Chapter 294: Three wins in a row, advances as group leader!
On June 24, the last round of the group stage kicked off.
The Brazilian team withstood the pressure and defeated Cameroon 4:1 in the final round, successfully advancing to the knockout stage as the group leader.
Although Mexico also defeated Croatia, their goal difference was 2 less than that of Brazil and they had to advance as the second in the group.
As for Croatia, where Modric is, they had one win and two losses after three games, ranking third in the group and unfortunately eliminated.
Cameroon from Africa lost all three games, scoring 1 goal and conceding 9 goals, and was eliminated in humiliation.
After the qualifying teams of Group A were confirmed, both qualifying teams paid special attention to the final result of Group B.
Since Spain had already qualified, Bosque arranged many substitutes to play in the last game.
De Gea, Koke, Martinez, Juanfran, Villa, Mata, Fabregas, Pedro and others started the game for the first time.
However, in order to ensure that he could win the game stably, Bosque still kept some main players on the field. Iniesta, Lin Quan and Alonso continued to play.
The team's main central defender Ramos was suspended due to two yellow cards, while Xavi, David Silva and others sat on the bench to watch the game.
The Spanish players were in a relaxed mood during this game and basically felt no pressure.
But they still have to fight for this game! Although Spain has advanced to the next round, it has not completely secured the first place in the group.
If they lose to Australia by a large margin in the last round, theoretically they might lose the first place in the group.
But this possibility is relatively small because Spain currently has a goal difference of 8, 11 goals ahead of the Netherlands and 10 goals ahead of Chile.
To make up for such a huge gap, they must win a big victory and pray that Spain will suffer a crushing defeat to Australia.
The former is somewhat possible, but the latter is almost impossible.
Australia lost both games and is at the bottom of the group. It would be worse to expect them to win the lottery than to expect them to inflict a terrible defeat on Spain!
The situation of the game also developed as expected.
Facing the weak Australian team, although Spain used most of the substitutes, their substitute lineup was still much stronger than Australia's.
In the 16th minute of the first half, Villa scored a goal to help the team lead the opponent 1:0.
The Australian players played quite tenaciously. They had already been eliminated early, so this game was purely a fight for honor.
In this situation, they did not hide in their own half and defend blindly, but bravely came out to fight against Spain.
For Australia, winning is impossible, but if they can score a few goals against Spain, it will be worth it. When Spain wins the championship in the future, they can brag to others when they return home: We have scored against the world champions, Spain! However, Australia's choice made them a little overwhelmed when facing Spain's fierce attack.
In the 36th minute of the first half, Spain scored again.
After Lin Quan, Mata, Iniesta, Fabregas and others completed several consecutive passes, the football was almost kicked into the Australian goal by Lin Quan.
It was at this moment that the Australian players felt the suffocation and powerlessness of facing the world's strongest team. They were able to keep up with the opponent's players at the beginning.
Later, after Spain made several consecutive passes, they were all dizzy. A large number of players almost subconsciously followed the ball, and huge loopholes appeared in the entire defense line, allowing Spanish players to penetrate and shoot at will.
In this situation, it is not surprising to lose the ball. It is a miracle not to lose the ball! After leading by two goals, Australia was finally awakened.
They didn't dare to attack anymore and began to shrink their defense line, preparing to defend to the death.
The huge gap in strength between the two teams made them realize that it would be extremely difficult to score a goal against Spain.
Even a strong team like the Netherlands only scored one goal, and the Chilean team didn't score a single goal, and that was when Spain was one man short!
It turns out that parking the bus does work.
The score remained 2:0 until halftime.
In the second half, Spain made personnel adjustments.
Iniesta was replaced by Torres and Spain adopted a double striker tactic.
However, the double striker tactic seemed to be of no use. Facing the opponent's dense defense, neither Villa nor Torres could find any good chance to score.
Bosque continued to make personnel adjustments. In the 65th minute, he replaced Xabi Alonso with Xavi.
The substitution quickly paid off. In the 69th minute, Xavi launched an attack in the midfield and the ball was passed by Lin Quan to Torres.
Torres relied on his strong physical fitness to withstand the pull of the opponent's defender, broke into the penalty area and suddenly shot the ball into the goal!
This was Torres' second goal in this World Cup, and both goals came from Lin Quan's assists! Torres was very excited after scoring the goal, and ran to the sidelines to celebrate with an elegant little slide.
It's so damn fun to play with these teammates in the national team. There are always a group of selfless and powerful teammates who are keen to pass the ball to him. As long as he runs out of opportunities, the ball will definitely be delivered to his feet. All he has to do is to get the ball into the goal! Scoring 2 goals in 3 games, and still on the World Cup stage, it makes him feel like he's back to the top! Torres' best performance in the World Cup was the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when he scored 3 goals in 4 games, including a brace.
Unfortunately, Spain met the powerful French team in the quarter-finals and ended its World Cup journey early. Otherwise, with Torres' hot form at the time, he would definitely have scored more goals.
In the blink of an eye, eight years have passed and Torres is already 30 years old. After experiencing the decline of both the club and the national team, it was thought that it would be difficult for him to make any achievements on such an international stage.
Unexpectedly, because of Lin Quan's appearance, he had a second spring! He could have shot the balls that Lin Quan passed to him, but Lin Quan still passed them out selflessly! It would be great if such a good teammate could be brought to the club!
It’s a pity that he can’t be taken away and Manchester City won’t sell him!
Besides, Torres couldn't bring himself to let Lin Quan always be his supporting role!
After Torres scored, Bosque continued to make substitutions.
He brought on David Silva for Lin Quan.
Although Lin Quan only scored one goal in this game, his role on the field was obvious to the fans.
So, when they saw Lin Quan being substituted, the fans at the scene stood up and applauded him.
Lin Quan also responded by clapping towards all four sides of the stadium, thanking the fans for their support.
Seeing this scene, Bosque smiled with satisfaction.
He specially reserved the last substitution spot for Lin Quan, in order to make up for the lack of no substitution spot in the previous game, allowing Lin Quan to enjoy the applause and cheers of the fans alone.
“Well done!”
After Lin Quan walked to the sidelines and high-fived David Silva, Bosque took the initiative to open his arms and gave him a warm hug.
"Lin, you must be thirsty, come on, drink some water to replenish your energy!"
As soon as Lin Quan sat down on the bench, Coach Tony immediately handed him a bottle of energy drink so that Lin Quan could replenish water.
Lin Quan thanked him politely, took the drink and drank it in big gulps.
He was indeed a little thirsty, and the drink was iced. Under the scorching sun, he drank it in one gulp and felt refreshed all over!
The other players on the side looked at Lin Quan with envy. The two coaches really favored him!
"Coach Tony, I'm a little thirsty too, can you give me a bottle of drink?"
Pique reached out for a drink, but did not receive a warm response from Coach Tony.
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"Don't you have legs? They're over there, take them yourself!"
Tony replied rudely.
That attitude seemed to be saying: You're just a substitute, you didn't play for a minute, didn't sweat a drop, and you're drinking a shitty drink, do you deserve it?
Even key players like Pique were pushed back, and the rest of the players who were eager to try gave up their ideas.
Club qualifications are of no use in the national team, and being a big shot doesn't work here.
If they leave a bad impression on the coaching staff, their names may not be included in the next roster! After Lin Quan left the court, Spain's offense seemed to have returned to its old problems.
The team has many attackers in the frontcourt, including Pedro, Mata, Fabregas, David Silva, Villa and Torres, who are all very strong.
But they just couldn't keep scoring goals. Spain's advantage in ball possession was very obvious, and their offensive seemed to be one wave after another, but they just couldn't score and were unable to continue to expand the score.
This scene gave Bosque a headache again! The team on the field was a bit familiar and a bit strange. The strange thing was that he hadn't seen such a Spanish team for a long time.
What is familiar is that this is what Spain was like under Lin Quan a few years ago before he joined the Spanish team.
Back then, they couldn't even beat a third-rate team like Georgia, and were almost tied with the Chinese national team.
Thinking of this, Bosk sighed.
What if Lin Quan gets injured or suspended one day? But it's not all bad news. The good news is that Lin Quan has not had any serious injuries so far, and his physical condition is also very good. He has no yellow cards, so there is no need to worry about these problems for the time being.
Moreover, in order to solve the problem of Spain's weak forwards, he specially recruited Diego Costa into the team.
Although this kid is injured now and cannot play for the team.
But after he recovers from his injury and returns to the team, Spain may be able to try to use Diego Costa to replace Lin Quan in the absence of Lin Quan!
Just as Bosque was thinking about these questions, Spain scored again.
In the 88th minute, Mata scored directly from a free kick, helping Spain to change the score to 4:0. Australia was powerless to turn the tide and still failed to win the last game of the World Cup. Instead, they were slaughtered by a large score.
But they did not feel frustrated or anything. After the game, the Australian players ran to the Spanish players to exchange jerseys.
Some people even ran to the sidelines to get the paper, pens and cameras prepared in advance, and asked for autographs and took photos with their favorite players.
Watching the Australian players looking for Spanish players to take photos with them, the fans had a strange feeling:
It feels like these people are not here to play football, but to chase stars!
But even so, fans couldn't criticize the Australian players.
"That's normal. The moment the draw was over, the Australians should have given up. After all, anyone would be embarrassed to be in the same group with the world champion and the world runner-up!"
"Yes, in addition to the champion and runner-up of the last World Cup, there is also a South American powerhouse Chile in the group. None of these three teams can be dealt with by Australia. They come to this World Cup to fight for honor."
Australia belongs to the Asian Football Confederation, which is recognized as the weakest region.
In this World Cup, several Asian teams performed very poorly in the group stage. Not only did they not see any hope of advancing to the knockout stage, they couldn't even win a single game. This almost created the worst record for an Asian team in the World Cup!
This has once again brought up the online proposal to reduce the number of AFC World Cup places.
Many fans from Europe said that instead of giving World Cup spots to regions with relatively backward football levels such as Asia and Africa, it would be better to allocate more to Europe.
Because there are a lot of strong teams in Europe, but due to quota restrictions, they cannot make it to the World Cup.
Of course, this proposal will definitely not be adopted.
In order to encourage the development of regions with relatively backward football levels, FIFA will not only not reduce the number of World Cup places in Asia, but will even want to allocate more places to them.
After all, the World Cup is a stage where all countries in the world are expected to participate.
Even if not every country can send a team to compete, we must try our best to strike a balance to benefit all regions of the five continents.
Otherwise, it would be easy for the World Cup to turn from a global football event into a carnival in a certain region.
This is completely contrary to their original idea! Therefore, FIFA is currently discussing the expansion of the World Cup, wanting to expand the current 32 participating teams to 48.
In this way, a certain men's football team that has missed the World Cup for consecutive years due to performance and quota may have a chance to play in the World Cup again! FIFA is very envious of the huge market of 1.4 billion people in this country. After all, even if their own national football team fails to enter the World Cup, they can still give so much sponsorship fees to the national football federation.
If their national team could make it to the World Cup finals, the commercial revenue that would be brought in would be unimaginable!
Of course, given the current situation of a certain national football team's gradual decline, it seems that even expanding the army will be of no avail.
After all, if they could even lose to Thailand by 1:5, then it doesn’t seem impossible that they will lose to Vietnam and then Myanmar, right? (End of this chapter)