Chapter 522 Lin Quan is absent and Spain wins with difficulty!
Before Spain played, the battle between Croatia and Türkiye in Group D started first.
In the first minute of the game, Croatia almost scored a goal.
Rakitic's shot hit the post and flew out of the bottom line, and Croatia almost got off to a dream start.
Türkiye's strength is not weak. In the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, it even reached the semi-finals and won the third place.
Facing Croatia, their direct competitor, the Turks were not afraid at all and directly set up a 4141 formation. Their intention to score points against the Croatians was very obvious.
Facing the aggressive Türkiye, the Croatians played very calmly.
Relying on their strong midfield, they gradually controlled the tempo of the game after a phase of mutual testing between the two sides.
Mandzukic, Perisic, Brozovic and others had excellent scoring opportunities one after another, but unfortunately they failed to seize them.
In the end, it was Modric who stood up. In the 41st minute of the first half, he seized an opportunity when the opponent cleared the ball, volleyed the ball without stopping, and shot the ball into the dead corner on the left side of the goal, helping the team break the deadlock and changing the score to 1:0. This goal was very beautiful and difficult to score.
Originally, Croatia's left midfielder Brozovic wanted to pass the ball to Mandzukic in the penalty area, allowing him to head the ball.
As a result, Mandzukic failed to get the first point and the ball was cleared by the opponent's defender.
As luck would have it, the cleared ball landed right in front of Modric.
Modric on the outside saw the ball flying towards him, and without making any adjustments, he shot directly into the air. His shot was not only sudden but also extremely tricky. The opponent's goalkeeper had no way to deal with it and could only watch the ball go into the net.
After taking the lead, Croatia played more calmly, constantly taking advantage of the opponent's single defensive midfielder's weakness and frequently attacking the opponent's ribs, making the Turks lose sight of the big picture.
Although the difference in ball possession between the two sides was not that big, Croatia's ball possession rate was only 52% and Turkey's was 48%, a difference of only 4 percentage points.
However, the number of shots on both sides was very different. Croatia completed a total of 19 shots in this game, 6 of which were on target. If it weren't for the frequent waste of good opportunities by a number of shooters, they would have scored more goals.
On the other hand, Turkey only completed 9 shots in total, 2 of which were on target. There were very few threatening shots, and they did not achieve the effect they wanted to see before the game.
After winning the game, the Croatians breathed a sigh of relief.
Türkiye is their direct competitor for qualifying from the group, and defeating them means they have the initiative to qualify.
As long as they can beat the Czech Republic in the next game, they will be guaranteed to qualify.
If we are lucky, we can even hope to get points against Spain and have a chance to top the group.
For Turkey, the result is very bad.
Their next game will be against the defending champions Spain. Even though the outside world feels that the Spanish team has been severely weakened after losing Lin Quan, Turkey's chances of defeating them are still slim.
After the game between the two teams ended, Croatia and Turkey both tacitly chose to closely follow the game in Spain.
They want to judge Spain's strength through the match between Spain and the Czech Republic, and at the same time verify the outside world's speculation to see whether Lin Quan will really miss the game.
There are many teams that hold the same idea. The match between Spain and the Czech Republic attracted many fans to watch the game, and there were countless viewers watching the live broadcast through TV and the Internet.
In the German team's training base, Löw and a group of coaching staff sat in front of the TV and watched the game attentively.
The Germans had very serious expressions and watched the game with great concentration, especially the head coach Löw.
The defeat in the last World Cup has been bothering him and all Germans. In the past two years, Mrs. Le has thought of countless ways to defeat Spain and take revenge on them.
And this European Cup is the time to test the results of their hard work over the years.
For the Germans, this European Cup, they have two main goals:
1. Win the championship
2. Defeat Spain!
If their opponent in the final was Spain, and they completed a gorgeous revenge in the final and won the championship by stepping on Spain's corpse, there would be nothing more wonderful than this.
At the same time, at the French team's training base, France head coach Didier Deschamps was doing almost the same thing.
At the same time, at the training bases of many national teams, many of them quietly turned on their TVs and locked onto the Spain vs. Czech match! On the Internet, fans were already arguing.
"Do you think Emperor Lin will appear today?"
Whether Lin Quan will play is the most watched focus of this game.
Compared to the game itself, many people pay more attention to this matter.
There are different opinions on the Internet and in major media. Some people believe that Lin Quan will play, and what happened before was just a smokescreen thrown by him and Spain to confuse the opponent.
Some people also believe that Lin Quan was injured in the Champions League final, which was witnessed by fans all over the world. Now it is less than half a month away from the end of the Champions League final. If his injury is serious, it is impossible for him to fully recover in such a short time, so there is a great possibility that he will not play.
Neither side could convince the other, and the final answer will have to wait until the game begins.
At 4 pm on June 13, the match between Spain and the Czech Republic officially started.
When the game started, a strange spectacle appeared on the court: the fans' eyes were not focused on the court, but instead on the Spanish bench.
Not only Spanish fans do this, but neutral fans and even Czech fans do the same thing.
The reason for them to do this is simple: Lin Quan was not in Spain's starting lineup.
If he can't be found in the starting lineup, he may end up on the bench.
However, after searching the Spanish bench and looking at the dozen players sitting on the bench inside and out, everyone still couldn't find the person they were looking for.
Finally, people saw Lin Quan watching the game with Guardiola and several of his younger brothers and sisters in the stands.
Lin Quan was wearing casual clothes and sitting in the stands, chatting with Guardiola from time to time, looking relaxed.
Seeing the camera pointed at him, Lin Quan waved to the camera and greeted the fans at the scene.
However, his outfit also meant he missed Spain's first game.
This result quickly spread online and offline at a viral speed.
The tag of Lin Quan's absence from the European Cup even topped the Twitter trend list, and major media outlets couldn't even wait for the results of the game and started writing directly, reporting the news as soon as possible.
All of a sudden, various reports came in.
《The world's number one player is absent from the European Cup! 》
"With the absence of the Spanish core players, the Spanish team may suffer a Waterloo!"
"Lin Quan is absent from the European Cup, and the suspense of who will win the championship is rising!"
This is still quite standard. Some media outlets that are more unconventional seized this opportunity to make a big news story:
"Manchester City star may have broken his leg, the world's best player will be destroyed by injury!"
"The football superstar has passed away. It will be hard to see Lin's breakthrough again in the world!"
Relying on some unfounded rumors, these media dared to conclude that Lin Quan was ruined by injuries.
This is not the most outrageous thing, there are even more outrageous things:
"Manchester City did not renew the contract with Lin Quan, the Manchester City legend may be abandoned! "
"The No. 1 football player is disheartened and may retire early!"
…
Good fellow, Lin Quan would exclaim when he saw it! Just because he missed a game, these shameless media and reporters have sentenced him to death.
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Three people make a tiger, and gossip can melt gold. The media's ability to stir up trouble is truly terrifying.
However, he was in the stands at the moment and knew nothing about all this.
"By the way, why didn't Bosque let you fight?"
Guardiola is both Lin Quan's coach and his adoptive father, and is most familiar with Lin Quan's situation.
Although it sounds incredible, after a careful and comprehensive examination by Manchester City's team doctor, it was determined that Lin Quan's injury was not serious and he would be able to resume training and competition after resting for a week or two at most.
Lin Quan and Manchester City Club also informed the Spanish national team of the result, but Bosque still chose not to let Lin Quan play, and did not even give him a chance to be a substitute.
There are two main purposes for doing this. One is to extend Lin Quan's rest time as much as possible to ensure that everything is safe.
The second is to take advantage of external hype and throw a smoke bomb to competitors to confuse them.
Spain's first opponent is not very strong, so the probability of defeating it is very high.
If they can win it successfully, the possibility of qualifying will be very high.
In this case, Bosque can consider keeping Lin Quan's killer move hidden and suddenly reveal it in the knockout stage to catch the opponent off guard.
Of course, if they fail to win the first game, or lose to Turkey in the second game, and have to fight a life-and-death battle with Croatia in the third game, then Bosque will have no choice but to use this trump card in advance.
After explaining Bosque's plan to Guardiola, Guardiola nodded: "His approach is safe, but without you, the national team will probably play very badly!"
Guardiola's words came true! The Spanish team played a very bad game! With Bosque sending out all the main players except Lin Quan, Spain's offense was constipated.
Relying on the strong midfield, Spain has always firmly controlled the initiative of the game, with a ball possession rate of 72%, 729 passes in the whole game, and a pass success rate of 89%!
With a high ball possession rate, they created a total of 18 shots, but the forwards' feet were so bad that only 4 of the 18 shots were on target, while the opponent only had 4 shots but 3 of them were on target. In terms of threatening balls, the two teams were evenly matched! The Spanish fans in the stands were stunned!
Is this still the invincible fleet we remember? How did it become like this? It's only been one game, and Spanish fans have already started to miss Lin Quan.
If Lin Quan was there, they wouldn't have played so badly! These guys simply couldn't play without Lin Quan! The Spanish fans were tortured to death by their own team, and the neutral fans were drowsy from watching the endless passing of the Spanish team.
The fans on the Czech side were frightened by the frequent shots made by the Spanish forwards.
Although the opponent's shooting accuracy is very low and the accuracy is very poor, it is still more frightening!
Because even he himself doesn't know which direction his shot is going, how can the goalkeeper predict and save the shot?
The Czech goalkeeper is none other than the Blues’ legendary goalkeeper Cech.
Cech was very cautious at the beginning of the game because of Spain's great reputation.
I kept reminding myself: Although Lin Quan is not on the court, the opposing team is full of big-name stars and I must not be careless.
However, after experiencing the opponent's unreliable bombardment, Cech was numb!
That’s it?
Is this the level of Spain's forwards? I'm more reliable than you guys!
On the sidelines, Bosque couldn't bear to watch it anymore.
After seeing Morata miss another one-on-one opportunity, he began to make substitutions.
Morata, Nolito and Fabregas were substituted one after another, and Spain's offensive group in the frontcourt was pushed down and reset.
However, the substitutes who came on the field were equally unreliable.
After getting the ball, he just kept passing it, but couldn't break through the opponent's defense.
In the end, it was a set-piece opportunity that gave center back Pique the chance to head the ball. In the 87th minute of the second half, he headed the ball into the opponent's goal and defeated the opponent with a difficult 1:0.
The fans who watched the game, whether they were Spanish fans or neutral fans, all left the stadium cursing.
We came here with the expectation of enjoying the highest level of football, and this is what you do to us?
If you don't know, you might think this is a chef competition. The Spanish champion is indeed famous, but the actual performance is really unbearable.
This performance was even worse than that of the French team in the opening match.
After all, the French team's goal was scored by a forward, while Spain's goal had to be scored by a defender. It's really disgusting! As expected, after the game, there were a lot of negative comments about Spain on the Internet and in the media.
Some people even jumped out eagerly:
"I declare that Spain withdraws from the European Cup championship!"
"I agree. With Spain's current form, I doubt they can beat Croatia!"
"Croatia is not weak. Spain might really lose. If Spain loses, they will definitely lose their first place in the group. Without the first place in the group, Spain will be in trouble in the knockout stage!"
There are many people who hold this view. Even the coaches and players of other teams, after watching this game, feel that their chance has come!
Especially Spain's next opponent, Turkey, they seem to have seen hope of qualifying! (End of this chapter)