Chapter 382 The True Asian First-Class

As time goes by August, clubs in major European leagues have entered the pre-season warm-up stage in full swing, while the Asian Cup is coming to an end.

On the evening of August 3, Qilu Sports Center, the first Asian Cup semi-finals were held between the Japanese team and the Bahrain team.

As the defending champion of the Asian Cup, Japan's goal is naturally to defend the title. In the quarterfinals, Japan encountered tenacious resistance from Jordan, the dark horse team in the quarterfinals, and in the end, Japan relied on luck to win the penalty shootout. In the semi-finals, they encountered another group of big dark horses in this Asian Cup - Bahrain!

Due to the lack of overseas players such as Hidesu Nakada and Jun Inamoto, Japan's lineup is not strong this time. Bahrain can be regarded as the biggest dark horse in this Asian Cup. In the opening game, they scored two goals in a row when they were behind 0:5, which once scared the Chinese team. In the quarter-finals, Bahrain eliminated Uzbekistan again.

Bahrain is somewhat similar to Greece in the 2004 European Championship. As the fastest-progress team in Asia last year, Bahrain hopes to replicate Greece's glory and succeed in this Asian Cup.

The Bahrain team almost succeeded. Endo's malicious foul made him get a red card early, and also put the Japanese team in a desperate situation of ten players in the half-time game. However, the Japanese took a 2:1 lead with their overall strength advantage. Ala Hubair's second goal not only allowed him to rise to the first place in the scorer list, but also allowed Bahrain to equalize the score. Nasser's goal later gave Bahrain a hope of advancing to the finals, but at the last moment of the game, Yu Nakazawa's head-shaking shot near the second penalty spot, dragged the game into overtime.

Shortly after the overtime began, Keiji Tamada scored the winning goal. After Alah Hubair missed the goal twice, Bahrain's magical performance was finally over and was blocked by the Japanese team from the threshold of the final.

Then, everyone's eyes turned to the Workers' Stadium in Beijing, and the Chinese team will compete with the Iran team for another final spot.

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At 9:00 p.m. on August 3, Workers Stadium.

In the second game of the Asian Cup semi-finals, China vs. Iran.

This key battle has made fans full of expectations, and the Workers' Stadium is once again overcrowded.

As the national team's performance soars, domestic fans have become more and more fanatical.

Especially before the game, when the national anthem sounded in the stadium, nearly 80,000 fans in the audience accompanied the players and staff to sing the national anthem aloud. The momentum was extremely powerful. Whether it was in the stadium or the audience sitting in front of the TV, they couldn't help feeling excited and their blood was boiling.

Yin Jun still appeared in the starting lineup without any surprises. At a critical moment like the semi-finals, Alihan naturally would not hide it anymore and let Yin Jun stay on the bench.

The Chinese team once again lined up a 442 formation in this game, with the goalkeeper still Liu Yunfei, and the defense line was Sun Xiang, Zheng Zhi, Li Weifeng and Sun Jihai.

At the critical moment, Alihan chose to trust Sun Jihai, who was more experienced, and let Wei Xing sit on the bench.

The midfielder is a combination of Yan Song, Shao Jiayi, Zhao Junzhe and Yin Jun, and the two forwards are still Li Jinyu and Dong Fengzhuo.

After entering the semi-finals, the fighting spirit and enthusiasm of the national team had already reached a high point. In this case, even head coach Alihan shouted the slogan to enter the finals and win the championship before the game.

This is a necessity to go with the flow. If the head coach pours cold water from the team at this time, that would be stupid.

In the locker room before the game, Alihan said in the mobilization: "I believe that with our current strength and form, there is no team in Asia that can stop us from moving forward!"

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Although the saying of "injecting chicken blood" made people feel a little uncomfortable, it was really useful. Inspired by Alihan's words, the national team was also very encouraged and actively launched an offensive towards Iran from the beginning of the game.

Just two minutes into the game, Dong Junzhuo pulled to the left to instigate an offensive. Sun Xiang made a cross from the side and hurried into the penalty area. The Iranian defender cleared the ball. However, the ball was still under the feet of the Chinese team and soon launched another wave of attack. Shao Jiayi suddenly shot a long shot from the outside of the penalty area, with great force and flew out of the field against the crossbar.

At the front of the penalty area, this is a hidden danger exposed by the match between Iran and South Korea, and the three goals conceded are all related to this.

Before this semi-final, Alihan naturally studied all the Iranian team's games, and also saw the weaknesses of the Iranian team, and made targeted arrangements.

Especially with Yin Jun, Alihan spared no effort to ask the Chinese team to focus on attacking the weaknesses of the Iranian team at the front of the penalty area.

The Iranian team also quickly counterattacked. After Karimi got rid of the defensive player in the middle, she dribbled the ball and launched the offensive, passed directly behind her, and sent the ball into the penalty area. However, goalkeeper Liu Yunfei attacked decisively and hugged the ball.

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After the opening, the two teams had offensive and defensive attacks and defenses.

The Iranian team obviously also focused on studying the Chinese team's previous games and adopted the strategy of central defense and side attack. On the one hand, it used the defense in the middle to focus on curbing Yin Jun's performance, and at the same time it also played its strong offensive advantage on the side.

All four goals against South Korea were from Iran's right.

Iran's targeted defense makes it difficult for Yin Jun to use it in the middle. After all, two fists are hard to beat four hands, not to mention that there are two to three opponents surrounding Yin Jun at any time, which makes Yin Jun closely guarded by the opponent after the opening, making it difficult to get a chance.

It was not until the twelfth minute that Yin Jun ran out of the space and got a chance. He pulled the side and went down the bottom and crossed the road into the penalty area.

But in front of Iran's defenders, the Chinese team's offense failed to create opportunities. Dong Junzhuo and Li Jinyu failed to get the landing point, and the football was easily controlled by the Iranian team.

Since the opening, Yin Jun always felt powerful and had nowhere to use it. He was very depressed and depressed, making him want to go crazy.

Although he had been closely guarded by his opponents in the airport competition before, Yin Jun did not feel too much constraints because his previous opponents were relatively limited in strength.

As the top team in Asia, Iran's strength is not comparable to Bahrain, Indonesia, Qatar and Iraq.

He knew very well that this was the targeted defense of Iran on him, and to some extent, he should be honored by it, because every time he took the ball, he attracted the attention of Iranian defensive players. But he still felt very unhappy because he did not have the chance to perform. Apart from this pass, he did not even have a decent chance to perform.
Chapter completed!