After the Chinese team defeated Jordan, the other three quarter-finals were also played one after another.

Japan's B2 defeated Uzbekistan, and the number one star in their team, Shinji Kagawa scored twice.

Australia defeated Iraq by 0 overtime, and it was Cowell who won the Australian goal.

South Korea also defeated Iran by 0 overtime.

In this way, the top four Central and Western Asian teams were wiped out, the East Asian teams occupied three seats, and Australia occupied a place.

The Asian Cup in West Asia is almost becoming the semi-finals of East Asia...

The Chinese team's opponent in the semi-finals also decided that their opponent is Australia

This time, because the Chinese team performed very well in the Asian Cup, it attracted the attention of many Chinese people who don’t usually watch the football. When they found out that the Chinese team’s opponent in the Asian Cup was Australia, they were very surprised - when did Australia become an Asian country? Isn’t the Asian Cup a match between Asian countries?

How did Australia emerge?

But in fact, the geographical concepts in football are different from those we are familiar with.

In football, football associations from various countries can join the football federations of their continents, but they can also apply to join the football federations of other continents.

For example, after the Japanese Football Association improved its own level, it has been thinking about leaving Asia and joining Europe. Why did it want to join UEFA?

Because the Japanese Football Association believes that the level of Asian football is too low, and it will be detrimental to the long-term development of Japanese football over time. If you want to improve your level, you have to play with high-level countries and join UEFA and participate in the European Cup once every four years, which is much better than participating in the Asian Cup.

However, this concept has not been implemented.

In Asia, other countries have joined UEFA. For example, in terms of geographical concept, the Israeli Football Association, which is definitely considered to be the Asian team, and Kazakhstan from Central Asia has also joined UEFA.

The purpose of Australia's joining the AFC is the same as that of the Japanese Football Association, which is to hope to compete in a relatively high-level region and improve their strength, which will also help them enter the World Cup.

In the past, Australia was in the Oceania Football Federation, except for them, it was New Zealand. All the other island countries in the Pacific Ocean. The football teams in these countries were all amateur and had very poor levels.

Therefore, FIFA gave Oceania only half a quota to participate in the World Cup.

They first have to break through the siege in the Oceania qualifiers and win first, and then compete with the fifth team in South America, or the fourth and fifth place in Asia to compete for the place to participate in the World Cup finals.

In order to improve their strength and participate in the World Cup more, Australia decided to join the AFC.

They also considered choosing AFC to join. In their opinion, the level of AFC member countries is not strong, except for Japan and South Korea, and other countries are not strong. They have a higher chance of qualifying for the World Cup after going to AFC.

This is better than going to fight against the strong teams in South America.

Australia's joining the AFC feels like "tigers enter the flock".

In fact, their strategy has indeed worked.

After officially joining the AFC on January 1, 2UU, Australia successfully qualified for the finals of the 210 South Africa World Cup.

In the South African World Cup qualifiers, they were in the same group with China, Qatar and Iraq in the top 20 matches, and finally entered the top 10 matches with three wins, one draw and two losses. In the top 10 matches, they were in the same group with Japan, Bahrain, Qatar and Uzbekistan.

In the end, Australia won the first place in the group with an unbeaten record of six wins and two draws. As they considered when they chose to join the AFC, they easily won the ticket to the South African World Cup finals.

Australian players have the physical qualities of European and American players. At the same time, because many international players play in the European League and have good tactical qualities, they do look very outstanding in the Asian qualifiers.

Teams like Japan could have dominated Asia, but Australia can take advantage of their physical advantages when it beats them.

In the top ten matches of the Asian qualifiers in the South Africa World Cup, Australia tied Japan 00 away, returned to home court and defeated its opponent 2l, gaining the lead in the competition for the first place in the group with Japan, and finally won the first place in the group and qualifying easily.

The physical fitness of Chinese players is better than that of Japanese players, but they are still not enough to see in front of Australian players.

Australia's weapon against the Chinese team is likely to be the body.

This semi-final will not be easy for the Chinese team.

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The other semi-finals were the East Asian derby between Japan and South Korea.

The game will be held at 7:15 pm on January 25, while the Chinese team and Australia will be held at 4:15 pm on January 25.

This arrangement is the same as the quarterfinals, obviously to take care of Chinese audiences, because this time is exactly 9:15 pm on January 25, Beijing time.

However, South Korea and Japan are also East Asian countries, and their time zones are even an hour earlier than China. However, the Asian Cup did not arrange their game in the first game, because the audiences watching the semi-finals of Japan and South Korea combined are not as many as those in China...

After the game against Jordan, Gao Hongbo did not give the whole team a day of vacation. He only gave the team half a day of vacation, allowing them to sleep in the next day after the game, had lunch and started training after lunch break

Of course, this time Gao Hongbo met Glory in the restaurant at 8:20.

Rongguang still looked like he was sweating profusely and had just trained.

This time, Gao Hongbo did not chat with him, but just nodded and greeted him.

※※※

During the entire Asian Cup, the Chinese team's training only had one content, which was to keep up with the rhythm and speed of Glory as much as possible. Although Glory will inevitably slow down its pace in the game so that teammates can keep up, there is no such setting in training.

Rongguang was like a cheat during training, abused and tortured his national teammates.

This is what Gao Hongbo specifically requested. Let Rongguang play his best form in training, which is equivalent to a benchmark and a standard. Other Chinese players must strive to get close to this standard during training.

This kind of training is actually not prepared for the Asian Cup, because the training content is not targeted.

This was the case with Jordan and Australia, and Gao Hongbo did not let the players practice against their opponents.

The Chinese team's training during the Asian Cup was closed, and reporters were not allowed to interview, take photos or videos during the entire process.

Otherwise, if the media knew that the Chinese team trained in this way, it would probably cause a stir...

They've been fighting all the way

It's totally unreasonable

The Chinese team has always played their own football in the Asian Cup, and at the beginning it relied on Rongguang's personal ability. In the last two games, they have begun to try to integrate Rongguang with the entire team. They have not changed their playing style because of their opponent's characteristics.

In fact, Gao Hongbo and Rongguang have a tacit understanding, that is, they regard the Asian Cup as a warm-up for the World Cup qualifiers.

Or so, the Asian Cup is just a leveling dungeon before the World Cup qualifiers. The Chinese team cut monsters and upgraded in the main and dungeons, beat equipment, and improve themselves.

Then after coming out of the dungeon, go to the World Cup qualifiers to fight against other players, which is the real essence.

In this way, it seems to be in conflict with Rongguang's goal of winning the Asian Cup championship before?

No, it is actually not a conflict at all. Leveling up monsters and winning championships does not conflict at all, and even the same end is achieved.

Leveling up and scaling monsters does not prevent you from winning the championship in the end. Winning the championship may not necessarily mean you cannot level up and scaling monsters.

Rongguang has full confidence in himself, so he does not think there is anything incompatible with the two.

In the fill-in-the-blank question "——leveling monsters,——Champion".

The glory is filled with "neither... nor...", rather than "rather... than...", or "for... not..."

I believe that after this Asian Cup, the tacit understanding between other Chinese players and Rongguang will be improved, and they will be able to cooperate with Rongguang better.

And unlike warm-up matches, every Asian Cup match is real and real-life battle, and the opponent will try his best, so the effect of training the team in the Asian Cup will be better than the warm-up matches.

In the past, Gao Hongbo led the Chinese team to play many warm-up matches and friendly matches, and performed well in friendly matches, but it was stumbling when it came to the official matches. Therefore, some Chinese media and fans teased Gao Hongbo's Chinese team as the "king of friendly matches".

In fact, his team can only play well in warm-up matches, friendly matches, and it will be over once the official matches arrive.

Gao Hongbo was also quite helpless about this.

But now, with glory, such a problem no longer exists. The Chinese team can also use Asian Cup games to train their team

It’s hard to believe it – when did the Chinese team actually use the Asian Cup to run together the team?

Of course, no one knows about this now. Apart from Rongguang, Gao Hongbo and Fu Bo, no one else thinks they are training in the Asian Cup.

Even players of the Chinese national team think that the training content is not targeted at all, and they have never doubted why this is the case. They are very serious in training and try their best during the game. They are not to prepare for the World Cup qualifiers, but to really want to win the game and win the Asian Cup championship.
Chapter completed!