After Gerrard scored a hat-trick to win this game, the Liverpool players are also leaving England to play the Club World Cup.

This edition of the Club World Cup is theoretically the second edition: the first was held in Brazil in 2000. It's just that the Club World Cup has not yet been called the 'Toyota Cup' at that time. Intercontinental Cup's merger, although the organizers of that tournament also worked hard to organize the competition, and invited many strong teams including Real Madrid and Manchester United to participate, but because the game itself was not taken seriously at the time, and after that session, because of sponsorship issues, the second session originally scheduled to be held in Spain was not held, until last year, that is, at the end of 2004, after the end of the Toyota Cup, the naming rights of the Toyota Cup ended, and the competition and the Club World Cup were merged to become today's Club World Cup. The biggest difference from previous years is that in previous years, the Toyota Cup was decided by the European champion and the South American champion, but now, the Club World Cup has become a seven-race competition. In this tournament, the club champions of Asia, Africa, Oceania, North Central and the Caribbean will be drawn to match each team, and then the winner will advance to the semi-finals. European and South American teams advance directly to the semi-finals, where the winners and losers are followed by the finals, with third and fourth place finishers and five or six place finals.

For sponsors, this is a good thing: the more clubs that participate, the more competitions, the more money they make. However, this is not a good thing for the European and South American champions: such a change in the format means that they have at least two games to play anyway, which is undoubtedly a lot of pressure on the European and South American teams, which are already heavy on the schedule.

But the championship of this competition is still very attractive for Liverpool players. The reason is also very simple, because Liverpool has never won this title.

Although Liverpool have been strong in 80 years, they can almost be called a sweep across Europe, but they have been defeated in the Toyota Cup twice and played against South American players. Not only them, but in fact, in the Toyota Cup in the 80s, Liverpool, Villa, and Nottingham Forest all lost to South American teams - and it is precisely because of this that in people's evaluation, Liverpool's glory in the 80s is not enough to compare with Milan. Although they are all dominating at home and dominating in the Champions League, Milan has a good record in the Toyota Cup in addition to more European footballers, and the Milan dynasty has obvious advantages against South American teams, and can be called invincible in the world, but Liverpool's Toyota Cup record is not very good, in the same era, they played all over Europe, but they were not able to play all over the world.

Zhao Yaning has always been a little incomprehensible to this question. In his mind, European football is the center of world football. Although South America is full of sè players and the national team has always had a good record, their league schedule is chaotic, and the football ethos has always been to promote attack, individual ability, and individual play of talented players. There are often young players who, at a young age, before they are twenty years old, get the best honour in the Brazilian league, and then they want to run outside. Or maybe a lot of old players, who can't play in Europe anymore, go back to South America, they can also dominate and dominate, why can such a league beat Liverpool in the 80s?

He couldn't understand this question, so he asked McConn directly in the team, after all, the most familiar with South American football in the team are still South Americans.

"Bajia is very strong." McCone immediately replied, "Let me explain it to you like this: you have played against the Portuguese Super League and know their quality. Most of the players in the Portuguese Super League are Brazilians - because Brazilians are not foreign players in the Portuguese Super League, and their strength is outstanding, so the Portuguese Super League uses a lot of Brazilian players. And most of their teams use second-rate players from the Brazilian league, because the Portuguese Super League is generally poor, and they can't afford to buy good players. And the teams they bought good players, Benfica, Lisbon, Porto and Braga, are all teams that have not been weak in European competitions. What is the quality of the Brazilian team? Just refer to the strong teams in the Portuguese Super League, this is their strength. ”

McCone paused before continuing, "Of course, the tactics of the Portuguese Super League are stronger than those of Brazil, after all, every major tactical change starts from Europe, and Europeans do have an advantage in tactics, but the talented players in Brazil, the Portuguese Super League cannot afford to use them, but they become famous in South America, and they have to be famous before they are ready to go to Europe." Remember how Luis was tricked by Riquelme in the Club World Cup? In that game, he was played like a child, and in the end he was annoyed and refused to help defend. And Riquelme became famous by that game. In fact, if you calculate carefully, in the past, our South American results have always been stronger than Europe, until the Boseman Act was introduced, European teams have money, can be recruited at will, in recent years, the loss of South American players has been serious, Europe's advantage has suddenly become huge, we really can't compete with them. ”

People say that Europe is the center of football, but in reality the real great contribution of European football lies in every tactical innovation rather than in the top players. In fact, South America has always had more players than Europe. Before the Boseman Act was introduced, European teams could only have three foreign players, and in this case, relying on their own domestic players, in terms of overall strength, they were actually not much better than South America.

Figo was exposed and turned his head away a little helplessly, and the Toyota Cup match in Real Madrid was his nightmare. It was Riquelme's fame-famous game, and it was Figo's most embarrassing game. In fact, his performance can be described as decent, but against the backdrop of Riquelme, he is not good at anything. And in the end, he got angry and refused to help defend it, which was a scandal that he couldn't erase.

"But, South American teams, not all

Is it an advocate of offense and a passion for defense? Zhao Yaning then asked.

"Why do you think that?" McCone puzzled, "We like to attack, but La Liga also likes to attack, who said that if you don't defend when you attack, you must be weak?" Speaking of defense, Ayala, Samuel, Zanetti, are these Argentines bad? Which of our Brazilian Lucio, Cafu, Carlos is worse? Just because you like to attack doesn't mean you can't defend, and South American players are never bad at defending. Moreover, South American teams do not all like to attack, South America is different from Europe, and there is no overly consistent atmosphere here, and there are people who play all kinds of football. It's a bit of nonsense to say that we don't defend, but in fact, South American players play dirty football a lot more than Europeans. It's true that South America's defense is not as fine as Europe's, and it's true that the tactics are not meticulous enough, but our players are very capable, and they are fast, ruthless, and more decisive, even better than the average European team. ”

When he said this, Zhao Yaning also understood why the strength of the South American team was very outstanding. The strength of the South American team is not weak, although it may be a little worse than the top teams in Europe, but it is definitely a strong team. In the Club World Cup, the strength of the two sides, the European team does not have much advantage, and it is far away in Asia, the impact of the away game is greater for the European team that relies on tactics, and the South American team that relies on the individual ability of the star, at this time, that is, it is a big stain, it is a decisive game, not familiar with each other enough, relying on individual ability, it is no wonder that the South American team will win.

"Looks like there's still a tough battle to be played."

"More than one." Figo also shook his head, "The first game should be to play against the winner of the North American Championship and the Oceania Championship. It is estimated that the North American champion can win, and you have to be careful in that game. ”

"The North American champion this time is Costa Rican Saprisha, right? Team ...... never heard of"

"You've always heard of American football, right?" Figo also spoke, "Major League Soccer, they haven't won a North American championship once." But their players, often a lot of people are sent to the Championship, League One to play, and large-scale transfer of European secondary league talents, which is enough to see their strength. It doesn't hurt to be careful, their strength won't be weak. ”

American soccer is actually very good, and although they are considered a soccer desert, they still have the top 20 in the world. And it's close to Mexico, a big producer of players, and they have a lot of players. And they have never won the championship in the competition, which can be seen in the strength of North American football.

It turns out that this world is so big and there are so many strong teams. It's a bit of a good thing to watch. originally thought that winning the European championship would already be remarkable, this Club World Cup championship is just a hand-to-hand capture, who knows, this championship is even very difficult......

"However, we can worry that it will not be easy to take it, but you can't." Figo spoke again.

"Why?" Zhao Yaning asked rhetorically.

'You are the tactical heart of the team. Where are we better than them? Strong is stronger in our tactics are better, we are a whole, and our team consciousness is more out of the sè! These things are in your hands, that is, the key to victory is in your hands. As long as you can play well, we can win! ”——

By the time Liverpool arrived at Rìben, the play-off game had already been decided: Saprisa beat Sydney FC to reach the semi-finals and prepare to face Liverpool.

At this time, when the Liverpool players got off the plane, they were already sleepy and couldn't stand it.

"Fifteen hours of flight, and you have to go back to jet lag...... Joey, in the future, we definitely don't ask you to come back from the national team and play immediately, it's uncomfortable to death. ”

A strong feeling of discomfort hit the whole team, after all, the problem of jet lag is not so easy to solve. Zhao Yaning himself has almost adapted to the national team because he often returns to China to play in the national team, and he only needs to sleep for a while, but these teammates who have never been to Asia have some trouble adapting to the jet lag.

In fact, as early as after the game between Liverpool and Middlesbrough, they began to deliberately adjust their rest time, training time and meal time to adapt to a game, but the adjustment at home is still different from the game outside.

"Joey, if you need to adjust to jet lag, you might as well go get some sleep." Benitez said to Zhao Yaning.

"I don't have any problems...... Coach, don't you have to rest? ”

Benitez just shook his head at Zhao Yaning's question, "I don't need to." I want to study the opponents in our game so that there are no surprises. This game is a void of honour for the club and we have to be very careful. ”

Although Benitez said this, Zhao Yaning still felt that he was a little strange. I don't know why, Zhao Yaning always felt that Benitez at this time seemed to be a little preoccupied and absent-minded.

What could make him so sentimental as a person? Zhao Yaning didn't know what he was thinking, and his relationship with Benitez was not good enough to delve into the other party's thoughts, since he didn't want to say it, then he didn't ask.

And at this time, Zhao Yaning was still not tired. It's not the first time he's been here, and here, he won the East Asian semifinals, which is a blessed place. Last year, because of his transfer, he was not able to participate in the last Toyota Cup, and Monaco lost that game. And this year, I'm here, and I can't afford to lose anymore.

This is the last championship of the year, take it down, ω· u(8) Update the fastest reading network