit the Dragons players hard, and in the following ten minutes, the Dragons were a little out of shape, and even Qatar once got an excellent opportunity to kick off the right side of the penalty spot in the penalty area.

Fortunately, Zeng Cheng stood in a very good position, sealed the angle, and the opponent's shot failed to hit the goal frame and skewed the bottom line.

Then Pan Yi kept reminding on the sidelines to make the international players gradually cheer up, but they still fell into the entanglement with Qatar, and finally both sides failed to make any achievements in the first half, ending the first half with a score of 1:1.

——

Back in the locker room, Pan Yi harshly scolded the poor performance of the international players.

On the one hand, it is careless when conceding a goal, but the most important thing is not to be able to come to your senses quickly after conceding a goal, because such a conceded goal makes the team behave like two people, which is simply unforgivable.

"If we keep going like this, we're probably going to concede again!" Pan Yi's face was full of anger.

"I can tell you that the score between Uzbekistan and South Korea is still 0-0, and we still have the advantage of qualifying, but can we only hope for others?"

"There are still 45 minutes, if we do concede a goal and South Korea also scores, then do you still have the face to go back to meet the parents of the dragon country?"

"Okay, you don't have to go back to China, just these thousands of Dragon Country fans in the stands now, they have traveled thousands of miles to the Middle East to support you, are you worthy of them?"

The internationals all bowed their heads.

They were also clearly ashamed of their performance in the last 20 minutes of the first half, mainly because they were equalised after taking the lead, which made them a little flustered when they were already not in good mental condition.

The mentality of them is to rush to get a goal back and go ahead again, but they are a little bit out of position.

After all, only being ahead can make them feel safe.

Pan Yi can certainly understand the mood of the national players, but sometimes it is necessary to maintain it, and to scold when it is time to scold.

Now the national team is getting better and better, and the group situation is so good that it almost makes people feel that the Dragons have qualified for the World Cup, which is not a good phenomenon.

The rush and goal at the beginning of the game just now, in fact, the Dragon Country team played very well, and the players played well in terms of overall skills and tactics and offensive and defensive cooperation.

But after conceding a goal, the kick was really bad.

After a reprimand, Pan Yi quickly re-made new instructions, requiring everyone to be decisive and confident in their passes in the next game, especially in the horizontal pass at the front of the opponent's big penalty area, to be more resolute, and there is no need to hesitate to insert the two fullbacks.

Such instructions are actually very simple, and they are often practiced in training, but now the mentality of the national football players is a little unstable, and it is necessary to emphasize this.

And obviously, the players listened.

After the rematch in the second half, the Dragons once again firmly suppressed Qatar in the half.

And the Dragon Country team did not live up to Pan Yi's high expectations, only six minutes into the second half, when an attack to the front of the opponent's penalty area, Huang Zichang and Huang Bowen passed continuously, and Huang Bowen divided the ball to the left side.

After Jiang Zhipeng caught up, he crossed to the penalty area from the left, and Zhang Yuning grabbed the goal from close range, 1:2!

After exceeding the score again, Zhang Yuning, who scored a brace, was so excited that he got carried away and kept waving his hands, but was soon stopped by his teammates chasing behind him and fell to the ground.

The 20-year-old has become the current top scorer in the national team, which can be said to fully repay Lippi and Pan Yi's trust in him.

This goal also made the tense nerves of the Dragon players finally relaxed, and they played more easily on the field.

In the 60th minute, Lippi also replaced Zhang Yuning, who scored two goals, with Gao Lin to increase the tandem of the midfield.

At the same time, Lin Liangming also came on the field to replace Huang Zichang and asked him to play the position of right winger.

This substitution also had an effect after ten minutes.

In the eighty-third minute, it was a cross from the right side of Lin Liangming, Gao Lin grabbed the first point in the penalty area, and after the ball was transferred to Wu Lei who cut inside on the left side, Wu Lei hit directly without thinking, and the ball once again penetrated the Qatari goal.

1：3！

In the end, the Dragon Country team defeated Qatar without danger with Zhang Yuning's brace and Wu Lei's goal.

After winning this game, it doesn't matter what the results of the other games are.

In fact, Uzbekistan ended up in a 0-0 draw with South Korea, while Iran also drew 2-2 with Syria in an inconsequential match.

In this way, Iran and Dragon Kingdom are tied with 19 points and join hands to qualify from Group A!

And due to the advantage of the dragon country in goal difference, the final Group A ranking is the first in the dragon country and the second in Iran!

From the bottom of the group to the positive first, the Dragon Country team has achieved a qualitative leap!

South Korea, on the other hand, are third with 15 points and will compete with Group B third-placed Australia for a place in the intercontinental play-offs.

In Group B, the competition for the top two in the final group is also very fierce, and in the end, Japan is the first with 20 points, while Saudi Arabia is second with 19 points, and Australia is also 19 points, but the goal difference is two less than Saudi Arabia, and it can only be relegated to third.

But these play-offs and non-play-offs have nothing to do with the Dragon Kingdom.

Dragon Country is out!

They are in the main stage of the 2018 World Cup!

This is not only a game for the Dragon players, but also a ticket to the World Cup.

Dragon Football has been waiting for this for more than ten years, and they have been waiting for this for a lifetime.

When the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game, the original tense mood and atmosphere disappeared in an instant.

Captain Zheng Zhi rushed to the coach's seat and shouted at Pan Yi: "Boss, we won!" ”

Before he finished speaking, he was already choked up, and the whole person squatted on the ground, hugged his head and cried.

He is the best player in Dragon Country football in recent years, and he is also the representative of Dragon Country football, and he is also the only player among Dragon Country players to have won the title of Asian Footballer of the Year - the last one was the captain Fan Zhiyi who led the national team to the World Cup in 2001!

But when Zheng Zhi was too young in 2002, he missed the opportunity for the Dragon Kingdom to participate in the World Cup for the first time.

He thought that he could lead the national football team to continue to work hard, but he did not expect to usher in the trough and dark years of Dragon Football, and failed to break through from the first stage of the group stage for several consecutive years.

He originally thought that there was no hope in his life, but he didn't expect that a miracle would appear!

Not only Zheng Zhi couldn't cry, but many players on the field also cried bitterly, and the people in the coach's bench and the bench also hugged and cried.

They've finally arrived!

After waiting for more than ten years, suffering for more than ten years, they finally came!

Pan Yi was also very excited, he walked quickly to Zheng Zhi, pulled him up, took him to the court, and celebrated with all the players on the field.

The same is true in the stands.

With tears in their eyes, many fans congratulated the Dragon players on the field.

Many of them may have been students or children when the Dragons last participated in the World Cup, but now some have started a family, and some are middle-aged.

After 16 long years of waiting, their dream has finally come true!

Fans also played the slogan they had prepared for a long time:

"World Cup, here we go again!"

——

The day after the race, BJ International Airport.

When the airport radio broadcast that the chartered plane taken by the national team had successfully landed at the airport, the entire waiting hall burst into cheers and shook the sky.

Thousands of fans and media reporters gathered towards the pick-up gate.

It didn't take long to see the members of the national team under the leadership of head coach Lippi appear one after another.

All the fans and media reporters who gathered at the scene spontaneously obeyed the order of the ground staff on the spot, and sent the warmest thunderous applause to the victorious international players.

At the scene, countless fans held up cards with the heads of Lippi and Pan Yi to express their love for the coaching staff of the national team.

Who would have thought that less than a year ago, the national team was still desperate for a poor record of one draw and three defeats, and everyone felt that the national team would once again stop in the round of 12.

Unexpectedly, a year later, this same national team not only won many battles in the top 12, but also finally won the first place in the group and successfully entered the 2018 Russia World Cup!

It is precisely because of this that the importance of the coaching staff is even more reflected.

In particular, Lippi and Pan Yi have brought earth-shaking changes to this national team, and the existence of Pan Yi has brought fighting spirit and bloodiness to this national team that has not been seen for a long time!

It can be said that each of the six victories in the round of 12 relied on the concerted efforts of all the international players, and with the help of the extraordinary command of Lippi and Pan Yi, they were able to win one by one.

What is even more ecstatic is that while winning consecutive games, the performance of the national team is getting better and better, the formation is getting better and better, and the atmosphere within the team is becoming more and more united.

All of this gives people hope.

Now these players of the national football team are not inferior to those popular stars in terms of the attraction of fans, and now there is Pan Yi, the "number one Internet celebrity" in the team, which is naturally more attractive.

The national football team finally reached the World Cup, and Pan Yi's mood was also excellent.

When he saw that some fans were stopped outside the security line by the ground staff, but he reached out vigorously and handed in the autograph book, Pan Yi would smile and nod, reach out to take it, and quickly sign his name on it.

The same was true of the internationals who followed him, signing autographs for the fans, which made the fans even more excited.

Many fans who were not prepared earlier even took off their coats and asked the coaches and players to sign their names on their clothes, saying that they wanted to take them back and treasure them.

Of course, there are many more fans who have no way to squeeze to the front, and can only shout loudly in the back to show their support for this national team.

And such a scene also made this group of old international players in the national team feel embarrassed.

How many years?

Since reaching the World Cup in 2002, how many years has the national team not thought of such treatment?

Today, they truly experience what it's like to be a hero!

In fact, there are still many scenes that they can only see in various videos, that is, carnivals all over the country at the moment when the qualification is determined.

After the race, the entire Dragon Kingdom was in a frenzy, and people poured into the streets from all directions.

Every street was filled with joy and tears, and the people on the upper floors of the residents opened their windows, some knocked on the pots, and some even set off firecrackers.

Under the banner of "Dream Fulfillment", fan teams from all over the country began to march along the street together, walked to various squares, and shouted slogans all the way.

The revelry lasted for most of the night, until the police shouted "go home and rest" on the radio, and the crowd gradually dispersed.

It's been 16 years, and we're finally as excited as we were on the night we qualified for the 2001 World Cup;

It's been 16 years, and we can finally shout "we're out" again, instead of "RNM is back" or "it's over";

Perhaps, Dragon Country football has never felt so good as it does now...... (End of chapter)