God of Green

After the league match with Vitesse, which made a big news that shocked the world, Jiang Xiaolin flew back to China the next day to prepare for the fourth round of the national football team's top ten matches.

It is worth mentioning that after the top 20 World Cup qualifiers and the Olympics, the national football team terminated the contracts with Dujkovic and Forrado and re-selected coaches.

Yin Tiesheng, who led the national Olympic team to win the Olympic championship, was the head coach of the new national team and led the national football team to the top ten matches.

During the time when Jiang Xiaolin was injured and rested, the Chinese national team had played three rounds of the top ten matches, defeating Uzbekistan 2-0 in the first round, drawing with Bahrain 1-1 in the second round, and losing 0-4 to Australia away in the third round.

After three rounds, Australia ranked first with 6 points, Japan ranked second with 4 points due to the goal difference, China ranked third with 4 points due to the goal difference, Bahrain ranked fourth with 1 point, and Uzbekistan ranked last with 1 point due to the goal difference.

However, although China and Japan have the same points, China has already played three games.

Japan had a bye in the second round, so it actually only played two games, and China was at a disadvantage.

Bahrain, which only had 1 point, also played only two games. If China loses in the fourth round and Bahrain wins, Bahrain will have the same points as China and surpass China because of the goal difference.

As for Japan, if China loses, Japan will naturally win, because the fourth round is China's home game against Japan, Bahrain's home game against Australia, and Uzbekistan has a bye.

China has basically fallen into a very dangerous situation. If it is not careful, it will not get the top two places.

Fortunately, the first three rounds were played like this because Jiang Xiaolin was injured and did not participate. Now that Jiang Xiaolin has returned, China's strength is certainly incomparable.

In particular, Jiang Xiaolin participated in the top ten games with the momentum of leading Alkmaar to a 10-0 bloodbath of Vitesse with five goals in a single game and topped the Dutch Eredivisie scorer list. Even a strong team like Japan would feel great pressure when facing the Chinese team away!

Jiang Xiaolin had just led the team to revenge Yu Hai with five goals in a single game, and because of returning to the national team to participate in the top ten games, Jiang Xiaolin was warmly welcomed by thousands of local fans when he got off the plane at Yangcheng Airport.

Countless people crowded in the reception hall, so the airport did not dare to let Jiang Xiaolin out of the reception hall, but quietly left through the VIP channel.

Fear of causing a stampede.

After Jiang Xiaolin left, the airport broadcast to inform everyone that Jiang Xiaolin had left and let everyone disperse.

The fans and reporters were immediately disappointed.

Fortunately, Jiang Xiaolin later posted a blog, stating the reasons for leaving the VIP channel for several games, and for everyone's safety, asking fans to understand, and he was understood by everyone.

In fact, as long as Jiang Xiaolin can lead the national football team to win and advance to the World Cup, these are all trivial matters.

Everyone just needs to wait and see Jiang Xiaolin's performance.

Jiang Xiaolin is almost the last person to report to the national team. The national football team has actually been training in Guangzhou for a few days.

Therefore, after Jiang Xiaolin arrived in Guangzhou, he rested for a night and joined the training the next day, which was considered to be a little familiar with the cooperation with his teammates.

The players called up by the national team this time are basically the same as the previous top 20 group matches, but there is an obvious change in the front midfielder position, that is, the young national Olympic core Wang Yongbai replaced Huang Bowen's position.

In the Olympics, except for Jiang Xiaolin, Wang Yongbai is almost the best performer. The baptism of the Olympic champion has allowed Wang Yongbai to reach a very high level both physically and mentally.

In addition to the skilled and tacit cooperation with Jiang Xiaolin at the Olympics, the coaching staff of the national football team chose to let Wang Yongbai start and cooperate with Jiang Xiaolin to take on the offensive responsibility of the national football team.

After two days of training, on the evening of November 19, the national football team will face Japan at the Tianhe Sports Center Football Stadium, which can accommodate 60,000 spectators.

Before the game started, the inside and outside of the sports center were already crowded.

Because of the relationship of the Olympic champion and because of Jiang Xiaolin's return to the national team, the fans attached great importance to this game. Fans from Guangzhou and all over the country surrounded the sports center football stadium. There were still tens of thousands of fans who could not buy tickets to enter the stadium and could only watch the live broadcast of the game on the LCD screen outside the stadium.

Fortunately, they are the group of people closest to the stadium, and they can cheer and celebrate with the audience in the stadium.

Everyone firmly believes that under the leadership of Jiang Xiaolin, the Chinese team will definitely defeat Japan, replace the opponent's second place in the standings, and take the initiative to qualify.Right.

When Jiang Xiaolin and others entered the field to warm up, the audience in the field burst into warm cheers and applause, and slogans such as "Jiang Xiaolin is awesome", "Go national football", and "China will win" were heard everywhere.

After the warm-up, before the game started, in the player channel, Jiang Xiaolin turned on the system and added the "position" that had been added to 19 points in the league to the full value of 20 points, and the attribute points were left with 103.

This skill is not very useful for Jiang Xiaolin, but it may sometimes work when pressing in the frontcourt.

What if you are lucky and just stand on the spot, block the opponent's backcourt pass, and form a counterattack on the spot?

The goal rate of the backcourt counterattack has always been good and cannot be ignored.

Therefore, Jiang Xiaolin still added it to the full value of 20.

Then, after a set of procedures such as appearance, playing the national anthem, taking photos, shaking hands, choosing sides, etc., the game is about to begin.

Before the game started, Jiang Xiaolin turned on the team halo and found that his Chinese team's on-the-spot status in this game was 81%, which was average.

However, Jiang Xiaolin did not use skill points to forcibly improve the team's overall on-the-spot status, because this was not a decisive game like the Olympics.

Even if the Chinese team lost this game, there were still four games to go, so they could afford to lose.

If they really lost this game and put the Chinese team in a desperate situation, Jiang Xiaolin would not be too late to use the team halo next time.

Besides, with Jiang Xiaolin's current strength, the Chinese team, which focused on defensive counterattacks, would not necessarily lose to Japan, which is also an Asian team.

At 19:30 in the evening of November 19, 2008, with the referee's whistle, the fourth round of the South Africa World Cup Asian Qualifiers Group A Top Ten Match between the Chinese National Team and the Japanese National Team officially began.

In the latest FIFA rankings, Japan ranked 38th in the world, second in Asia, second only to Australia.

The Chinese team ranked 81st in the world and 10th in Asia, with a huge gap.

If it weren't for Jiang Xiaolin, even if the Chinese team was playing at home, it would be in danger.

Even so, the Chinese team did not dare to be arrogant and could only continue to play the 4231 defensive counterattack formation. Zheng Zhi and Zhou Haibing, two defensive midfielders, firmly protected the back line, and two wingers assisted in defense. The offense was almost handed over to the front midfielder Wang Yongbai and the only forward Jiang Xiaolin.

The Japanese team naturally knew the threat of Jiang Xiaolin. Although they were stronger overall and focused on offense, they did not take it lightly.

After scoring 17 goals in the record-breaking 6 games in the Olympics and ranking first in the Eredivisie league scorer list, Jiang Xiaolin has become the first superstar in Asian football. Any Asian team must be cautious when facing Jiang Xiaolin.

Therefore, the two central defenders on the back line of the Japanese team never crossed the line in this game, and the side defenders could only take turns to assist. The back midfielder Endo Yasuhito also kept an eye on Jiang Xiaolin at all times to prevent him from counterattacking.

In other words, the Japanese team's backcourt always maintains a four-man defense force, with the back midfielder closely guarding and the other three assisting in defense to prevent Jiang Xiaolin and the Chinese team from counterattacking.

The strength of the Japanese team's frontcourt is higher than that of the Chinese team. If it weren't for Jiang Xiaolin's involvement of the energy of the four opposing players in the backcourt, allowing the entire Japanese team to press forward to attack, the Chinese team really couldn't hold on.

Even so, the Japanese team's attack was one after another, and the front midfielder Wang Yongbai was forced to retreat to the vicinity of the penalty area to participate in the defense, and only then could he withstand the Japanese team's attack.

In the 3rd minute, the Japanese team got the first opportunity to shoot from outside the penalty area, but the shot was deflected by Keisuke Tamada under the interference of the back midfielder Zhou Haibing.

In the 7th minute, the winger Hasebe Makoto cut in after breaking through the wing and shot, and the ball was slightly higher than the crossbar.

In the 10th minute, the Japanese team's frontcourt players played a wonderful match. After many passes and cuts, the ball was passed into the penalty area. Center forward Yoshito Okubo received the ball and adjusted it before turning to shoot. Li Weifeng blocked the shot and then kicked it out of the penalty area.

In just ten minutes, Japan had three shots, while the Chinese team did not even have a successful counterattack, which made the Chinese fans in the stands nervous.

Fortunately, the Japanese players did not have the superb shooting skills of Jiang Xiaolin. Although they had many shooting opportunities, none of them hit the goal frame.

The Japanese team certainly knew their problems. They could only use more attacks to make up for the lack of shooting quality and use quantity to change quality.

In the 12th minute, midfielder Nakamura Kengo was pulled down by Hao Junmin when he broke through the right side of the frontcourt with the ball, and got a free kick in the frontcourt with a good position.

Nakamura Kengo took the penalty himself, and the ball went over the wall and went straight to the goal.

Fortunately, Song ZhenYu played well this time and saved the ball in time.

Although the Japanese team did not score this free kick, they still got another chance to attack from a corner kick.

After the opportunity to attack from a corner kick appeared, the two central defenders of the Japanese team had to step forward and enter the penalty area to compete for the header.

Because they had to show up.

The overall height of the Japanese players is much shorter than that of the Chinese team.

Let's put it this way. According to the data of the starting players in this game, among the starting players on the field, only four players of the Japanese team, including the goalkeeper, were over 180cm tall. The average height of the team was only 177, and even the goalkeeper was only 180cm.

On the Chinese team side, goalkeeper Song Zhenyu's height reached 190cm, which was 10cm taller than the height of Japanese goalkeeper Kawaguchi Noboru. There were as many as 8 players in the team's starting players who were over 180cm tall, and only 3 players were under 180cm tall.

The average height of the starting players of the Chinese team also reached 182cm, which was 5cm taller than the average height of the Japanese team.

In this case, if the two central defenders of the Japanese team who are over 180cm tall do not compete for headers during a corner kick, there is no need for the others to compete for headers with the Chinese players in the penalty area.

Of course, the Japanese also know that the possibility of successfully grabbing the first point and forming an attack in a corner kick is very low, so they also pay attention to protection to prevent the opponent from making a quick counterattack.

After the two central defenders came up, the defensive midfielder and the two side defenders did not participate in the attack, and all stayed in the last line to prevent the Chinese team from making a quick counterattack.

Jiang Xiaolin naturally did not enter the penalty area to participate in the defense. He had to stay in the front and be prepared for a counterattack.

Otherwise, if the opportunity came, he would miss it.

At the same time, two side defenders Du Zhenyu and Hao Junmin, who were less than 180cm tall but extremely fast, were also waiting for the opportunity to counterattack on the periphery.

In view of the problem of Japan's average height being too short, the Chinese team formulated a strategy to counterattack using corner kicks before the game.

As long as he gets the ball, if Jiang Xiaolin can break through and directly form a single attack, it's fine. If not, Jiang Xiaolin will dribble and control the ball in the middle, and then the two wingers will break through from the wing.

Jiang Xiaolin will then pass the ball to the wing, and the wingers will cross the ball from the bottom, and Jiang Xiaolin will follow up with a header from the middle.

As long as he can catch up with the two central defenders before they return to defense, Jiang Xiaolin's height of 185cm and full value of jumping, heading, and grabbing points will have a great chance to grab the first point and form a header to threaten Japan's goal.

Now Jiang Xiaolin, Du Zhenyu, and Hao Junmin are preparing for such a counterattack.

However, the Japanese team focused their main energy on Jiang Xiaolin and did not notice the positions of Du Zhenyu and Hao Junmin. They still hoped to score a goal through a corner kick!

Of course, for all the tactical designs on the Chinese team to succeed, the defenders must be able to grab the corner kick to the first point, head it out of the penalty area, and control the second point.

However, Jiang Xiaolin, Du Zhenyu, Hao Junmin and others were not very worried.

Although the two Japanese central defenders were not short, the Chinese defenders and goalkeeper were not short either.

Moreover, the penalty kicker's footwork was not necessarily so accurate that he could accurately send the ball to the heads of their two central defender teammates.

Sure enough, when the ball was sent out, it was a little too close to the goal.

Goalkeeper Song Zhenyu immediately attacked. With a height of 190 and the advantage of being able to use his hands, he punched the ball out of the penalty area without any suspense, and the second landing point was exactly at Wang Yongbai on the left side of the top of the penalty area.

Wang Yongbai took the ball off, dribbled the ball and turned around, dodged the pressure of a Japanese frontcourt player, and just observed the situation in the frontcourt for a while, and immediately passed the ball to Jiang Xiaolin, who was not far in front and only more than ten meters away from the center line.