Chapter 297 Chelsea takes the initiative to challenge the Olympic team
"The National Olympic Team defeated the French Ligue 1 powerhouse Marseille, and the overseas training has begun to show results! "
"Three victories in three games, the strongest Olympic team in history is aiming for the Beijing Olympics!"
"The French were defeated, and the Marseille coach praised the Olympic team highly!"
……
After the news of the National Olympic Team's victory over Marseille reached back home, it immediately attracted widespread coverage from major media outlets.
Due to the time difference, when the National Olympic Team played against Marseille, it was already close to midnight in China, so most people did not have time to watch the live broadcast of the game.
But thanks to the hard publicity of major media newspapers, most fans quickly learned the news through various newspapers after waking up the next day.
"Is this true? The Olympic team beat Marseille? Isn't Marseille ranked second in Ligue 1? A team of this level would be hard to beat even if the national team were to go in, right?"
"It's true. I watched the live broadcast last night. The National Olympic Team beat Marseille 1:0. The person who scored the key goal was Lin Feng!"
"Lin Feng!? That's not surprising. Tell me, how did the National Olympic Team play last night? How did they win?"
"To be honest, it was an ugly performance. Marseille deserves to be the second in Ligue 1. They are really strong. The National Olympic Team was suppressed throughout the game. The opponent had nearly 80% of the ball, and the number of passes and shots were far more than that of the National Olympic Team. We were in a passive state for most of the game!"
"Ah? Were we suppressed so badly? Then how did we win in the end?"
"Hehe, we have to mention Lin Feng's heroic feat of destroying the opponent's entire defense by himself. It's a pity that you didn't see that scene. This will definitely become a classic scene in the history of the National Olympic Team. Hehe, even now when I think back on it, I can't suppress my excitement. Because of this goal, I was so excited that I didn't sleep last night!"
Those fans who didn't watch the live broadcast had already begun to regret the result when they learned that the Chinese Olympic Team defeated Marseille by defeating a stronger team. Now they heard the fans who had watched the live broadcast describe it like this, and they almost slapped their thighs until they were blue.
If I had known that the National Olympic Team would win, why would I sleep? I would have watched the game to the end even if I had to stay up late!
Unfortunately, before the game they all felt that the National Olympic Team had little chance of winning, and they had to go to work during the day, so they chose not to persevere.
……
Compared with the national team, the influence of the national Olympic team is usually far less than that of the former.
But this time point is a bit special. Now it is on the eve of the New Year and the Chinese New Year is coming soon. The atmosphere in the country is starting to become lively.
In addition, the national team has no games during this period, and the Chinese Super League and the five major leagues have also entered the winter break, so there are relatively few games to watch.
In this situation, the attention on the National Olympic Team has increased.
Furthermore, this National Olympic Team is built with the champion team of the 05 World Youth Championship, which already has considerable influence among the fans. And because it is a local Olympic Games, the fans have even more expectations for it.
Due to the combination of multiple factors, the National Olympic Team's overseas training has received such high attention in the country.
It was just a friendly match, but it alarmed major domestic media.
Before the advent of the mobile Internet era, the way ordinary people passed their free time was simply to read the newspaper, drink tea, and chat.
So after extensive coverage by the print media, the news that the National Olympic Team defeated Marseille spread across the country almost overnight.
Seeing that this incident has attracted so much attention in China, many reporters rushed to interview the parties involved, wanting to see how the National Olympic Team evaluated this game.
"The opponent is very strong, one victory doesn't mean anything!"
Faced with outside flattery, Krauchen remained very calm and was not overwhelmed by the flattery.
The strength of both sides was almost 82 to 91. The National Olympic Team simply seized the opponent's careless mentality and made full use of Lin Feng's trump card to catch the opponent by surprise!
If the two sides play again, Marseille, who is on guard, will never give them such an opportunity again!
Although what Krauchen said was all true, the news reported in this way had no breaking news. Without breaking news, it would not attract readers. How could the newspaper make money?
So the reporter changed the subject and began to ask about the Olympic team's next training plan in the UK:
"Mr. Krauchen, under your coaching, the National Olympic Team won three games in a row during the training phase in France, achieving very impressive results.
The National Olympic Team will be heading to England next month to start the next phase of overseas training. It is said that the defending Premier League champion Chelsea will be one of the warm-up opponents of the National Olympic Team in the next phase. Your team has just defeated Marseille, the second-ranked team in Ligue 1. Do you have the confidence to lead the National Olympic Team to defeat the more powerful Chelsea? "
Krauchen glanced at the reporter who asked the question. This question was not easy to answer.
If you answer that you are confident of winning, it means that you will be complacent after winning a few games. You don't know your own weight and will be scolded by the fans. If you lose in the end, you will be punished.
But if he answers that he has no confidence, then he is boosting others' morale and undermining his own prestige, and he may be suspected of being afraid of the enemy and cowardly.
Furthermore, the players of the National Olympic Team have finally accumulated a lot of confidence by defeating the second place in Ligue 1, and Krauchen does not want to take the initiative to undermine the players' self-confidence.
So he avoided the question and answered:
"I haven't studied the specific schedule in detail, but our overseas training this time is mainly to run in the team and practice the team's skills and tactics. We will take every game seriously, but winning or losing is not the most important thing. The players can grow and the team's strength can be improved, which is the most important thing!"
What Krauchen said was that he takes every game seriously and did not make too firm a prediction about winning or losing. It all depends on how the reporters interpret it.
If the reporter misinterpreted it, he could still deny it and say that he did not mean that, which would leave himself room for maneuver.
Of course, Krauchen was not lying. He took every game very seriously, and he naturally took the game against Chelsea doubly seriously.
When the Football Association contacted Chelsea, they originally wanted to arrange a match between the opponent's youth team and Chelsea's echelon team.
But after the news reached Chelsea, somehow the opponent of the match was changed from Chelsea's echelon team to the first team.
To be honest, this was somewhat beyond Krauchen's expectations.
In order to cater to the fans, the Premier League usually arranges a particularly intensive schedule for the teams in late December and early January when the Western world is on holiday for Christmas and New Year's Day. This schedule is called the Christmas Express.
The lack of a winter break, coupled with the double torture of the Christmas Express, has resulted in all Premier League teams playing in agony during this period.
Under such circumstances, it is very surprising that Chelsea would take the initiative to add burden to itself and invite the National Olympic Team to play a friendly match.
Although it is better for the friendly matches between the two sides to be played in February, Chelsea should have recovered a little from the Christmas express, but considering that the more important Champions League knockout rounds for Chelsea will start in February, they should focus more on the league and the Champions League at this time and should not be distracted by other places.
So after learning that the National Olympic Team had arranged a friendly match with Chelsea's first team, Krauchen's first reaction was to disbelieve it. He thought it was probably fake news and that the staff might have made a mistake.
However, after he confirmed again and again that the person he had an appointment with was indeed Chelsea's first team, not the echelon team, he was finally willing to believe it. But he was still puzzled and didn't understand what Chelsea was trying to do.
The National Olympic Team is not a very famous or strong team. Their strength is at best at the level of the English Championship.
In the fast-paced, physical competition environment of the Premier League, the performance of these young players of the National Olympic Team may be worse than that of the Championship teams.
When Chelsea plays a friendly match with them, it is almost a pure bullying game. Winning is not difficult at all for Chelsea, it just depends on how many wins they want to win.
Krauchen, who had already anticipated that the National Olympic Team would suffer a crushing defeat in this match, deliberately postponed the match to the last game of the training camp in the UK, treating it as the final decisive battle.
In this way, they don't have to face the strong opponent Chelsea too early, which will not bring too much psychological pressure to the players.
It can also avoid losing to Chelsea by a large margin, which would have dealt a huge blow to the team's morale and players' confidence.
As for the last defeat, it was actually a good thing. He could use this opportunity to let the players know that there are always people better than them and that they are still far from the world's top teams. They need to guard against arrogance and work harder in the future.
……
Although Krauchen did not answer this question directly, his answer still gave fans room for imagination.
After the lucky victory over Marseille, the confidence of many domestic fans has swelled, as if they felt that the teams from the top five leagues are just so-so and nothing special.
Even for a top team like Chelsea, fans feel they can give it a try.
This blind optimism, coupled with the hype from unscrupulous media, has brought unprecedented attention to this game.
Fans have been curious about one thing for a long time - who is stronger, the national team or the club?
Some people think that the national team gathers the country's top players, each of whom is worth a lot of money, so naturally the national team is stronger.
However, the counter-argument is that the national team can only be recruited from players of the country's own nationality, and a country's talent pool is limited. It is possible that a certain position is particularly strong and the talent pool is particularly large, but the talent pool in another position is very weak, or even no one is available.
The clubs are subject to much fewer restrictions, which means they can spend money to buy their favorite top players from all over the world.
So as long as the club's financial resources are not a problem, in theory they can build the strongest lineup in football.
Therefore, the top clubs in major leagues are not necessarily weaker than the national team, and may even be stronger than the national team!
There are many people who hold these two views, and neither side can convince the other.
In fact, the best way to prove which side's point of view is correct is to let the national team and the club play a game.
But the problem is that the best club in the country is usually the biggest contributor of international players. If the international players of this club are recruited, the strength of the club will be significantly weakened.
But if they are not called up, the strength of the national team will decline.
For example, two years ago, the Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich played a friendly match with the German national team at the Allianz Arena.
On that occasion, almost all of Bayern's German internationals stayed at the club, and Bayern won a 4:2 victory over the German national team at home.
But if Kahn, Ballack, Schweinsteiger and others chose to wear the national team's jersey, the result of the game might very well be the opposite.
So such a debate is doomed to be fruitless, but even so, for the majority of fans, it is still a topic that people talk about with great interest.
Especially for Chinese football, even the national football team has never had the experience of competing with a giant club like Chelsea before, but unexpectedly they were faced with the National Olympic Team.
Even if the National Olympic Team lost in the end, the game itself was memorable enough.
……
After the match with Marseille, Lin Feng did not stay in the national team's training base for too long and flew back to Milan overnight.
Lin Feng was also surprised when he learned that Chelsea would be one of the National Olympic Team's opponents in the next round of warm-up matches.
However, he had already boarded the return flight by then, so he didn't have the chance to discuss it properly with his teammates.
I wonder if my teammates, when they heard the news, were so excited that they couldn’t sleep, or were so worried that they couldn’t sleep?
But this will have to wait until a month later. Lin Feng doesn’t have the energy to think about these issues now.
The next round of Serie A games will begin in a few days. He must adjust his condition as soon as possible and prepare for this game.
Inter Milan's next opponent is Fiorentina. Although Fiorentina is no longer as glorious as it was in the days of the Seven Sisters of Serie A, their current league ranking is around the middle.
But every time Inter Milan meets them, it will be difficult to play.
This team, which was once prosperous but is now declining, has its own pride and they are very happy to trip up the opponent when facing the leader.
It's not that they are targeting anyone in particular. Even when Juventus and AC Milan were leading the league standings in previous seasons, they often acted as stumbling blocks and dealt a heavy blow to the opponents.
Now it is just Inter Milan that has taken the top spot in the league and is experiencing the feeling of being targeted!
However, the Serie A schedule during this period is one game per week, and there are no major matches for the national team during this period.
Therefore, Inter Milan, which just finished the winter break, maintained a very good overall condition of the players, making Mancini full of confidence in winning the game.
Considering that Lin Feng had gone to participate in the national team's game in the middle of the game, Mancini did not choose to put Lin Feng in the starting lineup, but let him sit on the bench to watch the game.
Amid the cheers of more than 70,000 fans at home, Torres helped the team open the scoring early in the first half. In the second half, Materazzi scored another header to help the team secure the victory.
At the end of the game, Fiorentina scored a goal in a counterattack, which made Inter fans a little nervous.
But Lin Feng, who came on as a substitute, scored Inter Milan's third goal in the 85th minute, which completely reassured the fans.
Lin Feng came on very late in this game, but his condition was very good and he didn't look affected at all by the running around.
This made fans on both Inter Milan and China breathe a sigh of relief!
(End of this chapter)
