champion light

Chapter 1123 The Best Souvenir

The last group match of the Chinese team was played on January 21, and they still have four days before the game on January [-].

After fighting continuously, Gao Hongbo didn't arrange all these four days as training.

On the second day after the match against Uzbekistan, Gao Hongbo gave the players a full day off to let them have a good rest. If you want to go shopping, you can do it.Since they set off from China to Doha, Qatar on December 29 last year, they have never visited Doha...

Gao Hongbo didn't want to make the players too nervous, so he dedicated a day of precious time to decompress the players. They could go shopping and buy some tourist souvenirs for their families and themselves.

This day off is the happiest for the national football players, and it is also a reward for their hard training and competitions.

Many players slept late in the morning and didn't get up from the bed until past nine or ten.

Of course Gao Hongbo didn't get up so late, the players can rest, but as the head coach of the team, he can't rest.

He got up at [-]:[-] in the morning according to his usual schedule, and he appeared in the hotel cafeteria at [-]:[-].

The four teams in Group A all live in the same hotel, so in the past they could often see players from the other three teams in the cafeteria.Especially during the peak hours of dining, players from the four teams can be seen in the restaurant sitting and eating together wearing their respective team jerseys.

But today, Gao Hongbo saw far fewer people in the restaurant.

The lobby of the hotel will be very busy at this time, because players from two teams should be checking out.

The players of Uzbekistan have not yet gotten up at this time. They have finished the group stage and entered the quarter-finals, and they also need to rest.

There is not even one player in the Chinese team.

But when Gao Hongbo finished choosing a round of food and returned to his seat with a plate, he was surprised to find a person walking in from the restaurant door.

It is glory.

He was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts, with a towel around his neck. His hair stood up one by one as if he had just washed it. The T-shirt on his upper body was half wet from the neck down. It stuck to his body, highlighting his muscular contours.

Seeing Rong Guang like this, Gao Hongbo knew what Rong Guang was doing.

"Glory!" He raised his hand in greeting.

Seeing Gao Hongbo waving to him, Rong Guang walked over, "Gao Zhi, good morning."

"Are you going to the gym again?"

Rong Guang nodded.

"It's a holiday today, why don't you go out for a stroll?"

"There's nothing to go shopping..." Rong Guang turned his head and glanced outside the glass curtain wall of the restaurant, at the blue sky and white clouds, palm trees and yellow streets.

The scenery in the Middle East is the same. He had played in Abu Dhabi before. At that time, Mansour accompanied him all the way.The street scenes in Doha and Abu Dhabi are similar, and I don't like the glory of shopping.

"Don't you want to buy some souvenirs? Come to Doha and bring back some specialties for your family..." Gao Hongbo laughed.

Rong Guang shrugged his shoulders and said, "Just a championship trophy as a souvenir."

Gao Hongbo's smile froze on his face, he didn't expect Rong Guang to make such an answer.

Only people like Rong Guang could come up with the idea of ​​using the championship trophy as a souvenir.

But... think about it carefully, it's really cool!
※※※

When the team resumed training the next day, Gao Hongbo borrowed Rong Guang's words to motivate the players.

"...how did you get in the shops in Doha yesterday? I'm sure many of you got a good deal, right?"

The players all laughed.

Yesterday they collectively bought and bought in the store in Doha, which also attracted a lot of media to shoot and report.After the outstanding performance in the group stage, the players of the Chinese team have become the stars chased by the media.

They will also attract a lot of people's attention when they go shopping on the street.

When they were shopping, many reporters followed them with cameras and video cameras.

The news of their procurement in Doha had already appeared on domestic websites in the first place.

However, Chinese fans have given an understanding of these players' big purchases. They don't just see news related to the national football team as before, regardless of 21, they rush in and scold them first.National football players will be scolded for everything they do.

The players of the Chinese team also felt relaxed because of their consecutive wins and good performances. They bought a lot while shopping to reward themselves.

"But now everyone has to return to the training state, and the next games will only be more difficult to play. We should not just be satisfied with breaking into the knockout rounds. We must know that breaking into the knockout rounds should have been a tradition of Chinese football..."

Gao Hongbo didn't lie. Before the 2007 Asian Cup, the Chinese team ranked third in the Asian Cup's overall record.

Since the Asian Cup in Iran in 1976, the Chinese team participated in the Asian Cup for the first time.By the end of the Asian Cup in China in 2004, the Chinese team had participated in a total of eight Asian Cups. In these eight Asian Cups, the Chinese team reached the semi-finals six times, and won the runner-up twice.

They lost to Saudi Arabia in the 1984 Asian Cup in Singapore and lost to Japan in the 2004 Asian Cup final on home soil.

Before the 2007 Asian Cup, the Chinese team's record in the Asian Cup was 41 games with [-] wins, [-] draws and [-] losses.

However, this excellent performance was ended in the 2007 Asian Cup.The Chinese team led by Zhu Guanghu failed to qualify for the group stage... This is the first time in 27 years for the Chinese team.

Because the group stage did not qualify, the Chinese team's ranking in the Asian Cup's historical record has also dropped from third to fifth.

They were originally second only to Iran and South Korea, but now they are surpassed by Saudi Arabia and Japan.

Japan is ranked ahead of the Chinese team because of the goal difference...

Before the Asian Cup in Qatar, the Chinese team's total record in the Asian Cup was 44 games, 72 wins, [-] draws and [-] losses, scoring [-] goals, conceding [-] goals, and a goal difference of [-].

Before the 2007 Asian Cup, the Chinese team had reached the knockout stage for 27 consecutive years.

So the 2007 Asian Cup was a turning point for Chinese football and the beginning of a decline.

Fortunately, this time the Chinese team has glory and stopped this downward trend.

Counting the results of the three group matches of this Asian Cup, the Chinese team has 47 games, 83 wins, 52 draws and [-] losses, scoring [-] goals and conceding [-] goals.

If the statistics stop at the group stage, the Chinese team has surpassed Japan, which has two wins and one draw in this Asian Cup group stage, and Saudi Arabia, which has lost all three games in the Asian Cup group stage, and returned to the third place in history.

"...I hope that when you finally leave Doha, Qatar, you can take a championship trophy as a souvenir for you!"

The players looked at their head coach Gao Hongbo in surprise.

They have been in contact with Gao Hongbo for more than a year, and they already know Gao Hongbo very well. They know that Gao Zhi is usually a low-key person.

They found that since Rong Guang came to the team, many things have changed, and some people have also changed.

Gao Zhi is one of them, and the Chinese team is no longer a street mouse, and everyone shouts and beats it is also one of them...

When Rong Guang heard Gao Hongbo talking, he glanced at Gao Hongbo and found that he was nodding and smiling at him.

※※※

At 21:[-] pm on January [-], local time in Qatar, the whistle for the first match of the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup rang at the Khalifa Stadium.

The highly anticipated match between China and Jordan began.

Jordan is not always a strong team, and its historical record in the Asian Cup is also ranked No.19. Before this Asian Cup, it only played one Asian Cup. In four games, it won one and drew three. It scored three goals and conceded one goal.

But that is the past performance, Jordan's performance in this Asian Cup is very good.

In the group stage, they even drew with Japan 1:1 in the first round, revealing the first upset of this Asian Cup.In the next second game, they defeated Saudi Arabia, a West Asia giant who had entered the Asian Cup finals six times and won three times, 1:0, revealing a second upset.In the third group match, facing Syria, which was aiming to qualify, although Syria advanced by a goal, Syria scored an own goal and the rhythm was chaotic. The Jordan team scored a wonderful goal from the goalkeeper to the striker. They reversed and won 2:1, but lost to Japan in terms of goal difference and ranked second in the group match.

The best player on this team is their goalkeeper Shafi.In the three group matches, Shafi’s world-class saves always saved the team from danger time and time again, whether it was the counterattack of Japan’s luxurious offensive lineup or the united will of Syria. This goalkeeper who participated in the Asian Cup for the second time also helped Jordan maintain a record, that is, Jordan has never lost in a 120-minute game since participating in the Asian Cup.

They participated in the Asian Cup for the first time and reached the quarter-finals in the 2004 Asian Cup in China. In the quarter-finals, Jordan drew 120:1 with Japan in 1 minutes, and finally lost to Japan in a penalty shootout before being eliminated.And that time, Japan was helpless in the penalty shootout. After the first two players missed penalties, the Japanese team fell behind Jordan 0:2 in the penalty shootout, which was equivalent to standing on the edge of the cliff of being eliminated.At this time, Japan actually proposed to change the goal, and it is unbelievable that the referee agreed to change the goal.This move affected the mentality of the Jordanian players who participated in the Asian Cup for the first time. In the end, they lost to the Japanese team in the penalty shootout...

However, Sophie's performance in that penalty shoot-out was still very good.

He saved Yuji Nakazawa's penalty in the penalty shootout.

Now he will face glory in this game that is more luxurious and terrifying than Japan's luxurious attacking lineup combined!

Can he continue his magical performance and help Jordan's historic advancement to the semi-finals?
(End of this chapter)