Champion’s Heart

After the Champions League group stage, Dortmund lost 1:2 away to Hannover 96 in the league. However, in the next seventh round of the league, they defeated Mainz 2:1 away from home.

After seven league rounds, Dortmund has four wins and three losses, with 12 points and ranks fifth.

The results at the start of this league are not outstanding. You must know that Dortmund only lost four games in the entire season last season, and now Dortmund has lost three games.

The road to defending the league championship is not easy.

However, their performance in the Champions League was quite good. In the second round of the Champions League group stage, Dortmund challenged Marseille away from home and defeated Marseille with a score of 2:1, winning two consecutive group stage victories.

Also ranked first in the group with six points.

Back in the league, Dortmund also found their form and defeated newly promoted Augsburg 4:0 at home. Zhou Yi sent one assist and one goal.

After this game is played, it will be the national team match day.

Zhou Yi left the club and returned to China.

For the Chinese national team, there is only one game in October, but it is very critical.

Their opponent is the Asian powerhouse Iraq.

The Chinese team now shares four points with Jordan, but ranks first in the group with a goal difference advantage.

Before the start of the top 20 group stage, some Chinese domestic media analyzed that if the Chinese team wants to qualify from the group, it must win the two home games against Jordan and Iraq, otherwise the hope of qualifying will become very slim. .

The game, which kicks off at 8:15 pm on October 11, Beijing time, is the first home game that must be won.

The Iraqi national team unexpectedly won the Asian Cup in 2007. At that time, the national team that was born in the flames of war won the respect of the world.

Many Chinese fans compare Iraq to the Chinese team, saying that the country of the Iraqi national team is caught in the flames of war. The team does not even have a normal training venue and can only train abroad. Every player’s family has to risk their lives. Danger to life.

In this way, they also won the Asian Cup championship.

The domestic conditions of the Chinese team are so good, with social stability and economic prosperity, but the Chinese team has always been unable to support the wall.

Because of the chaos in Iraq, Chinese fans seem to have preconceived notions that the Iraqi national team is not strong enough, so the Chinese team should be stronger than the Iraqi team.

But actually this is a misunderstanding.

The Iraqi national team has always been a representative of West Asian football that cannot be ignored. Their nickname is the Lions of Mesopotamia. They have won the Arab Cup four times in 1964, 1966, 1985 and 1988, and won the Arab Cup in 1979, 1984 and 1988. Won the Gulf Cup three times in 1988 and won the gold medal in football at the 1982 Olympic Games. It also reached the World Cup finals in 1986 and was the first team in the Middle East to reach the World Cup finals. You must know that there were only two seats in Asia at that time, which means that Iraq at that time was the two best teams in Asia. One of the teams.

Until 2002, the Chinese team was still struggling to find a place in the World Cup finals.

So in terms of historical results, Iraq is stronger than the Chinese team.

Iraqi football is not bad.

It's just that after the Gulf War, Iraq has been in turmoil, which makes people assume that their national strength is weak, which is equivalent to their poor football strength.

Indeed, after the golden period of Iraqi football in the 1980s, there was a trough. However, as symbolized by its fourth-place finish in the 2004 Olympic Games, Iraqi football ushered in a new golden generation, and eventually won the 2007 Asian Cup.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Chinese team and Iraq have played against each other seven times in various competitions. The Chinese team has three wins, two draws and two losses. From this point of view, the Chinese team has a slight advantage.

However, if you carefully analyze these seven games, you will find that the Chinese team does not actually have as many advantages as everyone thinks.

Among the seven games, the Chinese team won three, two of which were friendly matches. One was an invitational match in 2000. The Chinese team defeated Iraq 4:1. The other one was the warm-up match before the Asian Cup at the beginning of this year. The Chinese team defeated Iraq 3:2.

The only time the Chinese team defeated Iraq in an official match was the 2004 Asian Cup held on home soil. The Chinese team defeated Iraq 3:0 in the eight-to-four match.

Among the three draws and two losses, there were two Asian Cup qualifiers and two World Cup qualifiers.

Is victory in the warm-up matches or the qualifiers more important?

it goes without saying.

So in fact, the Chinese team has no advantage at all against Iraq in a real-life match.

Judging from the entire historical record, Iraq also has the advantage - since the two teams first met in the 1974 Asian Games group stage, the Chinese team and Iraq have faced off in a total of 16 games, with Iraq winning seven, drawing three and losing six. , scored twenty goals, conceded nineteen goals, and had a slight advantage.

In addition, the current Iraqi team is the golden generation that won the Asian Cup in 2007, and they are at their peak.

It is not easy for the Chinese team to defeat them.

So the game was in a stalemate from the beginning.

It is difficult for anyone to gain an advantage and overwhelm the other.

There was no goal scored throughout the first half.

But the game suddenly changed in the second half. Just one minute into the second half, Iraq's forward, captain, and representative of the golden generation of Iraqi football, Younes Mahmoud, finally broke through the ten fingers of Chinese team goalkeeper Yang Zhi and gave Iraq the lead. !

Ahhh! Liu Hong yelled regretfully, It was the Iraqi team that scored first! It was Younis again!

Judging from the scene, the Chinese team playing at home did not have any advantage. Even with Zhou Yi, it could not suppress Iraq. Because there are also many strong players on the Iraqi side. After all, it is the golden period of an entire generation of Iraqis. But what about the Chinese team? Although they won runner-up in the Asian Cup at the beginning of the year, everyone knows who was the biggest contributor to that runner-up finish.

Without Zhou Yi, the strength of this national team would still be worrying.

If Iraq is the golden generation, then the golden generation of the Chinese team has not yet arrived...

So there's nothing wrong with falling behind at home to this Iraqi team.

The key is what to do after falling behind.

Everyone looked at Zhou Yi, including the live game camera lens which also gave Zhou Yi a close-up.

Although Zhou Yi is very young, only 20 years old, he seems to be the core of this national team.

Here I must also thank the head coach Gao Hongbo who likes to use young people and dislikes veterans. If he hadn't resolutely excluded those senior players from the national team, would Zhou Yi want to be the core of the national team? Have you visited the pier? Have you recognized your eldest brother? None of the above? So what’s the core!

Now this kind of problem no longer exists. The country's internal factionalism has been effectively curbed. Factional disputes are gone. Everyone is united as never before, so Zhou Yi can easily become the core.

Coupled with his outstanding performance in the Asian Cup, Zhou Yi has conquered everyone's hearts. He has shown his talents in critical moments more than once.

So what about this time?

※※※

This time it won't be so easy.

Iraq conducted a very tight defense against Zhou Yi, and their defense against Zhou Yi was quite aggressive.

This Iraq team is completely different from the one they met in the warm-up match before the Asian Cup at the beginning of the year. This is also the biggest difference between the warm-up match and the official game - the opponent's level of investment is different.

When Iraq launched a full-court press against Zhou Yi, the Chinese team's midfield was not running smoothly enough.

Zhou Yi needs help... Liu Hong could see it. If the Chinese team relied on Zhou Yi alone, they could catch their opponents off guard in the Asian Cup. But when they won the Asian Cup runner-up and Zhou Yi performed extremely well, , it is naturally impossible for the opponent to ignore Zhou Yi.

At that time, what will happen to the Chinese team that only relies on Zhou Yi?

Some teams take the World Cup qualifiers more seriously than the Asian Cup. They may not play as hard in the Asian Cup as they do in the World Cup qualifiers. After all, the Asian Cup is about playing in Asia, but if you can make it to the World Cup finals, it will be an opportunity to show your face in front of people all over the world.

Gao Hongbo obviously saw this, so he started to make substitutions, replacing Deng Zhuoxiang with forward Yu Dabao. It seems to have weakened the offensive power.

But Deng Zhuoxiang can enhance the control of the midfield after playing, and Zhou Yi can also have a helper. After all, before Zhou Yi joined the national team, the main attacking midfielder of the Chinese team was Deng Zhuoxiang.

After Deng Zhuoxiang came on the court, Zhou Yi faced much less pressure.

The Chinese team finally equalized the score in the 63rd minute.

This goal was precisely because Zhou Yi gave the football to Deng Zhuoxiang, allowing Deng Zhuoxiang to attract some defensive attention, then received the ball from Deng Zhuoxiang, and then passed the football to Gao Lin, who scored the goal. .

When Gao Lin equalized the score, the stadium burst into cheers.

The ball is scored!! The Chinese team equalized the score! Beautiful!! Liu Hong shouted excitedly. The Chinese team did it! Zhou Yi's assist!!

Gao Lin, who scored, turned around and pounced on Zhou Yi, and then hugged each other to celebrate the goal.

Other Chinese team players swarmed in and surrounded them.

The Chinese fans in the stands cheered for joy. This was just the beginning. When they equalized the score, they began to look forward to overtaking the score! (To be continued.)