After the game against Sporting Gijon, Simeone admitted that the Champions League rotation had a negative impact on the team's condition, but fortunately: "We finally won the game, but fortunately we had high..."

Everyone agreed with his statement.

Fortunately, Atletico Madrid has Gao Zheng.

Otherwise, this game might really capsize in the gutter.

Gao Zheng saved Atletico Madrid again and made headlines on major media the next day, but this is no longer a rare thing for Gao Zheng.

He has long been used to the media and fans to flatter him in various fancy styles.

What he valued more was that Atletico Madrid scored three points and could continue to maintain pressure on Barcelona and retain hope of winning the championship.

After the match against Sporting Gijon, he left Madrid and returned to China to prepare for the round of 40 matches with the Maldives.

The top 40 games are coming to an end. The Chinese team has played six games, maintaining a complete victory, with 18 points, and two games left.

Their rival Qatar also has six games, five wins and one loss, and has 15 points. There are two games left. There is also one away game against the Chinese team.

The Chinese team has a great hope of advancing to the top 12, as long as they do not lose to Qatar at home.

Some optimistic Chinese fans can't help but start to look forward to the top 12 games.

That was the final stage of the World Cup Asian qualifiers. The twelve teams were divided into two groups. The top two in each group directly qualified for the Russian World Cup final circle. The third in the two groups played two playoffs. The winning team could not directly participate in the World Cup final circle, but would compete with Oceania for the last World Cup quota. After Australia transferred to the AFC, this team in Oceania is likely to be New Zealand.

Only by defeating New Zealand in the playoffs can you get tickets to the World Cup.

This Chinese team is extremely unfamiliar with the top 12 games - no one in the team has participated in the final stage of the World Cup qualifiers.

Zheng Zhi, the oldest in the team, also missed the top ten matches in 2001. Since then, the Chinese team has never reached the final stage of the World Cup qualifiers. It was called the top ten matches before, but now it is called the top ten matches.

The qualifiers for three consecutive World Cups, a full twelve years.

During this period, all the old players who participated in the top ten games retreated completely.

Even the staff within the Football Association have no experience in participating in the Top 12 matches - those with experience are basically arrested.

Football matches emphasize experience very much. Without experience means not knowing how to prepare for the top 12 matches.

You should know that the top 12 games are not just as simple as ten games.

There are many things involved, from logistics guarantees to warm-up opponents’ choices, from training arrangements to competitions... they are linked together. If one link has problems, it may affect the overall situation.

Without experience means not knowing how to do these things and what to do.

This is the disadvantage of the Chinese team.

Many people are worried that the inexperienced Chinese team will fail in the top 12 games and will not be able to participate in the World Cup in the end.

But it is not just a disadvantage. Gao Zheng and Wu Lei, two La Liga strikers, can at least solve the problem of Chinese team's weak strikers.

Football ultimately means comparing who scores more goals. As long as you can score, the Chinese team is not without hope of advancing to the Russian World Cup finals.

※※※

On March 24, at his home court, the Chinese team defeated the Maldives 4-0. Gao Zheng scored twice and also contributed an assist.

This score is exactly the same as the previous "away" defeat of the Maldives.

But winning a few goals at this time is actually meaningless.

Only the last game against Qatar was left, with the Chinese team scoring 37 goals, conceding one goal, and 36 goals.

On the same day, Qatar defeated Hong Kong, China 2:0 at home. They scored a total of 29 goals, conceded four goals, and had a goal difference of 25 goals.

Whether it is the number of goals scored or the number of goals scored, the Chinese team is far ahead of Qatar. In the last game of Qatar, as long as the Chinese team does not lose eleven goals to Qatar at home, they will definitely advance to the top 12 matches.

But no matter how bad the Chinese team is, no matter how much they are called "the mud cannot support the wall", how can they lose double digits at their home court?

So after the match against Maldives, some Chinese fans couldn't wait to celebrate the Chinese team's return to the top 12 after 14 years.

Even the mainstream media are unanimously optimistic about the Chinese team reaching the top 12 games, and the media is full of various aspirations and analysis for the next top 12 games.

No one has paid attention to the Chinese team's home match against Qatar in five days.

The Chinese don’t pay much attention, but Qatar needs to pay attention, because this determines whether they can participate in the top 12 matches.

According to the rules of the AFC on the 2018 Russian World Cup Asian qualifiers, in the top 40 stage, each group's first advances to the top 12 matches, with a total of eight teams, and the other four best-achieving groups second advance to the next stage of the match, and formed the top 12 matches with eight groups.

With the last round of games left, Qatar scored 18 points and became the second in the group with the best results among the eight groups.

But this is not safe, as there are three other teams that are likely to threaten Qatar's position.

On the premise that Qatar lost to the Chinese team away:

The UAE in Group A currently has 16 points. If they beat Saudi Arabia at home in the last game, they can score 19 points and exceed 18 points in Qatar.

Jordan in Group B also had 16 points, and if he won Australia in the last away game, he would also have 19 points.

The North Korean team in Group H currently has 16 points and will challenge the Philippines in the last away game.

In fact, from this point of view, if Qatar is to be eliminated, the conditions required are very harsh.

The above three teams must win at the same time before Qatar can be eliminated.

But even if there is a theoretical possibility of being eliminated, Qatar has to be on guard.

They can't control the other three opponents' games, so they can only hope that the Chinese team will be proud and not kill at home.

After arriving in China, Qatar's head coach Daniel Carrenho was like a good person who was not worthy of money, constantly praising the Chinese team and Gao Zheng in front of the media, just like Gao Zheng's fan.

At the same time, he also paid attention to various media reports about the Chinese team.

From news such as "The Chinese national football team is preparing for the Qatar game, the players laughed and laughed during training. They advanced to the top 12 in advance and seemed very relaxed...", he found that the Chinese team was really relaxed and did not seem to take the next game to heart.

This made Carenho very happy... That's right! Don't take us to heart! You go and celebrate your qualifications in the top 12. Let's settle the accounts between us when we enter the top 12!

The reason why his team is so embarrassed depends on the Chinese team's expression in the end is that they did not win the Chinese team at home. So in Carenho's heart, this account must be kept in mind until he leads the team to complete revenge.
Chapter completed!