In addition to Duff, there are 3 people in this Irish national youth team who are more familiar to Chinese fans, one is the main goalkeeper of the Manchester City team Given, but unfortunately Manchester City only went after Hai's transfer to Sheffield United, and then Dunn in the midfield, this guy has been a teammate with Jihai for 6 seasons, and he is a partner in the backline, and the last one is Robbie. Keane scored 107 goals in 254 games for Tottenham, and his partner at the time was the famous football dashing brother – Dimitar Berbatov.

In theory, Ireland is the quintessential English style of play, and there's nothing wrong with seeing him as an England second team. The lineup of the Chinese team in the first game is as follows:

Goalkeeper: Li Leilei

Three central defenders: Li Weifeng, Zhang Yonghai, Li Boen

Left and right wingbacks: Wu Chengying, Sun Jihai

Double back: Jia Wenpeng, Sui Dongliang

Front waist: Shao Jiayi

Forwards: Tian Ye, Wang Peng

Originally, Li Weifeng was on the right side, because Ireland's Duff played left midfield, so Jin Zhiyang's guidance put the fast Li Byrne on the right side, which could better assist Duff's breakthrough.

The first half was not smooth for both teams, Ireland had a simpler approach to attack, with Duff on the left using technical striker David Brown. The cooperation between Connolly and the forward midfielder is looking for opportunities to break through, often going down to the bottom to the front of the goal to half-high balls and low flat crosses, or directly inverting the triangle to find Dunn who is inserted behind to shoot long, otherwise it is Dafneche to shoot himself or find an opportunity to feed the ball to Robbie in front of the goal. Keane. But what the head coach of the Irish team did not expect is that Sun Jihai's individual defense ability on the right side of the Chinese team is so good, although the speed is not as good as Duff, but the outstanding defensive awareness and good card position have caused a lot of trouble to Duff, and it is easy to have two successful breakthroughs, and the opponent's right central defender Li Byrne has already made up for the defense in place. Duff also tried to swap positions with Gilbinny on the right side, but on the right side, the opponent's Wu Chengying is not a good master to deal with, plus Jia Wenpeng in the back position is also a defensive giant, Duff's mentality has also been affected, and in the second half of the first half, he couldn't even see a decent breakthrough, Ireland could only get the ball to a 45-degree angle in the last seven or eight minutes.

The Chinese team, which is not very good at the same time, is that the attention of the two wings is more focused on defense, and the number of assists is not much, and they do not play their own side advantage, and the second is also related to Shao Jiayi's poor play in the forward position, +1 The style of the big man is indeed softer, and there were many mistakes in the face of Dunn's fierce defense, and he only had one successful pass, and after the middle was prevented from death, the two wings could not be opened, And the field didn't have much advantage against the Irish defender who was good at heading.

The change of the situation on the field began with the midfield substitution of the coaches of both sides, Jin Zhiyang decisively replaced Shao Jiayi, a fellow who performed poorly in the forward position, Zhang Xiaorui with better skills on the field, and the field in the forward position was also replaced, Jianlibao Fengba Li Jinyu was put on the battlefield, which is an obvious signal, the Chinese team should strengthen control in the second half, and the focus shifted from defense to offense. Coincidentally, the head coach of the Irish team also has the same idea, the difference is that a central defender was removed and a 1.98 meter high striker was added.

As soon as the second half kicked off, Ireland played a long pass and rushed to hang, don't you say, this big man's header kung fu is really good, the Chinese team's 3 central defenders rotated, and they didn't fight him. With this high point that is temporarily unsolvable, Ireland started the second half with a series of small climaxes. First, Dunn received a header and fired a long-range shot that went just over the crossbar, followed by a header from big center Craig for David who was inserted into the box. Connolly, thanks to Lee Byrne, directly gave up the fight with the opponent, and the early position was used to destroy the opponent's attack. For a while, there was a lot of noise near the penalty area of the Chinese team, the opponent's three forwards plus two wings and the front waist, as well as the back Dunn who stepped forward from time to time, six or seven people kept pressing the Chinese team's back line, and the high point could not be grabbed, and the second point landed at all, don't think about stabilizing and looking for teammates in front of you to fight back, you can only clear the siege with a big foot to ensure that the defense line does not have problems.

If this situation does not change as soon as possible, the Chinese team will not be far from conceding a goal. Taking advantage of the gap of the dead ball, Li Weifeng suggested that the clearance should not be thought about finding teammates in front of him, the back row could not keep up, and Li Jinyu and Wang Peng in front did not pose much threat to them with the ball, it was better to kick out of bounds on the sideline, use the throw-in to put pressure on the opponent, and find an opportunity to break the ball and play counterattack. Ouch, the big head is starting to use his brain, not bad, not bad. So after blocking the opponent's attack on the next time, Lee Bourne kicked the ball out of bounds near the center circle. Taking advantage of the opponent's time to pick up the ball, the Chinese team's formation quickly pressed forward, and the entire wing and middle did not give the opponent a chance to receive the ball, and the right midfielder of the Irish team hesitated for a while, and had no choice but to throw the ball over the head of the big center Craig. Since this ball Craig also followed the retreat to receive the ball, it was far away from the Chinese team's penalty area, so there was no need to worry about the opponent being able to directly penetrate the defensive line. So Li Bern also boldly chose to steal around the front, Craig's high air advantage is indeed obvious, but the extremely heavy body and slow movement make him away from the penalty area after the threat is very reduced, the ball was also grabbed by the agile teenager for the first time. After Li Boen broke the ball, he didn't blindly pass the ball out, but used his speed to open the distance with Cragela behind him, and the big man couldn't foul enough, and then Li Bourne pretended to pass to the front waist Zhang Xiaorui, a feint shook Dunn's defense, and after observing the position of his teammates in the front court, the boy gave a straight kick to the opponent's right side, the power of the ball is not small, and the purpose is to give Wu Chengying time to start accelerating. The opponent's average height of 1.84 meters in the back line collectively chased back, but because the ball was too far, Wu Chengying, who was up to speed, quickly overtook the opponent and left the entire Irish defense behind. The opponent had no choice but two central defenders to run into the penalty area, and the other was a little faster and gritted his teeth on the inside line to desperately chase the left wingback of the Chinese team.

Li Jinyu, Wang Peng and Li Byrne all outflanked the middle at high speed, the Irish team even Duff chased back from the left side, Wu Chengying took the ball to the left corner of the penalty area, and used his best left foot to make an obvious arc, the ball began to fall before the middle goal, and the ball flew away from the goal with the arc, Duff because he came back to make up for the defense with Li Byrne in the middle, and the ball caused Sun Jihai to be unmarked by the far Chinese team. Sun Dasheng flew to the top of the small penalty area about 2 meters inward, the ball followed the sea to the far corner, the ball was extremely fast, and the misjudged Jiwen's body exaggerated outward and twisted his arm to reach, but the ball flew into the far corner with his fingertips.

1:0! Manchester City defenders broke through the goal guarded by the Manchester City goalkeeper!

The Chinese team can be described as a hit, countless Malaysian overseas Chinese and domestic fans who rushed over at the scene sang the national anthem in unison at this moment, Sun Jihai after the goal was also very excited, one hand held the shirt off and rushed to the stands where Chinese fans gathered, and then.... Then the thing actually threw the jersey into a lump and threw it into the stands. When Jihai returned to the field, the referee who had been waiting for a long time gave out a yellow card in confusion, but fortunately, the bench prepared an extra jersey, otherwise the coaching staff could only replace Sun Jihai off the field.

In the next 25 minutes or so, the Chinese team, who had recovered their strength, began to try to control the tempo, and the technical advantage of the midfield was brought into play even better under the impatience of the Irish team. In the 44th minute of the second half of the game, Zhang Xiaorui crossed the entire forward line of Inner Ireland including Dunn and Duff with 3 croquettes in the middle of the field, and sent an accurate long pass over the top in the shouts and screams of the Chinese fans in the field.

After 3 minutes of stoppage time, the Chinese national youth team ushered in a good start in the 1997 World Youth Championships in Malaysia, which also ensured that as long as the last two games were not a big loss, basically a best third place has been ensured, facing the remaining two in the same group Ghana and the United States, which are not as strong as Ireland, the Chinese national youth team can completely let go and play, and prepare for the round of 16 with their best condition.