Godfather of national football

Chapter 438 A Different Opening Match
On January 2015, 1, the 9th Asian Cup started at the Rectangular Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.

The opening game will be played by the host Australia against Kuwait. Before the game, the media generally predicted that there would be no major suspense in this game. It should be no problem for the host to win a victory.

The Chinese team's first match against Saudi Arabia was in Brisbane, but the transportation in Australia was relatively convenient, so Li Guo was a guest at the opening match.

This year's Asian Cup is the 16th Asian Cup. In the previous 15 Asian Cups, Japan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia all won 3 times, South Korea 2 times, Israel, Kuwait, Iraq, and China 1 time each.

Among them, Israel won the championship in 1964, when they were still in the AFC. In this Asian Cup, the host is very much looking forward to a new champion in the Asian Cup.

Before the opening game is the opening ceremony. Because of the particularity of the football game, the opening ceremony will be very short, only 10 minutes. The biggest highlights are two, one is the Australian aboriginal culture.

Although Australia has only been discovered for a few hundred years, Australian aborigines have lived on this land for tens of thousands of years and have a splendid culture. This was demonstrated at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games.

Another highlight is the singing of the theme song by Havana`Brown, a female singer known as Australia's Shakira.

It seems that after 2006, all female singers in major competitions will be compared with Shakira, but Li Guo thinks that this Havana`Brown is still far behind Shakira, and seems a bit immature.

After the theatrical performance, the much-anticipated opening game will begin.

In his previous life, Li Guo remembered that the opening game of the Asian Cup in Australia was on a Friday afternoon. He was working that day, so instead of watching the live broadcast of the game, he watched the live score on his mobile phone.

So Li Guo was quite surprised when Kuwait scored first and took the lead. He wondered if the situation would change this time.

But when the game reached the 8th minute, Li Guo was completely disappointed. It seemed that time and space had been disrupted. The once familiar script in 2015 had become less and less routine.

In the 8th minute, the referee Irmatov blew a penalty, and the Kuwaiti player fouled the handball in the penalty area.

Australian captain Yedinak achieved it overnight, and Australia led 1-0. This time the situation was much smoother than in the previous life.

At least in the previous life, after Kuwait scored first, Australia was stunned for 20 minutes before Cahill scored and equalized the score.

Li Guo rubbed his hands, a little nervous, the history around him has changed too much, so what will happen in this game?A big victory for Australia without any suspense?
Li Guo was stunned by the scene that happened soon. Five minutes later, the Australian player also fouled in the penalty area and gave his opponent a penalty kick.

Kuwait's Fadil stood in front of the ball, and there were huge boos from the audience, but Fadil gave a light push, tricked the Australian goalkeeper with a feint, and scored the ball.

Kuwait equalize!
The draw was maintained until halftime, which was a bit difficult for the hosts. Li Guo even felt that this was a bit like the plot of the opening match of the 2016 European Cup. At that time, the Frenchman's heart was hanging for 90 minutes.

Australian head coach Postkoglu went berserk in the locker room, yelling at the players for playing like amateurs.

In fact, professional players are all well-trained, and they are not afraid of scolding, but they have skills and content to scold.

For example, Postkoglu also analyzed the gains and losses in the first half when scolding, but occasionally added a word starting with F as a particle to adjust the atmosphere. After a "swearing", the players ran out of the field, and the second half was about to begin.

The fans still supported their team as always. After all, it was only the first game, although the first half was a bit uncomfortable.

But in fact, the teams in the Middle East and the Gulf are all introducing European coaches, and they have done this since the youth training, so their ability to fight and fight has improved rapidly.

After the equalizer, Kuwait made up their minds to stick to it. Eleven people formed two lines of defense. Although Australia was strong, its offensive space was severely compressed, which meant that there was no room for cooperation.

In fact, everyone knows that the best choice now is to shoot from a long distance, because there are too many people in the penalty area and it is impossible to open the situation.

As time went by, the shots went nowhere, and the Australian players became more and more impatient. Li Guo also saw that something was wrong. Maybe the hosts capsized in the first game. I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

Unable to attack for a long time, Australia pressed higher and higher. In the end, there was a problem with the defense line. Kuwait caught a counterattack, and Fadil took the ball again.

But the Australian finally lost his composure. There were sporadic boos at the scene, and Postkoglu also used up all the substitutions one after another. In the last 10 minutes of the game, it was still 1-1.

At this time, anxiety turned into disappointment, disappointment with the team, but then again, the opening game has always been difficult to play, and the pressure is really too great.

The time passed by one minute and one second, and it has entered injury time. The fourth official raised his card, and the stoppage time was 3 minutes. When the Australian fans silently endured the draw, the situation changed suddenly.

It was originally Cahill who shot from outside the penalty area, but the referee Irmatov blew his whistle. It turned out that the bottom line referee reminded him that there was a situation in the penalty area.

Irmatov ran towards a Kuwaiti player after communicating with the baseline referee and showed him a yellow card.

It meant Australia got a penalty at the last minute, which was a sudden change of events and a blessing from heaven.

But the problem also came out. At this time, the players standing on the penalty spot will be under a lot of pressure. The captain Yedinak can't escape, but the head coach asked for another person. He pointed to the veteran Cahill, you come!

About Cahill, there is another interesting thing before the game, because Cahill is used to hitting the corner flagpole to celebrate after scoring a goal, so the administrator of the Melbourne Stadium said that no matter how many corner flagpoles Cahill breaks in this game, the staff will pay compensation from their own pockets.

In fact, Cahill did not even have a chance to celebrate, but now the opportunity fell in front of him.

As a veteran like Kewell, after his teammates retired, he is now a big brother in Australia. It is actually very appropriate for him to take the penalty.

Cahill breathed a sigh of relief, ran up, pushed the shot, the ball pushed a dead corner, and the ball scored!
After the goal, Cahill ran to the corner flagpole and punched a set of combos. In the end, there was no danger, and the hosts won the game in the opener.

After watching the game, Li Guo rushed back to Brisbane overnight, where the Chinese team was about to face Saudi Arabia.

(End of this chapter)