Chapter 368 The Champion
As Yang Yang said before, confidence is built by playing one game after another.
After beating Arsenal 2-1 at home, Ajax has become more confident and more fighting spirit.
At the very least, everyone sees hope that the team will qualify for the Champions League group stage, or even go further.
The strongest opponent in the group is Arsenal, but before Ajax's second game against the Gunners is scheduled for the final round, the situation in the group may have stabilized.
Therefore, as long as Ajax continues to maintain the current momentum, as long as there are no more mistakes, in the last round of the away game against Arsenal, as long as Ajax holds the draw, they will be able to qualify for the first place in the group.
According to the Champions League system, the first group and the second group are two completely different treatments.
Therefore, after defeating Arsenal, Ajax players all changed their fighting spirit.
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In the first six rounds of the league, Ajax scored 16 points with five wins and one draw, ranking first in the Eredivisie standings.
Followed by Feyenoord and Walwick with five wins and one loss, followed by Alkmaar and Eindhoven with 13 points, of which Eindhoven is in the most unfavorable situation this season.
After Hiddink's team let go of Van Bommel, at the end of August, before the transfer market closed, they sold two major South Korean players, Park Ji-sung and Lee Young-pyo. The former went to Manchester United for £4 million, and the latter transferred. Will Tottenham Hotspur.
Losing three generals in one summer, Eindhoven's competitiveness was greatly affected, and the team did not bring in reinforcements in time. This season's Eindhoven started very poorly, and the state was relatively sluggish. If it doesn't get better, I'm afraid it will be difficult to shake the domination of Ajax.
After playing the Champions League in the middle of the week and the seventh round of the Eredivisie at the weekend, Eindhoven played away to Heerenveen and conceded the goal in the first 16 minutes, but then adjusted and scored three goals in a row.
But in the final stage of the second half, after Heerenveen pulled a goal back, he pressed PSV Eindhoven to play, forcing the Eredivisie team to be very embarrassed. Horwin will lose a fiasco.
After the game, Hiddink admitted that the team did encounter a crisis.
Van Gaal's Alkmaar's situation was also not easy. Against Nijmegen at home, he led twice and was equalized twice by his opponent. Finally, Aviladze scored a lore goal and defeated his opponent three to two at home.
Feyenoord's situation is even worse.
Erwin Koeman's team had a great momentum, but in this round they lost 1-3 away to Utrecht, and the center Nellis, who had just transferred from Alkmaar to Utrecht, staged a hat. Trick, Kuyt sluggish performance.
Ajax's situation is also difficult.
A very important reason for the sluggish performance of several strong teams is that they all played the Champions League in the middle of the week.
Two games a week and continuous hard fights are also a big challenge for athletes due to the consumption level of professional football games.
After Yang Yang experienced consecutive goals, there was finally a scoring drought.
Ajax's attack in the frontcourt was collectively misfired, but it was unexpected that De Jong stood up.
This late midfielder, who has always been a full-time defensive player and shown himself as a macho, proved his tactical value with a brace in this game. Sneijder and Yang Yang each contributed. An assist.
And Ajax's victory has also given a high degree of affirmation to the Dutch domestic media.
All fans know that no player, or team, can stay good for a long time.
But when evaluating the core competitiveness of a team, the key point is whether there are other people in the team who can stand up when the state of the team's core players fluctuates.
Feyenoord obviously didn't, so they lost the game. Alkmaar and PSV are not too bad, only Ajax, all the offensive players in the frontcourt are obviously lacking, even Yang Yang is showing Not excited enough.
Everyone understands this.
Playing Arsenal on Wednesday, Sparta Rotterdam will be ushered in on Saturday. There is too little time for Ajax players to rest in the middle, and Yang Yang is more excited in the game against Arsenal, and he is in some state when playing in the league. Landslides, of course.
But when the attacking combination in the frontcourt was misfiring, De Jong's brace saved the team.
After the game, all Dutch domestic media reporters believed that Ajax was the most championship-looking team in the Eredivisie this season.
After the seventh round of the Eredivisie, Ajax continued to lead the standings.
Yang Yang was one goal behind Aviladze of Alkmaar.
But the season is still so long, and the battle for the top scorer has just begun.
What's more, Yang Yang has always been good at making efforts in the future.
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Entering October, we have ushered in two weeks of national team game days.
The Chinese team specially came to Europe for training, and all the international players who studied abroad were called up to the team to prepare for the World Cup next summer.
This time, Alihan called up all the outstanding players in the World Youth Championship, including domestic players such as Cui Peng, Zhao Xuri and Lu Lin, as well as a number of players who performed well in domestic leagues.
Yang Yang also had a rare opportunity to meet Gao Lin, Feng Xiaoting, Zheng Zhi and others, and it was naturally a hot chat.
He can clearly feel the new changes brought to the national team by studying abroad.
The first week was mainly technical and tactical drills and training, followed by two consecutive warm-up matches against Germany and Spain. They lost both games, losing to Germany 0-1 and losing to Spain 1-3.
Among them, Yang Yang scored a goal in the warm-up match against Spain.
It should be said that the results of the warm-up match are not surprising. The gap between the strength of the Chinese team and the strong teams is still very obvious.
This has also awakened many overly optimistic media and fans in China one after another. The World Youth Championship is only a youth team event after all.
Yang Yang can carry the National Youth Team to play the World Youth Championship by himself, but he cannot carry the National Team to play the World Cup by himself.
He's not a superman in underwear!
The national team has given high praise to these two warm-up matches.
Losing is for sure, but sometimes losing is also a gain.
When we played against Germany, we lost the game, but the defense was well organized. When we played against Spain, although we were controlled by others throughout the game, when we were one goal behind in the first half, we once played a powerful attack. Yang Yang also seized the opportunity to tie the game, but conceded two consecutive goals in the second half.
When communicating internally, many international players who have studied abroad have also deeply felt the disparity.
In terms of player strength, technical and tactical level, and even logistics, the gap between the Chinese team and the European team is really too big, and there are growing signs.
This is not to say that Chinese football is going backwards. After all, the progress brought by so many foreign players can be seen.
It is more that the technical and tactical concepts of European football have developed too fast.
Even Alihan himself sighed that in the past two years, the technical and tactical level of European football has really improved by leaps and bounds.
Yang Yang has a deep understanding of this.
Whether a player can play the Champions League is two levels, and whether the coach can lead the team to play the Champions League is also two levels.
The fierce competition is almost brutal, forcing all teams to do everything possible to study and restrain their opponents, and the technical and tactical level naturally develops and improves rapidly.
More importantly, fresh blood like Mourinho, Benitez, Ronald Koeman and Pellegrini have emerged in European football in recent years, each with a distinct Different technical and tactical styles, through the platform of the Champions League, blend with each other, compete with each other, learn and promote each other, and the level is naturally changing with each passing day.
In fact, China's close neighbors Japan and South Korea are not unaware of this.
They are all actively cooperating with the teams in the European professional leagues, sending some outstanding young players aged 15 or 16 to the youth training camps of European clubs for training. The purpose is naturally to enable these outstanding players to get better results. development of.
Don't say anything else, just say Yang Yang himself.
At the current level of Asian football, when Yang Yang goes back to play, he doesn't need to do his best to be competent, and he can even perform very well, but it only takes half a year, and when he returns to the Europa League, he will find that he can't keep up. .
To put it bluntly, football relies on training and competition.
Day after day, year after year of training and competition.
One day of practice, one day of kung fu, and one day of not practiced ten days of empty space.
Therefore, for the young teammates of the national team, Yang Yang will always give only one opinion, that is, seize every opportunity and study abroad when there is an opportunity.
It does not necessarily have to be the four most famous leagues, it can also be Ligue 1, Portuguese Super League, Eredivisie, Belgium, or even the leagues of Austria, Switzerland and other countries, as long as they can play the game, they should be. Come out bravely.
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Interestingly, Spain, which defeated the Chinese team three-to-one in the warm-up match, was in an embarrassing disadvantage in the European qualifiers.
Due to the unsatisfactory performance of the previous game, Aragonese's team finally failed to get the direct promotion right and was forced to play the play-offs. This caused an uproar in Spain, and countless media and fans rushed to attack, thinking that Aragones should take the blame and resign.
Captain Raul called for the postponement of the league and did his best to prepare for the life and death battle in the play-offs.
"Now, the whole of Spain is very clear that the national team is the first. In the first round of the play-offs in November, we have no way out. In order to allow the national team to concentrate on preparing for the game, the Football Association and the professional league should come up with strategies as soon as possible. Postpone the league!"
Raul's call has also been unanimously recognized by many Spain internationals, professionals and fans.
Even the Football Association and professional leagues have said they will seriously consider Raul's proposal.
Absence from the World Cup is an unimaginable disaster for Spain.
On the other hand, Yang Yang was in the mood of watching gossip, sitting at Odekerke's house, watching the news in the newspaper, and smiling quite happily.
Who made the Chinese team advance in advance?