There is a belief called football

Chapter 336 The Group Qualifies Easily
There are two types of football games - cups and leagues.

Some teams are very good at cup games, such as Liverpool. Although they have not won the top British league championship for more than 20 years, this team has always performed well in the Champions League.There are also many teams that are good at the league, such as Juventus, Bayern Munich and so on.

The reason for this is that the cup race is very different from the league. If you use track and field as an example, the cup race is like a 400-meter race. It starts slowly, bites in the middle, and sprints at the end.The league is like a marathon, the competition is endurance.

As a head coach, this is something Stan needs to consider.

In the past, when the Chinese team played cup games, they might go all out in the first game and strive to qualify for the group stage, but now it is different. What Stan worries about is not that the team is not in good shape, but that the state is too early. His current job is not to stimulate the state of the players, but how to suppress the players.

After discussing with the team doctor, Stan decided to change the original training plan of two training sessions a day to training in the morning, walking in the evening and resting at noon.

After the group stage, two practice sessions per day will be resumed. The ideal state in Stein's mind is that the Chinese team will start to show their state from the quarter-finals.

Managing a team is an art, the training plan must be just right, not too excited during the game, and avoid injury, Stan is like an old Chinese doctor, only he knows how to measure.

*****
The first match of the Chinese team's group match was against "Saudi Arabia", and the match venue was at the "Brisbane Stadium".

For Saudi Arabia, "Stan" is not very familiar with it. He only knows that they are the most successful team in the Asian Cup, just like the Japanese team. Saudi Arabia has won the championship 3 times, and Japan has won the championship 4 times.

Although the opponent seemed to be a strong team, Stan still did not send out the strongest lineup. Li Qiao and Lin Zhijian did not play, but the Chinese team swept Saudi Arabia 3-0. Ding Mu scored 2 goals and Wei Xiao scored 1 goal.

After the game, the head coach of Saudi Arabia hinted that the Chinese team did not respect the opponent in an interview, "I would rather lose 10 games, and hope that the opponent is the main player."

For this, Stan immediately apologized, "Li Qiao, Lin Zhijian just returned to the team, I didn't let them play to protect them".

Stan doesn’t want to give people the impression of playing big names. That’s not good for the team. In addition, Stan can also understand the opponent. After all, think about it. Sometimes in a friendly match, the most annoying thing is that the opponent’s main players can’t come.

So in the second game against Uzbekistan, Stan sent all the main players. This game was still held at the "Brisbane Stadium".

After replacing all the main players, the Chinese team won the second game 1-0, and the scene was not as good as the first game.

But after the second game, Australia's former international players "Viduka" and "Kewell" praised the Chinese team.

A layman watching the fun, an expert watching the doorway, ordinary fans may think that the first game was 3-0 and the second game was 1-0, and the Chinese team regressed. But experts know that the reason why the Chinese team won three games in the first game was because the Chinese team could not control it.

Just like Duan Yu's Six Meridians Excalibur, the most difficult thing is not to hurt people, but to draw it freely.

After two rounds of competition, the Chinese team qualified first in the group one round ahead of schedule. In the third game, the North Koreans were unlucky, because Stan had to speed up his preparations for the quarter-finals.

In the end, in Canberra, the Chinese team beat North Korea 5-0, and won all three games to qualify for the group stage. The opponents of the Chinese team's quarter-finals will be between "Qatar" and "UAE".

*****
Although the next opponent of the Chinese team has not yet been determined, the next match will be held in Sydney.

So after the group stage, a large number of Chinese people got off the plane at Sydney Airport every day. In the group stage of this Asian Cup, the domestic fans were basically not dispatched. Everyone waited for the knockout stage to start before going to Australia to cheer for the national team.

The Chinese team except for Stan also went to Sydney to start preparing for the game. Apart from the Chinese reporters around the Chinese team's training ground, the most were Australian reporters. They already regarded the Chinese team as their number one rival. The Australian reporters had three cameras dedicated to following Li Qiao, Ding Mu, and Wei Xiao.

The Australians had suffered from the Chinese team in the top 10. This time they did a good job of intelligence work. When Stan was not there, he specially found a person wearing his own clothes and facing away from the media area, so although there were many reporters on the sidelines, no one knew that Stan was not on the team.

But compared to the uprightness of the Australians, a few pairs of sneaky eyes in the dark are even more cunning.

Those were Japanese football spies. They didn’t invent this trick. As early as the 2006 World Cup, the Germans had a professional team to collect intelligence on their opponents. For example, before the game against Argentina, the German intelligence team collected and analyzed the Argentine goalkeeper’s habit of throwing penalty kicks. Finally, in the penalty shootout, the information really worked.

The Japanese began to collect information on several main players of the Chinese team half a year ago, especially Li Qiao. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Japanese team's understanding of Li Qiao may be second only to Stan and Klopp.The Chinese team is more or less aware of these situations, but there is no way to stop these things, or there is no need to stop them if they have the strength.

The Chinese team kept a very open mind for this game. The team accepted the shooting request of a local TV station in Sydney, accompanied by the former Australian star "Viduka".

Viduka is playing the role of host this time. Australians also know the rules. No matter how open the team is, there are things that cannot be filmed. Viduka hopes to have a face-to-face interview with Li Qiao, and the team leader "Li Weifeng" readily agrees.

Li Qiao was invited to be interviewed in front of the goal on the training ground. Both of them were standing. This form is quite special.

"First question first, do you really know me?"Viduka said.

"I know a little bit, but it seems that Kewell is better than you," Li Qiao said.

Viduka smiled. He is indeed not the best player in Australia. He is too strong. In fact, he is not a football player, but a wrestler.

"Among the 16 teams, which one are you most afraid of"?asked Viduka.

Li Qiao said proudly: "I really can't think of it."

"Is it easy to come back to face Asian teams after experiencing the Bundesliga?"
This question is not easy to answer. Li Qiao had agreed with Qi Bing in advance that if he encountered a difficult question, he would wink at him, and Qi Bing would take the ball and kick "Viduka" and pretend to be an "accident" to rescue himself.

Li Qiao knew that no matter how he answered this question, he gave Qi Bing a wink, and a second later, Viduka was kicked in the head.

Qi Bing ran over to apologize to "Viduka", and Li Qiao also said sorry, but after such a fuss, the problem just now was muddled away.

Qi Bing's kicks are not light or heavy. Li Qiao meant to give "Viduka" a light push on the back of the head, but Qi Bing volleyed and used Viduka's head as a sandbag. After Viduka slowed down, the interview ended.

After the Australian left, Li Qiao said to Qi Bing: "I let you make a rescue, and didn't let you kick him unconscious."

"Looking at his figure, I'm afraid that kicking lightly won't be effective," Qi Bing said shyly.

"I don't blame you, who told him to dig a hole for me to jump in?" Li Qiao said with a smile.

Li Weifeng came over and called the two to continue training, the big head is now the "leader", and Stan is not here, the players have to listen to him.

*****
The match between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates attracted many fans to watch. One of them was wearing a mask and sunglasses, which attracted the attention of the guards. In Australia, where the air is not bad, generally no one would wear a mask.

"Sir, we want to search you," said the guard.

The coaches all have passes given by the organizers, and Stan reluctantly took out the passes to prove that he is not a bad person.

But the guard still didn't believe it, and he might have picked up someone else's ID, so he insisted on a body search.After undergoing a body search, Stan returned to his seat to watch the game.

Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have very similar styles and histories. Both countries made a lot of money from oil, then invested wildly in football, and finally spent money to achieve good results.

Stan did a survey before the game. The most powerful people in the UAE are two people, one is "Omar" who is called Gulf Messi, and the other is their shooter "Mabhut", especially "Omar", who has been targeted by many European teams. The little guy has an explosive head and looks very personal.

Stan is a very picky person, but such a coach, after watching half the game, began to like "Omar" from the bottom of his heart.He is a player with football talent, he is good at handling the ball, and he is not rigid. It seems that he may become a big problem for the Chinese team.

The two teams played very hard in this game. Whoever wins will qualify for the group stage. After an unreserved confrontation, the UAE defeated Qatar 3-2.

In other words, the opponent the Chinese team will face is the UAE, which has never met in the Asian Cup.

After the game, Stan looked at his notebook, but there was not a single word. The game was chaotic and both sides were eager to score goals, so Stan did not see the tactical flash point, but Stan saw a treasure. He wrote "Omar" on the blank notebook.

"Let me see the strength of "Gulf Messi" in the next game."

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(End of this chapter)