Chapter 42: Persistence Is Victory

The New Water Source Stadium can accommodate 55,000 fans. The official data given before the game is that there are about 20,000 Chinese fans who have successfully purchased tickets, but judging from the close-up shots given by the on-site director, there are definitely more than 20,000.

The red sea of ​​joy formed by the Chinese fans completely suppressed the orange sea formed by the Dutch fans, so the momentum that broke out was also overwhelming.

The Chinese players on the court performed very well amidst the cheers and cheers of the Chinese fans, fully performing to their best personal level.

Therefore, the Dutch team, which gradually increased its offensive, never found a good opportunity, and the score was still 0:0.

Sneijder, the core of the Dutch team's midfield, became more and more impatient as the game time passed, because his organizational tasks became more arduous when Robben had not yet tried to break through, and he had to increase his running range to find The Chinese team's defense is open.

Soon, Sneijder had the opportunity to directly confront Tang Zheng.

As the offensive player closest to the forward line in the midfield, Sneijder has many opportunities to contact defensive midfielder Tang Zheng. However, the first five minutes of the attack were based on the head coach Van Gaal's idea of ​​​​probing, and the number of people involved in the attack was Limited, his position is not that forward.

Things are different now. With head coach Louis van Gaal sending signals to strengthen the attack from the sidelines, Sneijder finally has the opportunity to go one-on-one with Tang Zheng.

Sneijder has exquisite skills at his feet, but he is not a secretly classical attacking midfielder. He can use his outstanding skills at his feet to pass several people and then deliver a scalpel-like precise through ball. He relies more on running, passing and organization to sort out the ball. The team attacks in the frontcourt.

In addition, Sneijder has excellent positioning skills, strong feet, and strong long-range shooting ability. He is responsible for Mexico's reverse in the 1/8 finals.

Facing Tang Zheng who was over 1.9 meters tall, Sneijder, who was only over 1.7 meters tall, wanted to use his short stature and low center of gravity to shake Tang Zheng away. However, Sneijder's upper body had just finished shaking and his feet had not had time to move. The ball disappeared as soon as it was pushed away...

Tang Zheng's prediction was quite accurate. He stretched his long right leg forward and poked the ball away from Sneijder's legs.

Fortunately, Wijnaldum chose his position well. He was just in the direction of Tang Zheng's ball, so he was not counterattacked by the Chinese team.

The Dutch team once again organized an attack. Sneijder, who was always blushing, did not try to break through Tang Zheng again. After all, breaking through was not his type of attack.

For Sneijder to be recognized as the best player in world football in 2010, his psychological adjustment ability must be very good, so he organized the team's offense according to the way he was good at playing in the past.

In the tenth minute of the game, the Dutch fans in the stands erupted with great momentum. Especially when the football came to Robben's feet, the sound reached the highest pitch since the beginning of the game.

Kuyt's advance took away Lu Liang's defensive attention. Tang Zheng had not yet reached the end of his run. Robben suddenly had the idea of ​​​​accelerating the breakthrough amidst the shouts of his own fans and ignored Tang Zheng's intervention. Defend.

Li Xue's speed can be said to be outstanding at the Chinese Super League level, but looking at the entire world is not enough, especially when he faces the speed demon Robben.

Defensive players all over the world know the purpose of Robben cutting in from the right and how to defend, but there are very few defensive players who can keep up with his breakthrough rhythm, at least Li Xue is not in this range.

Li Xue also had self-awareness, fighting and retreating at the same time.

However, at this moment, Robben dunked the ball toward the baseline with the inside of his left instep. At the same time, he tilted his upper body forward, as if he wanted to accelerate a breakthrough from the baseline. Li Xue, whose nerves were in a tense state, didn't think much about it. changes toward the bottom line.

As a result, Robben suddenly pushed the football to the left with the outside instep of his left foot, started on the spot, and cut inside!

By the time Li Xue realized it was too late, he could only watch as Robben broke through laterally along the inside line.

But within a second, he felt relieved...

Robben saw Tang Zheng coming to help defend from the corner of his eye. He didn't know if he was affected by the extremely low success rate of breakthroughs in the past and did not choose to speed up the breakthrough.

Instead, he used the outside instep of his left foot to pass the ball to Sneijder, who stepped forward to receive the ball.

Tang Zheng did not start at full speed when assisting to defend Robben, but Sneijder found a space for a long-range shot, so he chose to shoot furiously without hesitation.

"boom~"

The ball made close contact with Sneijder's right foot and made a muffled sound.

But Tang Zheng was tall and had long legs. He stretched out his foot to block the ball. The football hit the upper surface of Tang Zheng's right foot, creating a huge parabola. He jumped high, then fell, and went out of the baseline.

Corner kick for Netherlands.

Corner kick attack is one of the important methods of the Dutch team in this World Cup. However, Chinese team coach Lippi made targeted arrangements before the game, and the players were very focused. Coupled with goalkeeper Yan Junling's fiery form, the Dutch team's corner kick attack was always Didn't play an ideal role.

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The game time passed very quickly, and it came to twenty minutes in a blink of an eye. The scene was still dominated by the dominant Dutch team, and the Chinese team passively defended.

Of course, this is no different from what the media and football people predicted before the game.

It is very normal for the gap in overall strength to lead to extreme offense and defense, because the overall technical content of the weak side is definitely not as good as that of the strong side. If the weak side and the strong side choose to play against each other, then the game will be without any suspense.

If the weak side can consolidate its defensive advantage and wait patiently for opportunities, there is a high possibility of an upset.

Looking at the world of football, there are countless cases of the weak defeating the strong.

The Chinese team, which is recognized as the weakest in the quarterfinals, is not necessarily the ultimate loser!

Therefore, when the Dutch coach Van Gaal realized that the team's offense was unable to pose a practical threat to the severely guarded goal, he signaled that the team's offense would slow down and the overall formation would retreat, forcing the Chinese team's defensive positioning conditions. , giving the team more offensive space.

Whether it is Robben or young player Depay, they all need a certain amount of sprinting space, otherwise it will be difficult to maximize their power.

It wasn't until the 25th minute of the game that the Dutch team created a great opportunity.

The Chinese team got the ball and quickly counterattacked. Tang Zheng passed Sneijder and Wijnaldum without any direct passing space, and then accurately found Lu Liang with high speed on the left through a long pass. The latter targeted Gao Lin. An imaginative through ball came from the forward direction. As a result, Gao Lin, who received the ball, thought too much and was intercepted by the defender Indy who was in place.

The Dutch team responded with a quick counterattack by the Chinese team. Two or three passes came to the feet of Kuyt who had not had time to return to defense. The latter sent a wide-range transfer of the ball. Ludpe stopped the football on the left and hit the goal directly.

Depay, who is in hot form in this World Cup, has great shooting power and a tricky angle. Fortunately, the Chinese team goalkeeper Yan Junling was very focused and flew sideways and stretched out his right hand to block the ball from the baseline.

"Oh oh oh"

In response, the Chinese fans in the stands breathed a sigh of relief.

Lippi, the head coach of the Chinese team, saw that the Dutch team's quick counterattack was simple, direct and efficient. He quickly ran to the sidelines and made several tactical change gestures towards Tang Zheng.

Blind ran to take a corner kick, and Tang Zheng nodded slightly to show his understanding.

The opportunity for a quick counterattack just now was rare. Several players could not resist the restlessness in their hearts and actively participated in the counterattack, including Tang Zheng. A quick counterattack after a quick counterattack was extremely dangerous, so Tang Zheng was also frightened and decided to take the next step. Be careful in the next game.

Of course, it is not that the Chinese team did not create absolute opportunities. It can only be said that the forward line's performance was greatly reduced under the influence of defensive pressure.

However, the Chinese team's pre-match tactics did not pursue goals, but tried to keep the goal intact.

The best result of the game is that the own goal concedes zero goals, because the Chinese team, whose overall strength is obviously weak, can only pursue victory without losing.

And this victory does not refer to scoring a goal to win the game, but dragging the game to a penalty shootout.

Maybe the defense is a little ugly, but the pursuit of victory means doing whatever it takes. Modern football is more about victory than the process.

No matter how exciting the game is, you will still be criticized and criticized in the end if you lose.

Winning is different. Even if you defend passively for 89 minutes, if you score a goal in the last minute, the tactics are reasonable.

this is the truth!

Besides, there is no shame in defending, only in losing.

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The Chinese team continued to defend passively. The Chinese fans in the stands did not give up cheering because of this. On the contrary, they became more and more excited as the game progressed, and the cheers became louder and louder.

Even if their shouting target is more than 80 meters away from the Chinese team's defensive half, they don't care.

The Dutch fans who came to the scene were no less generous and their cheers were deafening.

However, the results they hope to see have not changed yet, and they are unwilling to do so.

The Chinese team's defense, which had retreated to half-court defense, was impregnable, and goalkeeper Yan Junling was in superb form, leaving people helpless.

The on-site director's close-ups began to frequently take care of Dutch coach Louis van Gaal. The meaning he wanted to express was very obvious. Should the team's tactics be changed?

Van Gaal actually had a lot of plans before the game, but because the Chinese team is very focused on defense, premature exposure of colorful skills and tactics is not conducive to the team's more threatening offense.

In addition, Robben does not seem to be in his best condition, making it difficult to implement many tactics.

During the period when Robben was in poor condition, Sneijder's offensive organization pressure was very high. Depay, one of the biggest discoveries of the Dutch team in this World Cup, was under tremendous pressure from the attacker on the offensive end and was unable to bring any impact to the team's offense. surprise.

Therefore, British Sky commentator Andy Gray joked: "Memphis Depay seemed to have lost all his magic under Zhang's defense. Except for a long shot in a quick counterattack that tested Yan, he was almost sleepwalking at other times."

The implication is that he was very surprised by **'s defense.

In the past four games, Depay has performed amazingly and shown amazing potential, so coach Louis van Gaal included him in the starting lineup.

However, ** was in excellent form in this game, defended meticulously, and was able to run up when the Chinese team attacked.

In the first thirty minutes of the game, in addition to Tang Zheng and Yan Junling's impressive performance, **'s performance was equally impressive.

Robben and Sneijder were under invisible pressure from Tang Zheng, and Depay was restricted by his father, which meant that Van Persie, who was at the forefront of the striker, was isolated and helpless.

Three very important players in the Dutch team's three-four-three formation offensive system were closely guarded to varying degrees, and the offense could not operate normally. As time slowly passed, the Dutch players on the field became more and more impatient. Choose a blind long shot.

It is understandable that Sneijder and Robben would try long-range shots because they have certain long-range shooting abilities, but it becomes unusual for players such as Wijnaldum, Blind, Kuyt and others to also try long-range shots.

Coach Van Gaal was keenly aware of the change in the players' mentality, but he did not run to the sideline to stop the players, but allowed them to play. Anyway, the team now has an absolute advantage, and the Chinese team has no way to threaten Cillessen's goal. attack.

The number of shots taken by the Dutch team began to increase slowly. Robben, who was still unable to use his power before, seemed to be gradually finding his form. His long-range shots or passes could cause a burst of exclamations above the New Water Source Stadium.

Of course, the exclamations were only for the Chinese fans. The Dutch fans were excited, dancing and looking forward to the goal.

However, the Chinese team's goalkeeper Yan Junling was in hot form and kept the goal with high saves and low blocks.

During this period, Chinese team coach Lippi frequently appeared on the broadcast screen.

Lippi looked very nervous in the broadcast. From time to time he rushed to the sidelines and gave orders to the players, indicating that the players must concentrate on the game.

As Robben regained his strength, the pressure Tang Zheng felt became more and more intense, giving him a headache.

There was clear concern in the hoarse voice of CCTV 5 commentator He Wei: "The game is about to reach forty minutes, and the Dutch team's offense seems to be getting closer and closer to scoring. I don't know if our boys can hold up. Resist the pressure and hold on to the 0:0 score until the end of the first half..."

Before he finished speaking, the commentator Xu Yang said in a deep voice: "Whether we can enter the halftime break with a score of 0:0 depends not only on Yan Junling's condition, but also on Tang Zheng's double fists, which can't match the Dutch team's four. fist."

Tang Zheng once again blocked Sneijder's long-range shot from the front of the penalty area, and Feng Xiaoting kicked it out of the sideline in the football cup. The on-site director specially gave Tang Zheng a close-up shot of his face.

What was different from the previous calm was that Tang Zheng's brows were deeply furrowed, and the word "Chuan" between his eyebrows was very obvious, which made the Chinese fans sitting in front of the TV extremely worried, especially the female fans.

The Chinese fans at the New Water Source Stadium were equally worried. Fortunately, the Dragons Fan Club was very professional and did not stop chanting because the Chinese team was always at a disadvantage. Instead, it exploded with increasing momentum.

Perhaps it was the unrelenting cheers of the Chinese fans at the scene that brought additional attribute increases. The passively defensive Chinese team held on to the 0:0 score until the end of the first half.

British Sky commentator Andy Gray said seriously: "If the Chinese team can maintain its resilience in the second half, it may not be possible to draw with the Netherlands in the whole game, dragging the game into overtime, or even entering a penalty shootout! Come on! Persistence is victory!!”