Chapter 71 National Team Training

After Zhou Yi returned to China, he and his national team teammates trained at the Chongming Island training base in Shanghai. A week later, they will set off from here to Tokyo, Japan, to challenge the Japanese national team.

After returning to the national team, Zhou Yi was welcomed by his teammates. In this team, although he is young, he has a very high prestige. This prestige is not obtained by colluding with the team leader and coach, by forming cliques, or by playing political tricks, but by his ability in training and Earned for performance in competitions.

And this training and game performance is not his performance in Dortmund. To be honest, Dortmund's Zhou Yi is very far away from the national team player. How he performs in foreign clubs is not necessarily related to his status in the national team.

If a player performs like a god in the club, he will become a weakling when he comes to the national team. When he is needed, he will not be able to stand up. How can such a player gain the trust of his teammates? Even if the head coach supports it, he is afraid that it will cause a backlash from the players.

So Zhou Yi really conquered everyone with his performance in the national team and won everyone's trust.

Everyone knows that although he is young, he is a person who can be relied on at all times.

In last year's Asian Cup, if it weren't for him, the Chinese team wouldn't have even been able to qualify for the group stage, let alone reach the finals.

In this year's Olympic Games, if it weren't for him, the Chinese team would never have won that precious gold medal.

The other young Olympic players who have recently joined the national team have not enjoyed the same treatment as Zhou Yi in the national team. Although the big brothers of the national team also welcomed their arrival, the welcome was polite, and There is still a difference in their heartfelt love for Zhou Yi.

The young players of the National Olympic team won gold medals at the Olympics, which is the pride of Chinese football. However, they still have zero experience in the national team and need to prove that they are worthy of this group. Before training and playing with them, many people in the national team would probably look at them with suspicion, but they would not show it directly.

Not to mention that these people are here to steal their position as elders. If anyone can really open up and accept them unconditionally, then he is really a model of moral imitation.

But it cannot be said that there is a phenomenon of seniority within the national team, because this is not a ranking based on seniority, but a ranking based on ability (ability). If these newcomers perform very well in both training and games after they come in, the national team's international players will also accept them, just like they accepted Zhou Yi. When Zhou Yi first came to the national team, many people looked at him with curiosity and suspicion, but Zhou Yi conquered everyone in just one training session...

At the Chongming Island training base,

Everyone is involved in the training camp to prepare for the Japanese team. In addition to training on the court, the coaching staff also allows the players to watch videos of the Japanese team’s recent games to understand and analyze their opponents.

There are a lot of reporters covering the training of the Chinese team. After all, this is the first time the Chinese team has participated in the top ten games after missing two World Cup qualifiers. After eight consecutive years of being a melon-eater, this time in person He became a player in the end, which of course touched the hearts of fans across the country.

The media reporting on the Chinese team's training hope to see traces of the Chinese team's tactics and lineup against the Japanese team during the training.

But unfortunately, each training session of the Chinese team is only open to media reporters for fifteen minutes. The fifteen minutes are basically some insignificant warm-up training or shooting training, and do not involve any tactical content.

The internal teaching competition is also completely closed and cannot be seen at all. In order to prevent reporters from spying on intelligence, Gao Hongbo even asked the staff at the training base to surround the training ground with curtains to prevent reporters from peeking.

With such tight security, reporters can get very little information. It’s no wonder that the Chinese media is not particularly friendly to Gao Hongbo - he really doesn’t take care of reporters’ feelings. This battle It's not designed to prevent military spying. It's simply designed to prevent thieves.

However, because of such tight defense, neither Chinese nor Japanese reporters were able to obtain more information about the Chinese team. In the Chinese team's away game against Japan, will the starting lineup be completely different from the previous two games? Will all the newly recruited young Olympic players start the game?

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After the training camp in Shanghai, the Chinese team set off for Japan. At the airport, many fans came to see them off.

In fact, in this group, the Chinese team, which has won two games, is in a good situation, ranking second in the group with six points. Ranked first in the group is Japan, which has seven points with two wins and one draw, but the key is that Japan has played one more game than them and only has one more point than them.

As long as the Chinese team does not lose to the Japanese team in the away game, it will have completed its mission.

After bidding farewell to the fans at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, the entire Chinese team arrived by plane at Tokyo Narita International Airport.

Take the bus here, arrive at the hotel where you are staying, and start preparing for the game two days later.

In this competition day, the Chinese team only has one game, so they have relatively more time to prepare. The domestic training camp alone lasts for a week, which is rare for being able to find every opportunity to arrange the national team's match days in the European League.

The news of the Chinese team's arrival in Japan has also become news of great concern in Japan.

At Narita Airport and in front of the hotel where they stayed, the Chinese team players saw most not Chinese reporters, but... Japanese reporters!

This shows how much attention Japan has paid to this game.

In the Olympic Games that just ended not long ago, the Chinese Olympic team won the gold medal after defeating the Japanese team in the final. This craze hasn’t passed yet.

In China, some media claimed to seek revenge for the defeat in last year's Asian Cup final. At the same time, in Japan, some media are also clamoring for revenge for the failure in the Olympic finals.

Both sides feel that the other is an enemy and wants revenge. How could this game not attract attention?

In Japan, the most popular Chinese player is Zhou Yi, because he has been a partner with Shinji Kagawa in Dortmund for two years, and the two have a good relationship on and off the field. Japanese reporters all know this. When he was in Dortmund, Zhou Yi would also be interviewed by Japanese reporters, so he and some Japanese reporters were old acquaintances.

In the eyes of Japanese media reporters and Japanese fans, Zhou Yi is the Chinese player they are most familiar with. Where there are interviews, he is also the most surrounded by people.

Of course, Japanese reporters will also use honorifics when facing Zhou Yi, which is a treatment that other players of the Chinese team do not enjoy.

Although the two sides were already at war with each other before the game, Zhou Yi was still very polite to his opponent Japan.

"The Japanese team is Asia's top team, and there is still a certain gap between us and them. This time it is an away game... the situation is not good for us. But we will go all out." Zhou Yi said very modestly and low-key, if not If he had just led the Chinese Olympic team to defeat the Japanese team in the Olympic final, many people might really believe that the Chinese team would have difficulties playing away games.

But now, no one believes that Zhou Yi and his Chinese team are really that harmless.

Kagawa Shinji is the most mentioned name in Japan regarding Zhouyi.

"This game will be the first time that you and Kagawa compete against each other on the court. What are your expectations for this showdown, Zhou Sang?"

"Everyone played their best." Zhou Yi said.

"Have you and Kagawa privately communicated about this game?"

"No, he is at Manchester United now and we don't have many opportunities to communicate privately."

"Kagawa said he was looking forward to the match with Zhou Sang."

"I'm also looking forward to playing against him. After all, I've never played against him before."

"Then can you predict the outcome of this game?"

Zhou Yi shook his head: "Football is round, and predicting the result is a very meaningless thing. All we can do is go all out on the court. As for the result, don't think too much before the game."

The Japanese media had good comments on Zhou Yi's performance in facing Japanese reporters - neither humble nor arrogant. The kind of confidence that comes out naturally rather than being forcibly pretended shows that he is a person who has really seen big scenes.

The Japanese media also believe that after Hidetoshi Nakata, another truly world-class star has emerged in Asia - they do not think Park Ji-sung is a world-class star. This may be due to Japanese football's hostility and prejudice against Korean football.

And whether their evaluation of Hidetoshi Nakata is too high is also debatable.

However, the Japanese media's evaluation of Zhou Yi made the Chinese media and fans sound quite happy - being recognized and respected by his enemies shows that Zhou Yi's strength and charm are outstanding. (To be continued.)