Chapter 1,100 Warm-Up and Qualifying Matches
The day before Manchester United rushed to the United States for training, Gao Xiaodong received a call from Football Association Chairman Wei Ge.
The qualifying match between China and Laos in the Asian World Cup qualifiers will start on July 21. Although the opponent is a weak team, it is a foregone conclusion that the national football coach Gao Bo will be dismissed from get out of class. Now he is only temporarily leading the team. The Chinese Football Association is worried that the national football team will capsize, so it plans to let Gao Xiaodong go to the United States for training a week later, and first play two games with Laos with the team.
If there were other players, the Football Association would not communicate with him in advance and would just say hello to his club. However, Gao Xiaodong's situation was special, so Wei Ge, chairman of the Football Association, personally called Gao Xiaodong to ask for his opinion.
Gao Xiaodong can postpone participating in Manchester United's training for a week, and Ferguson will give him this face. However, Gao Xiaodong is not willing to play under the command of Gao Bo, and he believes that Laos cannot pose any threat to the Chinese team. He will do it without him. It does not affect the overall situation, so Gao Xiaodong directly rejected Football Association Chairman Wei Ge's suggestion to join the national team in advance to play the Laos team, saying that he would return to the national team after the new coach is in place. Even if the coach is delayed, he will accompany the team. Participate in the top 20 competition in Asia.
Gao Xiaodong did not want to join the national team in advance, and Wei Gegui, as the chairman of the Football Association, had no choice. Fortunately, Gao Xiaodong promised to participate in the top 20 qualifiers in Asia, which is equivalent to giving the Football Association more time to select a coach. Take greater initiative in negotiations with the new coach.
Now the national football team has encountered some difficulties in selecting a coach. After consulting Gao Xiaodong, the Football Association was originally prepared to choose Luiz Scolari as the national football coach. However, for some unknown reason, the Football Association's partner Yida Company suddenly supported Another candidate, Camacho.
Although Yida Company is just a real estate company and has no power to influence the Football Association's selection of coaches, Yida Company has money. They previously supported the Football Association's Star of Hope plan, and now they have stated that they will help the Football Association pay the annual salary and salary of the new head coach. All other expenses are covered, but the premise is that Yida Company will supervise the Football Association's coaching selection process.
Obviously supervision is just an implicit statement. Yida Company just wants the Football Association to find a head coach that satisfies them, and the head coach that can satisfy them is definitely not the Brazilian Scolari, but the Spaniard Camacho.
If the Football Association didn't tell Gao Xiaodong in advance, it would be okay to choose Camacho, but after hinting to Gao Xiaodong that he admired Scolari more, the Football Association finally chose Camacho, which would definitely make Gao Xiaodong unhappy. .
Now Yida Company and Gao Xiaodong, one is the financial backer of the Football Association, and the other is the core figure of the Football Association for achieving results. It can be said that the Football Association dare not offend either one. They can only take it one step at a time.
While the Chinese Football Association was struggling with the selection of a coach, Manchester United had already flown to Massachusetts in the United States, where they would play a friendly match with the New England Revolution, a local team in Massachusetts.
The United States is a country with a very weak football atmosphere. Here, the most popular sport is football, followed by baseball, then basketball, and football ranks fourth at most.
Because of the Golden Globe Awards, many Americans have heard of Gao Xiaodong's name, but they have only heard about it and do not understand or admire Gao Xiaodong.
Therefore, when European Triple Crown champions Manchester United arrived in Massachusetts, they did not receive the warm welcome they received in Asia. Only 700 or 800 people were picked up at the airport, including a considerable number of Chinese fans.
Manchester United received a cold reception outside the stadium. The Manchester United players, who were inflated after winning the Triple Crown, were unhappy, so they were rude on the pitch.
In the warm-up match with the New England Revolution, although Ferguson did not send out all the main players for training purposes, but divided the main players into halves and halves to play the game, both the main players and the substitutes caught the New England Revolution and ravaged them severely.
In the 45 minutes of the first half, Manchester United scored 4 goals against the New England Revolution. New captain Gao Xiaodong scored three goals. In the second half, Ferguson changed most of the lineup, but the new players were stronger than those in the first half. At the end, another 4 goals were scored, Rooney scored twice, and the score became 8:1.
Ferguson watched worriedly from the sidelines. After all, Manchester United chose to train in the United States in order to open up the North American football market. If the Yankees' football dream is ruined in the first game, the subsequent warm-up matches may be even more difficult, and there may even be It may turn into a real confrontation.
So Ferguson once again replaced the main force and played the game with a pure substitute. The pure substitute did not show courtesy to the opponent. It was just that the main force was too poor in seizing opportunities and failed to expand the score. Instead, New England pulled a goal back. In the end, Manchester United In the first warm-up match in North America, they swept the New England Revolution 8:2.
The game did not exceed double digits, and the New England team scored two goals, which made American fans very satisfied. After all, the opponent was the number one team in the world, and the New England team was proud of the defeat.
Americans admire the strong, and Manchester United's strong performance won their respect. The number of fans who attended Manchester United's events in Massachusetts greatly increased.
Manchester United players beat the New England Revolution just to vent their anger, but unexpectedly won the respect of American fans.
With this successful experience, in the second warm-up match against the Seattle Sounders, Manchester United's trident of Gao Xiaodong, Rooney and Berbatov showed off their power, and all three scored twice. In the end, Manchester United Swept the Seattle Sounders 7-0.
When Manchester United defeated the American team, the national football team also ushered in the first game of the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup in Brazil.
Although this is a World Cup qualifying match, due to the limited strength of the opponent Laos team, coupled with the poor record of the national football team during this period, and the head coach Gao Bo will definitely not continue coaching, this game lacks enough popularity in Kunming. Before the game, there were only a few fans who rushed to the Haigeng base to watch the national football team training. On the day of the game, there were only more than half of the fans in the stands of Tuodong Stadium.
Before the game, everyone thought that it would be difficult for the Chinese team not to win against Laos, ranked 174th in the world. Surprisingly, the Chinese team used an unexpected process to stimulate the nerves of the fans.
In the first half, the Laos team actually led the national football team by two goals. This made the fans so angry that they booed on the spot, cheered for the Laos team, and shouted for the dismissal of coach Gao Bo.
The Chinese Football Association was frightened. They finally waited until Gao Xiaodong agreed to return to the national team, and then they were ready to spend a lot of money to hire a famous coach. If the Chinese national team fell into the gutter of Laos, then the Football Association and the national football team would become a big joke. .
During the halftime break, Football Association Chairman Wei Ge personally went to the locker room to supervise the battle and issued a fatal order to the players and coaches not to engage in any conspiracy. Laos must be captured, otherwise the consequences would not be as simple as being expelled from the national team.
This threat was big enough. In the second half, the national football team finally played at a normal level, scoring 7 goals in a row in 45 minutes. In the end, they swept Laos 7:2, locking their ticket to advance to the top 20 in advance.