Chapter 241 The 2nd Lucky Hotel

When Zhou Yi passed the football to the wing, many people did not expect where Zhou Yi was passing the ball to whom. Until they found Hao Junmin appearing in their field of vision.

The wide player raised his foot to stop Zhou Yi's ball, then dribbled the ball towards the Iraqi goal.

At this time, Iraq has only two center backs in the backcourt besides the goalkeeper.

After Hao Junmin used his skills to get rid of the first Iraqi player to pounce, he had already reached the edge of the Iraqi penalty area.

Next he took a decisive shot!

The football came into contact with the second Iraqi player who came up to block his shot. He changed his line slightly, not very much, but it just missed the Iraqi goalkeeper's fingers, and then flew past the inside of the far goal post. Got the goal!

"Good goal! Good goal!!! Hao Junmin! The Chinese team is leading 1:0 in the away game!" Liu Hong raised his arms and shouted excitedly. "This is great news!"

Hao Junmin was also very excited. After scoring the goal, he ran to the bottom of the stands and waved to the Chinese fans in the stands, winning bursts of cheers and applause from the Chinese fans.

Then he turned around, and Zhou Yi and others had already ran up.

They hugged each other again.

The Iraqi players gave their celebration the best backdrop.

The commentator on Qatar TV was in a daze and did not report the game immediately.

I really didn’t expect that in a game where Iraq had the upper hand, the Chinese team scored first...

However, this was just an illusion of the Qatari commentator. In fact, with Iraq's style of play, it was only a matter of time before they conceded the goal...

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Gao Hongbo on the sidelines was also happy to celebrate the goal with his assistants, and they high-fived each other.

The Chinese team scored this goal through a typical defensive counterattack. There were only two people involved in the entire goal process, one was Zhou Yi who passed the ball, and the other was Hao Junmin who shot.

This shows what?

It shows that his arrangement is correct, leaving the decision of whether to counterattack to Zhou Yi, and at the same time letting Hao Junmin drive the counterattack in the frontcourt.

Defensive counterattacks do not require the investment of too many troops, so there is no need to worry about the opponent seizing the opportunity to counterattack after going up to attack.

It depends on personal ability.

Although Hao Junmin did not play much football in Germany and returned to China, he has been trained in a Bundesliga club for a season and a half. In terms of football concepts and consciousness, he is currently the closest to Zhou Yi in the national team.

So since we can't rely too much on Zhouyi, we can appropriately increase Hao Junmin's tasks.

Judging from this ball, the idea was executed well.

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After the Chinese team scored, they returned to a defensive counterattack state. They did not take advantage of the situation to score another just because they scored one goal. After all, this is Iraq's home court, and who knows what tricks the West Asians will play on their home court.

So the Chinese team is very cautious.

They shrink back after the goal and continue as they were before the goal, as if they didn't score at all and still want to get a draw on the road.

But Iraq knows that the score is different, and so will the next game!

They now have no choice but to continue to attack the Chinese team's goal without caring about the space behind them. If the Chinese team seizes another opportunity to score a goal... then it's over, but if you don't dare to attack because you are afraid of this, then it's just as stupid!

For the two teams that are competing, each other is an opponent that must be defeated. If Iraq wants to make a comeback, it must defeat the Chinese team at home. This is the same as the Chinese team wanted to defeat Iraq at home.

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Iraq's onslaught put a lot of pressure on the Chinese team. In the 80th minute, right back Zhang Linpeng received a red card for a foul and was directly sent off.

The situation suddenly became extremely unfavorable to the Chinese team.

The Iraqi and Qatari fans in the stands cheered, seeming to see Iraq's hope of equalizing the score or even defeating the Chinese team - with ten minutes left in the game, they may have thought that Iraq could score two goals in a row.

It is not unreasonable to think so. When any team is suddenly sent off a player, there will always be some emotional fluctuations in the psychology.

But this situation doesn’t quite apply to this game…

Because just when Iraq caught one person missing from the Chinese team and launched a massive attack, they were once again counterattacked by the Chinese team.

This time it was still an attack involving only two people. The format was the same as Hao Junmin's goal. The passer was Zhou Yi, but the one who caught the ball and shot was replaced by Gao Lin.

This time Zhou Yi did not pass the football to the wing, but directly passed it to the core area of ​​Iraq. Because Iraq was too overwhelmed and there was no one in their core area, Gao Lin received the ball there. Some people even thought he was offside, but in fact Gao Lin was not offside when Zhou Yi passed the ball.

After receiving the ball, Gao Lin turned around and dribbled the ball forward. He only took a few steps before entering the penalty area. Then facing the attacking Iraqi goalkeeper, he chose to shoot.

The football flew over the goalkeeper's head and crashed into the Iraqi goal.

In the 82nd minute, the Chinese team led Iraq 2:0 in the away game, almost sealing the victory!

"The ball is in, it's in, it's in, it's in!" Liu Hong was very excited, much more excited than when he scored the first goal, because even though the first goal was scored, it still made him worried. In the end, Iraq equalized the score. But when this goal was scored, everyone's heart dropped - the victory of this game was guaranteed!

Gao Hongbo, who was on the sidelines, also felt that the game was stable. He clapped his hands vigorously. He, who was usually shy, was smiling happily, with wild and exaggerated movements.

All the Chinese team players swarmed towards Gao Lin, even goalkeeper Yang Zhi.

"How's it going, Lao Fu? Did Zhou Yi's condition come out early?" Gao Hongbo asked Fu Bo next to him.

Fu Bo smiled and said nothing.

He guessed wrong.

But he was very, very happy that he had been wrong.

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Gao Lin's goal completely killed the suspense of the game. The Iraqi players lost their fighting spirit after losing the ball. If the game includes injury time, there are actually ten minutes left, but they must connect in the last ten minutes. It's almost impossible to score two goals. It would be nice to score one goal. And even if they score two goals and equalize the score, it means nothing to Iraq.

Because a draw in an away game is the minimum requirement for the Chinese team. They are completely acceptable, but Iraq cannot.

So when I think of this, the Iraqi side has no fighting spirit to continue fighting.

The Chinese team, under the leadership of Zhou Yi, still tightened its defense and waited for opportunities to counterattack. They did not get carried away because they had almost secured the victory and did not give Iraq a chance.

In the end, the Chinese team defeated Iraq 2:0 in the away game and won a key victory in the key match.

With the victory in this game, the Chinese team scored three points, and their total points in this group became eight points. They are temporarily ranked first while the games between Jordan and Singapore have not yet been played. But in the end they will be overtaken by Jordan, because there is no suspense for Jordan to defeat Singapore at home.

Despite this, the Chinese team has also achieved the best results. They squeezed out Iraq. If Iraq wants to qualify from this group and advance to the top ten, they must win the next two rounds of the group stage, especially the game against Jordan. They must win in order to have hope.

But that is already a problem for Iraq and has nothing to do with the Chinese team.

Next, the Chinese team can use a relatively relaxed mentality to challenge Singapore, the weakest team in this group, away from home.

If they can win that game, their points will reach 11 points, and at the same time they will sit back and watch, waiting for the result of the game between Iraq and Jordan.

If Jordan can defeat Iraq at home, then the 11-point Chinese team and Iraq will have a seven-point gap. The Chinese team will qualify from the top 20 group one round early and advance to the top ten. The last game against Jordan will be It will not matter the overall situation, the two teams will work together in a very friendly atmosphere to qualify.

If Iraq defeats Jordan in an away game, their points will reach seven points. With the last game left in the game, they are still four points behind the Chinese team and cannot threaten the Chinese team in any case. Jordan is their direct competitor to qualify from the group.

Even if the Chinese team lost to Jordan at home in the last game and Iraq defeated Singapore, the Chinese team still qualified as second in the group.

So as long as they can defeat Singapore in the next game, the Chinese team will have qualified for the top ten games in advance!

The fate of the Chinese team has been firmly in its own hands!

Such a situation would have rarely happened to the Chinese team before...

The Chinese fans were stunned by such happiness for a while, and before they realized it, the situation was already very favorable to them.

After the game, everyone started counting points online, only to realize that the Chinese team was only one step away from the top ten!

Since the 2002 World Cup, the Chinese team has never been able to participate in the top ten Asian qualifying rounds. People can’t believe it when I tell you this - China, a big football country in Asia, can’t even participate in the final stage of the qualifiers. It’s so shameful!

In the past, Chinese fans never considered that we would not be able to participate in the top ten games. At that time, we were only worried about how the team would break out of Asia and go global.

Comparing it to the past, it seems to be a step back just to make it to the top ten now.

This is of course a setback, but the setback of being able to participate in the Big Ten games is better than the setback of not even qualifying for the Big Ten games.

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After the game, Zhou Yi, who was interviewed by reporters from many countries in the mixed zone, was very happy and said with a smile: "I said before the game that Qatar is our blessed place. See if I am right? We won a key game here. This is very important to us. And I said before the game that it was a pity not to be able to stay in our 'lucky hotel', but now I find that the hotel we stayed in this time is also the 'lucky hotel'. This is really great , we have two 'Lucky Hotels' in Doha! The choice is much wider!”

The Chinese reporters laughed when they heard what Zhou Yi said. They all knew why Zhou Yi said that.

Qatar caused a disgusting incident before the game. Anyone with a normal IQ knows what happened, but because there is no evidence, it is really hard to say anything. Apart from a few curse words in one's own media, it has no influence on the opponent at all. .

But things are different now. After the Chinese team defeated Iraq, Zhou Yi brought up the old story again and mentioned the "Lucky Hotel". In the eyes of Chinese reporters, it was a naked slap in the face.

Do you think that closing our "Lucky Hotel" will help Iraq defeat the Chinese team?

Naive!

We can still find another "lucky hotel"!

Next time if you have the ability, you can shut down all hotels in Qatar on the grounds of renovation!

Sure enough, after hearing what Zhou Yi said, the Qatari media reporters looked a little embarrassed... (To be continued.)