God of Green

After lunch and a nap at the hotel, at 14:30 in the afternoon, the Alkmaar team took a bus through the special passage of the stadium to enter Groningen's home stadium, Euroborg Stadium.

After changing into training clothes in the away team's locker room, everyone entered the stadium and took half of the stadium with the home team Groningen players to start pre-match warm-up and stadium adaptation training.

This was the first time that Jiang Xiaolin stood on the field of the Dutch Eredivisie club as a player, which made him quite upset.

You know, he had never stood on the field of a professional stadium as a player before.

I watched two Alkmaar games at home before, but that was in the audience seats, not on the stadium, so it didn't count at all.

As for the youth team's games, they were all held on the training ground, not the real stadium.

The same is true for amateur teams. Pulmes' home stadium is rented on match days, and the ownership does not belong to Pulmes at all. The seats are also limited. Jiang Xiaolin has never experienced the feeling of being stared at by tens of thousands of live spectators.

It's different now.

Euroborg Stadium can accommodate more than 22,000 people. Because Groningen has performed well in recent seasons, the attendance rate has basically remained at around 15,000.

This season, Groningen's performance is also good. It is currently ranked sixth in the standings. In the European qualifying area, it is much better than Alkmaar.

Therefore, the fans are more enthusiastic about watching the game at home.

Although there are still dozens of minutes before the game, Jiang Xiaolin saw at least thousands of home fans entering the stadium in advance.

Of course, there is no shortage of away fans.

He saw a group of organized Alkmaar fans wearing Alkmaar jerseys, about 300 people, isolated and protected in a corner by the stadium security to avoid conflicts with the home fans, but their flags, banners, and slogans indicate their identities.

After the team lost six games in a row, they rushed to more than 200 kilometers to support the team, and entered the stadium dozens of minutes in advance. This can be truly called a die-hard fan.

If the team loses again, Jiang Xiaolin will feel guilty about these fans, even if the previous six consecutive defeats have nothing to do with him.

After warming up for more than ten minutes, Jiang Xiaolin suddenly heard someone shouting "Xiaolin, Jiang Xiaolin" in Chinese.

He was immediately moved, looked up and looked for a while, and saw two five-star red flags waving in a corner.

It turned out that they were Chinese compatriots in Chinatown such as Peng Zhijie and Song Zhicheng, as well as more than a dozen young fans that Jiang Xiaolin did not know, probably the group of international students who left messages on the blog yesterday.

Added together, there are more than 40 people.

It seems that Jiang Xiaolin's promotion to the first team has really stimulated his compatriots. More than 40 people ran to Groningen, so far away, to watch him play.

The key is that he has not started yet, and it is unknown whether he can come on as a substitute.

In this case, more than 40 people came to support him away from home, which is much more than the number of compatriots who watched his home games when he was in the youth team.

Sure enough, the Eredivisie is attractive, and only a few people are willing to watch the youth team's games.

Only playing in the top league can be considered truly outstanding.

Although he was excited, Jiang Xiaolin, who was warming up with his teammates, did not dare to go over and say hello to his compatriots. He could only look in that direction and wave, but it also attracted a cheer from his compatriots.

Jiang Xiaolin was even more looking forward to being a substitute today, so that Song Zhicheng and others would not have run so far to support him.

Then, continue to warm up seriously.

Alkmaar and Groningen each occupied half of the field to warm up for about half an hour. As the game was about to start, everyone returned to the locker room to change into game uniforms and then listened to Van Gaal's pre-match training.

Van Gaal clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention to him, and said:

"I think everyone is aware of our current situation."

"The season before last, we were second in the Eredivisie. Last season, we were third in the Eredivisie, and only 3 points behind the first place."

"It can be said that we were strong contenders for the Eredivisie championship in the first two seasons, and we almost won the Eredivisie championship."

"Originally, I wanted to lead everyone to compete for the Eredivisie championship again this season, but I didn't expect so many injuries in the first half of the season, and we played so badly."

"Now, in the second half of the season, we are even worse. Since the winter break, we have suffered six consecutive defeats and have not even scored 1 point."

"This is a dilemma I have never encountered in my coaching experience, and I don't think you want it either."

"You are all professional players and adults. You all have to know that although the team's performance is not good,You can transfer, but with your current status and performance, even if you want to transfer to other teams, are there any teams willing? Even if you can transfer, can you get the ideal treatment? "

"Today's game is away, it must be difficult, but we have no way out. "

"I hope everyone will bring out all your spirit in today's game, play this game well for me, and get the first victory of the second half of the season. "

"I hope you will not let down the hundreds of Alkmaar fans who drove hundreds of kilometers to support you. ”

……

After Van Gaal’s speech, the captain Yarriens also stood up and said a few words, trying to boost morale.

But Jiang Xiaolin quietly observed the expressions of his teammates in the locker room and found that most of his teammates were expressionless and indifferent.

It is estimated that Van Gaal has given some similar speeches before the recent games, but everyone is numb and no one listens.

Facing the current situation of six consecutive defeats, plus this game is an away game against a team ranked higher than themselves, it is no wonder that the players have no confidence.

The coach is also helpless.

After the speech, Van Gaal took the assistant coach, Jiang Xiaolin and other substitute players to leave the locker room first, and sat down on the bench on the sidelines, waiting for the game to start.

Jiang Xiaolin saw that except for some seats in the corner, In addition, the seats in the entire stadium were basically filled with Groningen fans.

The audience present today is estimated to reach about 16,000. Most fans are wearing the same Groningen jerseys and, under the leadership of the fan organization leader, they continue to sing team songs and shout slogans to support the home team and create pressure for the visiting team.

When all the fans shouted slogans together, Jiang Xiaolin did feel a little palpitation.

This is different from the feeling when he watched Alkmaar's game in the home stands.

At that time, he was a member of the home team fans. Although the game was lost, the people around him were all his own people after all, and he felt safe psychologically.

But now they are the visiting team, and these more than 16,000 fans regard them as enemies, which does make people feel a little pressured.