Champion’s Heart

The carnival of Chinese fans and media for qualifying lasted for less than a day, and then everyone realized another question - who will the Chinese team's opponent be after qualifying from the group?

At this time, the media told everyone that it was the host country, Brazil.

Immediately, the joyful atmosphere of the carnival quickly cooled down.

After qualifying for the World Cup group, everyone was expecting the Chinese team to go further, but they unexpectedly ran into the host country.

Is there still a way for the Chinese team to survive?

Let’s not talk about Brazil’s strong strength, but let’s talk about the host’s advantages. How can the Chinese team resist?

There are also conspiracy theorists who immediately doubt whether FIFA is behind the scenes, allowing the Brazilian team to go further in order to ensure box office revenue, broadcast ratings, and revenue from advertising sponsors.

This is an official sentry. They are trying to bully you openly and leave you speechless.

But some people say this statement is unfounded. At the last World Cup in South Africa, everyone felt that South Africa, as the host, should qualify from the group no matter what, right?

The result was no and South Africa was eliminated from the group stage.

The only exception is the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. The Japanese team reached the knockout stage and finally stopped in the top 16. It can be said that the home court advantage is relatively restrained.

As for the Korean team, they simply let themselves go. Two of the top ten black whistles in the history of the World Cup were related to the Korean team in that World Cup, and the Korean team all profited. In the end, with obvious black whistle behavior, the South Korean team advanced all the way to the semi-finals of the World Cup. In the battle for third place, they lost to Turkey, but they also created the best result of an Asian team in the history of the World Cup.

It's just that this best result is not glorious. Except for Korean fans and media, it is rarely shown off by people from other Asian countries.

The more optimistic Chinese fans feel that no matter how corrupt the Brazilians are, they still have a very high moral code and sense of superiority in the sport of football. They should firmly believe that the strength of the team is enough to eliminate the Chinese team without any need. It's a dirty trick to bribe the referee.

But no matter what, the Chinese team bumped into the host country after qualifying from the group stage, which was indeed not good and made Chinese fans worry about the Chinese team's prospects in the World Cup.

Some fans have given up on themselves and feel that since they have met the Brazilian team, they don’t want to go to the quarterfinals or anything like that. They just hope that the Chinese team players can return to show their own style in the game. Don’t be timid.

Face to face with the Brazilian team, even if you die, you must stand proudly and die, just like fireworks blooming, greet death at the most gorgeous moment, and leave your name forever in the history of the World Cup.

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While the Chinese team was playing against Spain, another match was between the Chilean team and the Dutch team.

The Chinese team defeated Spain 2:0, and the Dutch team also defeated Chile 2:0. Depay completely sealed the victory for the Dutch team in the 90th minute.

In this way, the final teams in Group B are the Netherlands and China. The Netherlands ranks first in the group with two wins and one draw and seven points, while the Chinese team has one win and two draws and ranks second in the group with five points.

According to the schedule of this World Cup, the confrontation situation after the group qualifying is a cross-match between the top two in Group A and the top two in Group B, that is, the first place in Group A will play against the second place in Group B, and the first place in Group B will play against A Second place in the group.

In the last two group matches of Group A on the same day, Brazil defeated Cameroon 4:1, while in another game, Mexico defeated Croatia 3:1.

In this way, the two teams have seven points. If the points are the same, the goal difference is compared. Mexico suffered the loss of only beating Cameroon 1:0 in the first game. In terms of goal difference, Mexico was two goals behind Brazil, ranking second.

In this way, the Chinese team's opponent in the quarterfinals is Brazil, not Mexico.

If the Chinese team competes with Mexico, I am afraid that the fans and media of the Chinese team will be more confident that the Chinese team can eliminate Mexico and reach the quarterfinals of the World Cup.

The opponent in the quarter-finals is Brazil. This news diluted everyone's joy and made many fans and media worry about the future of the Chinese team in the World Cup.

But within the national team, Lippi is constantly instilling completely opposite ideas into the players of the Chinese team.

Brazil is not strong, or not strong enough to crush us. It is not that we have no chance against the Brazilian team. It can even be said that the chance is not small, at least it is greater than what the outside world imagines. I do not believe in conspiracy According to theory, only strength and on-the-spot performance determine the outcome of a football match. The strength of this Brazilian team should be regarded as the weakest Brazilian national team in the history of Brazilian football...

Lippi's words were a bit exaggerated, but he was trying to build up the confidence of Chinese players, or to break the myths and superstitions about the football kingdom in the minds of Chinese players.

He is not just talking empty words, which makes people think that what he says is unfounded. He also provides data and examples to prove that what he says is true.

Because Brazil is the host country and does not need to participate in the World Cup qualifiers, this seems to be a good thing. At least there is no need to worry about not being able to participate in the World Cup main event. But in fact, for a team that aims to win the championship, on the contrary, this is not a good thing, but a bad thing.

Because of the lack of high-quality continuous games to train the team, it is difficult to maintain the team's status.

Some people say that we can play a warm-up match. Of course, every international match day, the Brazilian team arranges warm-up matches, but the intensity of the warm-up matches is completely different from the real World Cup qualifiers. The opponent's team strength is different, and the opponent's mentality is also different. The final performance in the game was very different from the real qualifiers.

If you play in the qualifiers, of course there is a possibility that you may not make it to the World Cup. For example, the Netherlands team in the 2002 World Cup lost the qualification to enter the World Cup in Japan and South Korea because of poor performance in the qualifying matches.

However, the more difficult the qualifiers are, it is a kind of exercise for the team. In this process, the coaching staff can constantly discover problems, then solve them, and then verify whether the problems have been solved through the next qualifiers. Players can also maintain their condition through high-quality games. In addition, the qualifiers are a process for players to gradually get into the rhythm of the national team.

Or take the example of the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. The Brazilian team had a very difficult time in the qualifying rounds of that World Cup. It was once thought that they would miss the World Cup for the first time in history. Finally, after changing several head coaches, they finally stumbled into the finals. Due to their poor performance in the qualifying rounds, this Brazilian team is naturally not optimistic. They are not the favorites to win the championship.

The same poor performance in the qualifying matches of that World Cup was the German team. They even lost 1:5 at home to their arch-rival England in the qualifying rounds.

The result is that these two teams did not perform well enough in the qualifiers, but finally reached the finals of the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. In the end, the Brazilian team, which had a more bumpy qualifying process, defeated Germany 2:0 in the finals and won the championship for the fifth time in history. Won the World Cup title.

This is a prime example of the importance of qualifying.

In this World Cup, the Brazilian team, as the host, did not play a single qualifying match and relied entirely on warm-up matches for support. But how did they perform in these warm-up games?

Counting from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2011 America's Cup and the 2012 London Olympics can actually be regarded as warm-up matches for the Brazilian team to prepare for the local World Cup.

It stands to reason that after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the Brazilian national team coach Dunga was dismissed, leaving ample time for his successor Menezes. He had four full years to adjust and run the team.

But in the 2011 Copa America, the Brazilian national team led by Menezes had one win and two draws in the group stage, accumulating five points. It only relied on one more goal difference than Venezuela to win the first place in the group. However, after entering the knockout stage, , met Paraguay, the Brazilian team, which has always given people the inherent impression of strong offense, was unable to break Paraguay's goal in the 120 minutes of the game, and the two sides entered a penalty shootout at 0:0. In the penalty shootout, the Brazilian team failed to score in the first three rounds. Paraguay only scored two rounds of penalty kicks and eliminated Brazil.

Not even reaching the semi-finals of the Copa America, the performance of this Brazilian team is indeed unsatisfactory.

The most important competition after the America's Cup is the London Olympics.

Brazil is a football kingdom. It has won five World Cup titles in history, but it has never won the Olympic football championship.

Therefore, the Olympic gold medal is very important to Brazilian fans and the Football Association.

Menezes coaches the Brazilian Olympic team as the head coach of the Brazilian national team. This Brazilian Olympic team has many players who play in the European League, including Neymar, Marcelo, Thiago Silva, David Ruiz, Ganso and Hernandez. , Danilo, Pato, Hulk, Coutinho, Ronaldinho and other long-established stars.

This lineup fully proves that Brazil attaches great importance to winning gold in this Olympic Games.

The results of it?

The Brazilian Olympic team did reach the Olympic finals, but facing the Mexican Olympic team, Rafael's return pass error in the opening 28 seconds made the Brazilian team's Olympic gold medal dream come to nothing.

Successive losses in the Copa America and the Olympics have made Brazil very dissatisfied with Menezes' performance. Brazilian star Mazzola believes that it is absolutely impossible to win the World Cup with the current team. The Brazilian team needs players with character.

Although the failure of the London Olympics exposed the Brazilian team's offensive strength, defensive weakness, weak offensive ability, and lack of leadership, Menezes firmly denied that there was a problem with the direction: We lost in the final, but we won the silver medal. We are so close to our ultimate goal that we don't need to change all directions...

Although the words are tough, it does not change the result of Menezes' failure.

The final nail in Menezes' coffin was hammered when Brazil lost to arch-rival Argentina in the second leg of the South American Super Derby Cup.

Subsequently, the Brazilian Football Association announced a coaching change. Scolari, who had previously led the Brazilian national team to win the 2002 World Cup, took over. He had only one goal, to win the Brazilian World Cup.

In the 2013 Confederations Cup held in Brazil, Scolari led this team to win the championship, especially the 3-0 victory over world champion Spain in the Confederations Cup final, which seemed to allow Brazilian fans to win at home. Hope for the Hercules Gold Cup.

But the following warm-up match made the hearts of Brazilian fans hit rock bottom - under the leadership of Big Phil Scolari, the Brazilian team created the first time since July 2001 that it had not won five consecutive games. Embarrassing record.

The warm-up match was not played well, and it basically had no effect. It also failed to play the role it should have.

It's finally the official World Cup match, so what kind of performance did the Brazilian team perform?

The first game was against Croatia and it was very difficult to win. It took until the last minute to seal the victory.

In the second game against Mexico, everyone expected the Brazilian team to defeat Mexico and become the first team to qualify for the group stage in this World Cup. However, despite the optimism of countless people, they played 0:0 with Mexico.

It can be regarded as a minor upset in this World Cup.

In the last game, they faced Cameroon, the weakest team in the group, and won 4:1.

But it is worth noting that their defense still conceded the ball.

In the end, winning the right to qualify as the first in the group also successfully concealed the problems faced by this team.

This is really not good news for the Brazilian team.

...Brazil is not as strong as people think, and we are not as weak as they think. After analyzing the current Brazilian team in detail, Lippi said this to his players.

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