Chapter 19 The Americas Zipline
The United States, the most powerful country in the world today, was once a football desert, but its football level has also been rapidly improved.
Because there are a large number of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States, the La Liga has a wide influence in the United States.
Every summer, many Spanish teams go to the United States to practice and play warm-up matches.
So much so that a fixed commercial warm-up event, the International Champions League, was formed, the predecessor of this event was the World Football Challenge.
However, Atletico Madrid is not going to participate in the International Champions League this time. They are not the same in this International Champions League.
They really just went to practice.
The whole team will only stay in the United States for one week, next Monday, the United States will face the major league team San Jose Earthquake, and on Wednesday, they will rush to Mexico City, the capital of Mexico to compete with Mexico's traditional strong team America.
After the game, he returned to China and worked together with other first-team players who remained in China to prepare for the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup that began on August 19. His opponent was Real Madrid, a mortal enemy in the same city.
Unlike in Italy and Spain, Gao Zheng is much more famous here in the United States.
He and Xu Xin went shopping without wearing sunglasses to pretend to be themselves. They walked around until they returned to the hotel, but were not recognized.
Gao Zheng did not play in the warm-up match against the San Jose Earthquake.
He and Xu Xin sat on the bench to watch the game.
In the first half, Mario Suarez broke through in the middle and fell in the penalty area, and the referee awarded a penalty. Unfortunately, Raul Garcia's shot was blocked by the post, and Sikela's supplementary shot was also saved from the baseline by the San Jose Earthquake goalkeeper.
Neither of the two teams scored the goal, and the score of 0:0 was maintained until the halftime break.
During the halftime break, Simeone made a large rotation adjustment to the team's lineup, almost returning the eleven people in one go.
Gao Zheng was naturally able to come out as a substitute.
If this were played in China, Gao Zheng would probably have been so cheering in the court that no other sound could be heard when he came on the court.
However, in the United States, the audience responded mediocrely and just gave applause on a routine basis.
Fans lack interest in Gao Zheng, but Diego Simone straightened his back and looked forward after Gao Zheng came on the court, paying great attention to Gao Zheng's performance.
No matter how many times you practice tactics during training, it is meaningless if you don’t put them in actual combat.
For him, this is an occasion for preliminary testing.
However, after the second half began, it was the first goal that the San Jose Earthquake had just started three minutes into the second half. Before the newly replaced Atletico Madrid players could react, they used an offside attack to get the lead for the San Jose Earthquake.
The fans of the San Jose Earthquake team at home were cheering and cheering for their team.
Gao Zheng, who was highly expected by Simeone, helped Atletico Madrid equalize the score in the 55th minute. He did not score a goal, but instead used an assist to assist Arda Turan to equalize the score.
The goalkeepers from both sides performed well next, and no one conceded the ball again.
The two sides tied 1:1 in regular time, and the game went directly to the penalty kick.
In the penalty shootout, Gao Zheng was arranged by Simeone to take the fourth penalty.
The first player to take the penalty kicked the football away, while the first three players from Atletico Madrid hit the score. After three rounds, the penalty score was 3:1, and Atletico Madrid led by two goals.
In this way, as long as Atletico Madrid can score a goal in the fourth round, Atletico Madrid will win the championship regardless of whether the San Jose Earthquake plays or not.
The fourth free throw player of the San Jose Earthquakes withstood the pressure and scored a penalty. It was Gao Zheng's turn to play.
Walking from the middle circle to the free throw point, Gao Zheng looked relaxed and did not take the penalty kick seriously.
Of course this is a warm-up match, so there is no big pressure.
After Gao Zheng put the football on the whistle, he quickly helped the ball to kick the ball into the goal without any suspense.
Atletico Madrid won the first game of training in North America.
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After the game against the San Jose Earthquake, Atletico Madrid's entire team did not delay here and set off directly for Mexico City.
The stay in Mexico City this time was very short and there was no free time to do so, so Gao Zheng did not take Xu Xin out shopping.
Just one day after the match against the San Jose Earthquake, Atletico Madrid ushered in a match against the traditional Mexican powerhouse America.
In this game, Simeone made a big adjustment to the team's lineup. All the players who played in the last game sat on the bench, while the players who played in the last game appeared.
So Gao Zheng appeared on the list.
After the game started, the team America, who was waiting for it, was more proactive and constantly threatened Atletico Madrid's goal. For a period of time, Atletico Madrid could not grab the ball.
It was not until half an hour later that the situation gradually improved.
The sign of gradual improvement is that Gao Zheng broke the deadlock for Atletico Madrid.
He received an assist from his teammate Cork in the penalty area, grabbed a shot in front of the goal, and scored his first goal since playing for Atletico Madrid.
Although this is not an informal goal and will not be included in Gao Zheng's career goal data, Simeone on the sidelines was very excited, jumping up and waving her fists to celebrate, as if this was a Champions League match, not an irrelevant warm-up match...
However, after scoring the goal, Gao Zheng seemed much calmer than the head coach, so he just slapped his teammates who came up to congratulate him, and his expression was not very happy.
Gao Zheng's goal was also the only goal of both sides in the first half.
Although the Americas tried to counterattack at the end of the first half and created two very good scoring opportunities, they were saved by goalkeeper Oblak.
In the second half, the two sides changed sides and fought again. Gao Zheng was not substituted at halftime, but played for another ten minutes and was replaced in the fifty-fifth minute.
But the leading Atletico Madrid failed to expand its lead, nor did it hold on to the result of pursuing the lead.
In the 79th and 84th minutes, two goals were lost in five minutes and the game was lost.
Atletico Madrid failed to win two consecutive wins in the North American practice warm-up match.
The team's overall performance in these two warm-up matches was not satisfactory, revealing the problem of weak offense. Although they scored goals in both games, they only scored two goals.
The only thing that is worth being happy is that these two goals are also assists and goals related to Gao Zheng. This should somewhat indicate that Gao Zheng bought the right one...
At the post-match press conference, Simeone also talked about Gao Zheng's performance and praised Gao Zheng.
Gao Zheng has only been training with the team for twenty days. He can perform like this based on his personal ability alone, which makes people look forward to what kind of performance he can perform after he integrates into the Atletico Madrid team.
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After two warm-up matches in North America, Atletico Madrid set off to return home, and there were still intensive games waiting for them.
He went to Germany and Wolfsburg to warm up, and then returned home to participate in two Ramon Carranza Cups.
These three games are warm-up matches, the result is not the most important, the process is important.
In addition to Gao Zheng, Griezmann, who has joined the team, needs to take advantage of these three warm-up matches to work with the team and find a sense of cooperation.
Then the Spanish Super Cup started on August 19th. This is not a warm-up match that doesn't matter if the winner or loses.
Since the Super Cup, the team has officially entered the pace of the game in the new season.
The battle with the city's archenemy also made the Super Cup unbearable.
There is not much time left for Simeone to adjust trial and error.
Chapter completed!