God of Green

After a day off, the team resumed daily training on Monday, February 25.

After the game on Sunday the day before, the Dutch Eredivisie ended all the games in the 26th round.

In this round, although Alkmaar's victory with Jiang Xiaolin's stoppage-time goal did not change their ranking, they still ranked 11th, but they widened the gap with the 12th and narrowed the gap with the 10th.

After all the games in this round, Nijmegen, which is in 12th place, has only 27 points, while Alkmaar has 33 points, and the points gap between the two sides has widened to 6 points.

Utrecht, which is in 10th place, currently has 35 points, and Alkmaar is only 2 points behind it, and a ranking change may occur in one game.

This score is quite close, which makes people jealous.

If Alkmaar only got 1 point in the previous seven games, they would not dare to look ahead in the standings.

Everyone is looking back to see whether Alkmaar can stay in the league this season. Successful relegation is a victory.

But now, after the team started to draw and win, and narrowed the points gap with the 10th place, Van Gaal had to raise his ambitions a little.

There was no need to think about the championship, and the Champions League qualification was also difficult. Van Gaal set his sights on the UEFA Cup play-off qualification.

The Champions League and UEFA Cup quotas for Dutch football are different from those of the five major leagues. They are not directly determined by the standings at the end of the season.

Because there are only 18 teams in the Eredivisie and the league is finished early, it is necessary to increase the number of additional games to increase the influence of football.

The additional games are the Champions League play-offs, UEFA Cup play-offs, and Toto Cup play-offs after the end of the league.

This is not a qualifying match.

The Champions League qualifiers refer to the pre-match competitions between clubs in various countries for the Champions League group stage places.

The Eredivisie Champions League play-offs are the play-offs after the season ends to compete for the Champions League places allocated to the Eredivisie.

According to the rules of the Eredivisie, except for the Eredivisie champion who directly qualifies for the next season's Champions League group stage, the other Champions League qualifying spots, UEFA Cup spots, and Toto Cup spots must be competed for in the play-offs at the end of the season.

The play-off rules are relatively complicated. Anyway, the champion will directly advance to the next season's Champions League group stage, and the 2nd to 5th place will participate in the Champions League play-offs to compete for the remaining Champions League spots in the Eredivisie. The losing teams plus the 6th to 10th place will participate in the UEFA Cup play-offs to compete for the UEFA Cup spots allocated to the Eredivisie by UEFA.

After failing to compete in the UEFA Cup play-offs, you can still compete for the Toto Cup qualification and enter the UEFA Cup with the Toto Cup.

In other words, as long as you enter the 10th place, you will be eligible to participate in the UEFA Cup play-offs and participate in the competition for the UEFA Cup qualification next season.

And Alkmaar, which is ranked 11th, is only 2 points away from Utrecht, which is ranked 10th.

Therefore, after discussing with the coaching staff, on the morning of February 26, Van Gaal convened the players and coaches in the conference room for a unified thought meeting and proposed the team's league goal for the last stage of the second half of the season: to enter the top 10 of the standings, qualify for the UEFA Cup play-offs, and win in the play-offs to qualify for the UEFA Cup next season.

Jiang Xiaolin naturally wanted to agree with both hands: playing in the European war has always been the dream of Chinese players, and even more so the dream of Chinese fans.

Of course, the European war is a general term for the Champions League and the UEFA Cup.

Now that there is no hope for the Champions League, it is also good to sprint towards the UEFA Cup qualification.

Then, just when everyone unified their thoughts and decided to impact the UEFA Cup qualification, Jiang Xiaolin received a new task from the system in his mind.

Task 6: UEFA Cup quota

Task requirements: Help Alkmaar enter the Eredivisie UEFA Cup play-offs this season, and then qualify for the UEFA Cup next season.

Reward: 10,000 experience + hook shot (special skill)

If this task is completed, Jiang Xiaolin will have another special skill of shooting, which makes him look forward to it.

After winning the game and having a new goal, the morale of the entire Alkmaar team was greatly boosted, and the enthusiasm for training increased a lot.

Jiang Xiaolin's performance of scoring in two consecutive games and the speed of technical improvement shown in training have convinced most of the team.

Coupled with the proficiency in language communication, Jiang Xiaolin's popularity in the team has improved rapidly, and he has gotten along with his teammates a lot better. Team cooperation and team tacit understanding have begun to improve rapidly.

Van Gaal even directly arranged Jiang Xiaolin on the main team side in the training match, and formed a double striker with Hamdaoyi for the team, which basically confirmed Jiang Xiaolin's main position.

As for Ali, the No. 9 striker who returned from injury, he could only go to the substitute team side with frustration.

Like AliThe former main goalkeeper Joey Didulica was also frustrated. He was also injured and replaced by Sergio Romero, and then his main position disappeared.

With Jiang Xiaolin in front and Romero in the back, the new lineup performed quite well in the training match. The main team often beat the substitute team by a large score, but rarely lost the ball.

The strength of both offense and defense has improved. It is no wonder that Van Gaal no longer cares about relegation, but wants to compete for the UEFA Cup qualification.

On the afternoon of February 29, after the training, Juncker announced the 18-man roster for the 27th round of the Eredivisie away the next day on behalf of Van Gaal.

Jiang Xiaolin continued to be selected for the third game without any suspense.

Of course, Jiang Xiaolin is no longer satisfied with being selected for the 18-man roster. He is more looking forward to starting.

He has full physical strength. He came on as a substitute for more than 10 minutes in the last game, and he can't vent it all.

On the morning of March 1, after breakfast at the base, the whole team took a bus to Kerkrade in the south of the Netherlands. Alkmaar will challenge Roda JC there in the evening game.

In the afternoon, in a hotel near Limburg Park Stadium, the home of Roda JC, Junker announced the starting list of this game on behalf of Van Gaal.

Goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, one by one, the names came out of Junker's mouth, some were happy and some were worried.

When the forwards were read, Jiang Xiaolin and the other three forwards on the 18-man list became nervous.

I only heard Junker read: "No. 10, Hamdaoyi."

Hamdaoyi breathed a sigh of relief, he was really afraid that he would be eliminated from the starting list.

But Jiang Xiaolin and Ali, as well as No. 16 Wienblum who was on the 18-man list, became more nervous.

Of course, Wienblum's chances were smaller, and he himself did not have too high expectations. It was mainly Jiang Xiaolin and Ali, both of whom were pounding in their hearts.

Then, Junker read out: "No. 29, Jiang Xiaolin."

Hearing this, Jiang Xiaolin took a deep breath, relieved his nervousness, and secretly clenched his fists.

Finally entered the Eredivisie starting list.

Another historic breakthrough.