Chapter 71 East Asian Cup Mission Completed Before the end of the first half, the North Korean team launched a final counterattack. In the 44th minute, North Korea crossed from the right, Li Weifeng and Feng Xiaoting made mistakes in their cooperation, and China's team had a gap in the center defense line. The ball fell into the feet of North Korean captain Kim Myung-jun, but Kim Myung-jun's long shot lacked power and was confiscated by Li Leilei. At the end of the first half, the score temporarily stopped at 3:0. This score is very favorable for the Chinese national team as they already have a higher goal difference than the North Korean team. Now they have scored 3 goals against the North Korean team and conceded 3 negative goals to the opponent. As a result, the goal difference between the two sides has widened to 6 goals! As long as the Chinese national team does not lose in the second half, they will be able to suppress the North Korean team with the advantages of win-loss record and goal difference. Now, the only opponent of the Chinese national football team is the South Korean team. With the South Korean women's football team tied by the Japanese team, as long as the South Korean team fails to beat the Japanese team in the next game, the Chinese team will firmly take the first place in the mixed men's and women's event. "The tournament committee is a bit unprofessional. When three countries have the same points, the final round must be arranged at the same time!"
"Yeah, it's so unprofessional. Now the match between South Korea and Japan has only started after we have finished our game. It's so unfair to us!" "Please understand that this is a Korean race after all. It's good that they didn't use tricks on us in this race. Forget about the bicycles." "Haha, I think it's because they don't want to see the North Korean team win. After all, if the North Korean team really wins, it will be even more embarrassing for the Koreans!" The inability to understand the scores of direct competitors puts the Chinese national football team in a very unfavorable position. But on the other hand, after winning this game, the Chinese national team is two points ahead of the South Korean team in the total points. As a result, the pressure is back on the South Korean team. After all, they are facing the Japanese team, which has stronger hard power than them, and they must defeat the Japanese team in order to reverse the Chinese team. This difficulty is not ordinary! I wonder if the South Korean team’s performance will be affected by such great pressure. Zhu Guanghu was very satisfied with the performance of the players in the first half. During the halftime break, he simply arranged the tactics for the second half, and then found Zheng Bin and started a conversation with him. In the final stage of the first half, after the North Korean team made substitutions, the left side of the Chinese national team was suppressed and even became a breakthrough point for the opponent several times. In order to avoid losing the ball due to defense on the right, Zhu Guanghu had no choice but to replace him. Zheng Bin seemed a little frustrated, but he could understand the coach's difficulties and finally accepted the fate of being replaced. …… The fifteen-minute break ended quickly, and both sides made substitutions. The Chinese team replaced Zheng Bin, who performed poorly, with Sun Xiang, while the North Korean team continued to strengthen its attack, replacing midfielder Li Hanzai with forward Han Sun-il. Lee Han-jae is a midfielder for the North Korean team and currently plays for Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the J-League. Lee Han-jae is not a native Korean. He is a descendant of Korean descent who plays in the Japanese and Korean professional leagues. After the North Korean Football Association launched the "Westernization Movement" and focused on the descendants of Korean descent playing in the Japanese and Korean professional leagues, they were lured back to the country by "naturalization" and joined the North Korean national team. Others who had similar experiences as him include Ahn Hak-young and Zheng Da-se. Compared with the first two, Zheng Da-se's shocking cry at the World Cup in South Africa made his name known to many people.
Although Li Hanzai is highly valued by the North Korean Football Association, his performance in this game was not good and basically left no impression on people. The reason may be that he lacks understanding and tacit understanding with his teammates in the national team, and it is difficult for them to cooperate with each other. After the start of the second half, the North Korean team played more aggressively. Shortly after the opening, they intensified their pressing in the frontcourt. In the 47th minute, the North Korean team intercepted Sun Xiang's ball through 3-on-1. Sun Xiang committed a foul in the counterattack, allowing the North Korean team to win a free kick opportunity on the right. The free kick failed to pose a threat and the ball was cleared by the Chinese national team's defender, giving the North Korean team a corner kick. The corner kick was taken, and the first point was controlled by the captain of the national football team, Li Weifeng. Feng Xiaoting took the ball and sent a beautiful long pass to his own striker Gao Lin. Gao Lin grabbed the ball, passed it to Lin Feng, and quickly moved forward. Lin Feng understood what he meant and immediately sent a straight pass, passing between two North Korean central defenders and finding Gao Lin who had already sped up. Alone! The Chinese national team's counterattack was too fast. Most of the North Korean players were in the Chinese national team's half and had no time to retreat. After passing two defenders, the only one standing in Gao Lin's way was the opponent's goalkeeper. The fans who came to the scene to cheer for the Chinese national football team couldn't help but stand up when they saw this scene. Some people had even prepared to celebrate, just waiting for Gao Lin to score the goal. However, under the watchful eyes of fans across the country, Gao Lin actually kicked the ball away, making an outrageous anti-aircraft gun. This scene stunned the fans collectively. Everyone is waiting for your performance! So you ended up doing this to everyone? "This kick is terrible, even my grandma can kick more accurately than him!" "This is not football, this is just anti-aircraft guns!" "Gao Lin should just change his name to Gao Feiji!" At this moment, Gao Lin didn't know that because of his anti-aircraft cannon kick, he earned the nickname Gao Airplane. And once this nickname appears, it will be completely stuck on your head and can never be taken off. Although Gao Lin's shot missed, the Chinese national team's quick counterattack still scared the North Korean team. They had to devote more manpower to defense, which obviously weakened North Korea's offensive strength. So in the next ten minutes or so, although the North Korean players still fought hard, it was difficult for them to launch the same offensive as at the beginning of the second half. On the other hand, the Chinese national team took advantage of the opponent's substitution of a midfielder and strengthened the North Korean team's midfield pressure. Naturally, the North Korean team was unwilling to give up control of the midfield, so the two sides engaged in a fierce fight in the midfield. During this period, the number of shots on both sides dropped sharply, but the number of fouls continued to rise. In the 52nd minute, Zheng Zhi made a foul tackle and received a yellow card. Two minutes later, North Korea's An Yongxue brought down Lin Feng who was dribbling the ball and also received a yellow card. As the number of fouls continued to increase, players on both sides became more and more angry and their movements became more and more violent. On the Chinese national team side, Zhao Xuri and Sun Xiang were successively given yellow cards for fouls. The North Korean team also didn't find any progress. Han Sung-chol, Kim Sung-chol, Kim Myung-jun and others were given cards for fouling Chinese national team frontcourt players such as Lin Feng and Gao Lin.
The continuous fouls interrupted the offensive rhythm of the Chinese national team, especially the opponent's targeting of Lin Feng, which paralyzed the offensive organization of the Chinese national team in the frontcourt, making it difficult to launch an effective attack like in the first half. If the opponent had adopted this tactic at the beginning of the first half, perhaps they would not have lost so many goals. However, as the Chinese national team has already taken a 3:0 lead, this tactic can only serve as a last-ditch effort and is not very meaningful. Seeing that the opponent adopted lethal tactics against Lin Feng, the head coach of the Chinese national football team Zhu Guanghu could no longer sit still. This is the national team's treasure, he must not be injured! So, in the 67th minute, in order to protect the players, Zhu Guanghu chose to replace Lin Feng early. When Lin Feng left the field, the Chinese national football fans who were at the scene stood up and gave him warm applause. In this game, Lin Feng delivered one pass and one shot, and his performance was quite impressive. Lin Feng smiled and responded to the fans in the stands on all sides with applause. After high-fiving Cao Yang who replaced him, he sat on the bench. As soon as I sat down, I received a prompt from the system: [Congratulations to the host for completing the East Asian Cup mission, the system reward has been issued! ] (End of this chapter)