Fengba Greenery

Chapter 319 The Asian Cup is Here

Chapter 164 The Asian Cup is Here
It is happiness for the players to have a league during the winter break.

Football consumes a lot of players. The European season is a multi-year period. The high-intensity and high-density games for eight or nine consecutive months are a severe test for the players' body and mind, and a winter break of about one month , giving the players time to rest and adjust.

Atletico Madrid won consecutive victories all the way before the winter break, biting Real Madrid tightly in the league, and did not fall behind in the league.

This is undoubtedly something that makes Atletico Madrid very happy.

But Simeone is not very happy now.

After the No.16 league round, a Chinese reporter asked: "After this game, Li Qingshan will temporarily leave the team for at least a month. He needs to participate in the Asian Cup. Will this affect the team? to influence."

Obviously, this question made Simeone's good mood disappear instantly.

After the end of the season, the Chinese Football Association can arrange for Atletico Madrid to play commercial matches with several teams in China and China's Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou next summer. This will undoubtedly greatly expand Atletico Madrid's influence in China.Therefore, the upper management of Atletico Madrid compromised on the matter of releasing Li Qingshan back to China in advance.

But for Simeone, when the team is in good shape, the team's most important scorer has to leave.Simeone has never paid attention to events like the Asian Cup before, but now, this event on the edge of the football world will have such a big impact on Atletico Madrid.

What makes Simeone even more helpless is that the Asian Cup is actually scheduled to be held in winter!
Asia is in the northern hemisphere, and it's freezing in winter, so what kind of Asian Cup is there?

Simeone obviously ignored that although Australia has joined the AFC, Australia is no longer in Asia... They are in the southern hemisphere, and it is summer in the southern hemisphere.

"Yes, we have negotiated with the Chinese Football Association. We will let Li Qingshan go back to participate in the Asian Cup. Li Qingshan is our important player, and his departure will inevitably have an impact on the team. But we have a very substantial lineup. In this position, we have players who can step up. We are a team, and our other players are capable of sealing the vacancy left by Li Qingshan..."

The Asian Cup started on January 31th, and it was already January 20st by the time the finals were played, more than [-] days.

Even if the Chinese team fails to qualify after three group matches, it will be January 18, when the Chinese team will finish their last group match. By then, the winter break of La Liga will have passed.

This also means that Li Qingshan will miss at least five Atletico Madrid games. If the Chinese team reaches the Asian Cup final all the way, Li Qingshan will miss eight games, including La Liga's home game against Barcelona and the Copa del Rey. The round faces a key event like Real Madrid.

This situation really gave Simeone a headache.

Li Qingshan is the guarantee of Atletico Madrid's goals. Since the start of the season, Li Qingshan alone has accounted for 50.00% of Atletico Madrid's goals.

As soon as Li Qingshan left, the team lost one of the most stable and most dependent scoring points.

But no matter what, Atletico Madrid can't find a reason not to let Li Qingshan participate in international competitions like the Asian Cup.

Fortunately, Atlético de Madrid were crazily grabbing points during this period, and were not driven away by Real Madrid, which minimized Li Qingshan's loss after leaving.

………….
In fact, before the winter break of La Liga, the Chinese national team had already started training and preparing for the Asian Cup.

The Chinese Super League does not celebrate the new year. At the beginning of November, the last round of the 2014 season of the Chinese Super League has been played. In order to prepare for the Asian Cup, the Chinese international players began to assemble on the ninth day of December.

The national team lacking Li Qingshan played two warm-up matches after the assembly. The opponents in these two games were both Kyrgyzstan. The Chinese team defeated their opponents with a score of [-]-[-] and [-]-[-].

In the Asian Cup, the Chinese team and Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea were divided into Group B, and the warm-up with Kyrgyzstan was to some extent to simulate the game with Uzbekistan. The strength is not on the same level, but they are both Central Asian teams, and there is still some similarity in their style of play.

Lippi's national team performed quite well in the warm-up match, but this does not mean anything.

In the past, the Chinese team was also known as the king of the warm-up match. In the warm-up match, the Chinese team even defeated top teams such as France and Germany.

But in the official game, the performance of the Chinese team is obvious to all.

Therefore, the number of games won in the warm-up match is not of great significance, what is important is the official game results.

This Asian Cup is the first official competition since Lippi took over the team.What kind of results this team can deliver in the Asian Cup is the most important thing.

Especially with Li Qingshan.Li Qingshan's outstanding performance in Atletico Madrid has indeed given fans more hope for the Chinese team with Li Qingshan.

In the past, the Chinese team had a chronic problem of weak striker, but with Li Qingshan, no team has the confidence to say that the Chinese team has a weak striker—one scored nine goals in the Champions League group stage, and scored nine goals in the [-]th round of La Liga. How can a nineteen-ball striker be weak?

Therefore, with such a super striker, should the national team's goals in the Asian Cup be adjusted accordingly.

Before that, Lippi said in an interview: "Our players are no worse than any team in Asia!"

The media generally took the old man's words as words of encouragement to the international players, but correspondingly, discussions about what the national team should achieve in the Asian Cup have also begun to heat up.

According to the goal set by the Football Association for the national team, it is to reach the quarterfinals, that is, to qualify for the group.

This goal seems very realistic. After all, the Chinese team is no longer the Chinese team of the past, and Asian football is not the same. Others are making continuous progress, but we are still regressing.

But after having Li Qingshan, the atmosphere became delicate.Many media mentioned that the Chinese team with Li Qingshan should be able to have further goals-for example, reach the semi-finals.

On the first day of Li Qingshan's return to China, some reporters asked about his goals in the Asian Cup.

To this, Li Qingshan's answer immediately made the reporters a little dumbfounded: "Is there even a need to ask, of course it is the champion!"

Before the reporters reacted, Li Qingshan continued.

"Shouldn't the goal of participating in any competition be to be the champion. Whether it can be achieved is another matter, but this should be the direction!"

(End of this chapter)