"How is it, how does it feel to be in the national team?"
After the two warm-up matches, the outside world was collectively pessimistic about the Spanish national team.
This view spread quickly and widely among Spanish fans. Even Guardiola, who was on vacation in Asia, heard about it and called Lin Quan specifically for this matter.
"It's the same as before, there's nothing special about it. If I have to say, it's probably because there are more young players, which automatically raises the status of an old player like me in the team to a higher level."
Hearing Lin Quan's joking words, Guardiola on the other end of the phone felt relieved.
He still had the energy to make a joke, which meant the situation wasn't that bad.
Perhaps the media reports are a bit exaggerated. This Spanish team is indeed facing serious problems of an aging lineup and a lack of young players, but it is not that bad.
After all, with the 22-year-old Lin Quan in charge, the lower limit of this Spanish team will not be too low.
But what the media said is also true, it is easy for Spain to advance to the knockout stage, but it is very difficult to win the championship.
Judging from Guardiola's vision, the biggest favorite in this World Cup should be the French team.
However, this kind of cup competition is full of randomness. Even if a team is the favorite to win the championship, it may be eliminated unexpectedly if it does not perform well or something unexpected happens.
Therefore, no one can be sure who will win the championship until the last moment.
After chatting with Guardiola for a while, he had already booked a flight for the 14th, apparently planning to come and watch the first game in Spain.
Whether as a coach, a father or a fan, Guardiola will never miss an important event like the World Cup.
But if he comes on the 14th, he will miss the opening match of this World Cup.
…
On June 8, the Spanish team arrived in Krasnodar, Russia by plane.
In the next month, this will serve as the Spanish team's training base. Of course, the prerequisite is that they can avoid being eliminated and fight to the end.
When we got off the plane, a large number of fans came to the airport to greet us.
When these fans saw Busquets, Iniesta, Pique and others walking in the front, they cheered excitedly, shouting the players' names and the name of the Barcelona club.
Although Barcelona's performance has declined in recent years, the fan base accumulated by the Dream Three Dynasty cannot be underestimated.
These people seemed to be here to pick up the Spanish national team, but in fact they were here for several Barcelona players.
When Ramos, who was walking behind, passed by, these fans were still shouting the name of Barcelona without realizing it, which made Shui Ye frown and glare at the fan who shouted the loudest.
The man seemed frightened by Ramos's eyes and his voice stopped abruptly.
As a Real Madrid player, Ramos does not like Barcelona. After all, the grievances between the two teams in the league are too deep, and there have been many contradictions and conflicts between the two sides.
But to be honest, in the Spanish national team, in the past decade, the influence of the Barcelona gang has always been greater than that of the Real Madrid gang.
Compared to Real Madrid, Barcelona pays more attention to youth training, or it can be said that the success rate of Barcelona's La Masia youth training camp has been too high in the past decade, and a large number of outstanding youth players have emerged, allowing them to firmly occupy the dominant position of the Spanish national team.
On the other hand, under the policy of Zidane and Pavon, Real Madrid is more inclined to buy famous stars from outside to serve as the team's face, leaving only less outstanding positions for newcomers and youth players.
Later, even these positions were given to foreign players, making Real Madrid almost a mercenary force, with most of the main positions in the team occupied by foreign players.
If your main players are not from your own country, then naturally you won't produce many international players.
Therefore, it is normal for the Barcelona gang to suppress the Real Madrid gang within the national team.
However, in this year's national team, Real Madrid players surpassed Barcelona players for the first time.
Among the 23-man national team players selected for this squad, 6 are from Real Madrid and only 4 are from Barcelona.
That's why Ramos is so unhappy. When there were fewer people, he had nothing to say about the Barcelona gang stealing the limelight. But now there are more people in the Real Madrid gang, and the limelight is still stolen by the Barcelona gang, so he is not very happy about it.
Compared with the players of Real Madrid and Barcelona, players playing in other leagues or other clubs did not react much to such actions of the fans at the scene.
The feud between the Western Super Giants has nothing to do with them.
The only thing worth worrying about is whether the fight between the Real Madrid gang and the Barcelona gang will affect the team's unity and combat effectiveness.
After the Barcelona players came the Real Madrid players, but the reaction of the fans at the scene was very indifferent. Except for Ramos and Isco who received some applause and cheers when they passed by, the others got almost nothing.
This is actually not surprising. Although Real Madrid was the Champions League champion last year, the players selected for the national team, such as Nacho, Carvajal, Lucas, Asensio and others, are either substitutes or in positions where it is difficult for them to stand out, so their exposure is not high enough.
Compared to them, Lin Quan, who came on stage later, immediately ignited the scene as soon as he appeared and received warm cheers from thousands of fans on the scene.
Lin Quan was walking and chatting with Thiago, who plays for Bayern, when he was startled by the sudden loud cheers.
When I looked up, I found that it was coming towards me, and a smile immediately appeared on my face.
He waved to the fans and said hello to them.
"Привет!"
Although I don't understand Russian, I learned a Russian word "hello" before coming here, which came in handy at this time.
Although Lin Quan's pronunciation was not standard, the fans at the scene were still very surprised when they heard it, so they raised their cheers by a few decibels, attracting the attention of people around the airport.
"Who is that person? Why is there such a big show?"
“It seems to be the Spanish national team!”
"Oh my god, is this true? Doesn't that mean that Emperor Lin is in there?"
"How could it be fake? Didn't you see the banners and slogans held by the fans?"
"Hehe, what a coincidence, let's go and take a look. I heard that Emperor Lin likes to sign autographs and take photos with fans who pick him up at the airport. Maybe we can get lucky too!"
There are many people who hold this idea. As a well-known fan-loving maniac in the football world, Lin Quan usually does not refuse fans' requests for autographs.
But the situation today is a little different. The security personnel at the airport don't want to get themselves into trouble.
With so many fans crowded here, trouble could easily occur if we are not careful.
If by any chance some criminals take the opportunity to cause some damage, it would be a lot of fun.
So they separated the fans and players tightly and did not give the two sides any chance to interact.
So, after getting off the plane, the Spanish players got on the team bus and drove directly to the training base.
After arriving at the training base, Bosque asked the players to hurry up and assign rooms and get familiar with the environment as soon as possible.
There is no need to train today. After a good night's rest and recharging my energy, I will resume full training tomorrow.
Before the World Cup begins, Spain still has several tactics to practice.
…
Just as the Spanish team arrived in Russia, many favorites to win the championship, including Brazil, Germany, Argentina, France, etc., also arrived one after another.
Arriving with them were fans and reporters from all over the world.
For a time, the streets of Moscow were filled with fans wearing jerseys of different national teams.
The football atmosphere began to become stronger, and the focus of the entire football world was also gathered here.
Before the World Cup opens, major media outlets have launched early warm-up and promotion activities.
On June 9, German media took the lead in revealing the top five favorites to win the World Cup as ranked by German football legends and experts.
In the list drawn up by the Germans, the German tank topped the list as the biggest favorite to win.
With a luxurious lineup and an overall value surpassing that of Spain, the young and impactful Gallic Roosters ranked second.
Two-time defending champions Spain came in third.
Latin America's two giants, Brazil and Argentina, ranked fourth and fifth respectively.
Perhaps because they were thinking about the host country's oil, the Germans gave the host country a favor and ranked Russia among the top eight.
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After the German ranking was announced, it naturally aroused heated discussion among the fans.
Many people think that the Germans are too shameless to brag about themselves and put themselves first.
However, they have no objection to the rankings of other positions. As for who is the top favorite, fans have their own opinions.
Some people think it is Germany, some people think it is France, but no one thinks it is Spain.
"Tsk tsk, aren't they just two warm-up matches? Is it really necessary to be so pessimistic about the Spanish team?"
Some fans who supported Spain couldn't stand it anymore, and the others underestimated the Spanish team.
The overall strength of this Spanish team is indeed not as good as in the previous two World Cups, but it is not as bad as they say.
It's a simple truth. Who do you think is better, Lin Quan in 2018 or Messi in 2014? If it's hard to compare, then compare Lin Quan in 2018 and Messi in 2018. Argentina is now one of the top five favorites to win the championship, but its overall strength is far behind Spain.
This Argentina team is almost entirely supported by Messi. They will not be able to play without Messi, forcing Messi, who had retired from the national team, to come back to save the day.
How could Spain only be third if they were all in the top five? Of course, this view was not supported by many people.
"Come on, just tell me which of the two teams, Germany or France, Spain can beat?"
Spanish fans wanted to say that both teams were defeated by their own team, but the two sides only met several years ago, and they really haven't played against each other much in the past two years, so they held back what they wanted to say.
I typed for a long time on the keyboard, and finally deleted everything, leaving only one sentence:
"The truth will be revealed on the field!"
The outcome of a game certainly cannot be determined by the quarrels among the fans. To tell whether it is a mule or a horse, you have to take it out for a walk.
On June 14, the opening match of the 2018 World Cup kicked off.
The first match is between host Russia and Asian team Saudi Arabia.
Because in the Germans' prediction, the host country was "watered" into the top eight, which made many people more optimistic about Russia's victory before the game.
After all, no matter how bad Russia is, it is still a European team, and Saudi Arabia is just an Asian team.
The performance of Asian teams in the last World Cup was so dismal that there were calls in the international football community for FIFA to reduce the number of World Cup places for the Asian region.
Of course, there are some gamblers who don't follow the beaten path.
After all, the bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish!
Since everyone is optimistic about Russia's victory, let's take a gamble and bet on Saudi Arabia to win.
There is a saying that goes, football is the best choice, and villas are by the sea!
If you lose, you'll go to the sea to work; if you win, you'll be a young model in the club.
But there is another saying that is also very good: Gamblers keep gambling and you will lose everything.
Everyone is optimistic that Russia will win, and of course there is a reason for that.
In the opening match, Russia beat Saudi Arabia 5:0, which shocked many people.
The desperate gamblers lost everything! Seeing his team being beaten badly, the Saudi Crown Prince, who attended the opening match, was able to laugh and chat at first, but as the team lost more and more goals, he finally couldn't hold it anymore.
Damn, what the hell is this kick!
On the other hand, the Russian President on the side was laughing like a child and clapping non-stop.
FIFA President Infantino, who was sandwiched between the two, looked a little embarrassed. Russia is not a traditional strong team, but they beat Saudi Arabia 5:0.
The strength of the teams in the Asian region is too weak!
It is conceivable that after this game, calls for the redistribution of World Cup places will surely arise again.
But for the promotion and development of football, the quota for Asia must not be moved.
After all, the current 4.5 places already make it difficult for the two most populous countries to participate in the World Cup. If the places are cut further, these two countries may never have the hope of entering the World Cup in their lifetime.
But if the Asian quota is not moved, the countries in Europe, Africa and other regions will make trouble again.
Just thinking about it gave him a headache! At this moment, he began to seriously think about his previous proposal to expand the World Cup.
If the number of participating teams is expanded to 48, the opposition voices will be much smaller.
Moreover, after the quota is relaxed, more teams will be able to participate in the Asian region, and the opportunities of the two populous countries will naturally be greatly increased.
But this is easier said than done.
Some people support military expansion, and naturally some people do not support it.
Moreover, after the expansion to 48 teams, the existing schedule will definitely need to be adjusted, which will then involve the timing arrangements of leagues in various countries and the coordination of clubs.
The second match following the opening match is the remaining match of Group A, Uruguay vs. Egypt.
Egypt is not a traditional strong team, but it has received considerable attention in this World Cup.
The main reason is that there is a star player named Salah in the Egyptian team.
Salah performed very well last season and has now become a popular star in the entire football world. He is a household name in Egypt and an idol for many young people.
However, Egypt still lost this game to the stronger Uruguay.
This also proves once again that football is a team sport, and it is not enough to just be strong alone. (End of this chapter)