Chapter 41: The Spell That Doesn't Exist

For the Chinese team, Qatar is the most crucial opponent in Group C.

Li Qingshan did not have to return to China, but flew directly from England to Doha, Qatar.

In Group C, where the Chinese team is located, the Chinese team and the Qatar team have won four consecutive games before, with 12 points, and the Chinese team temporarily ranked first in the group by virtue of the advantage of goal difference.

The two spots that appear directly in this group are generally believed to be between the Chinese team and the Qatar team.

Qatar's opponent is the bitter master of the Chinese team. The current Chinese team has a very embarrassing record against Qatar, that is, on the road, it has never won against Qatar. In the international A-level competition, the national football team did not taste a win away from Qatar, and only achieved a record of 3 draws and 2 losses. Qatar drew away in the 1997, 2001 and 2008 World Qualifiers and lost 2-0 away at the 2011 Asian Cup.

Therefore, although the strength of the Chinese team has been greatly improved because of Li Qingshan, facing this opponent in Doha this time, the domestic sports media and fans do not dare to be too optimistic.

Li Qingshan arrived at Doha airport in the early morning of October 7. Even if it was more than five o'clock in the morning local time, the number of fans who picked them up at the airport was quite large.

When Li Qingshan walked out of the airport, he was warmly welcomed by the fans. And Li Qingshan did not go directly to the car sent by the national team to pick him up because of the fatigue of the journey, but only after meeting the fans' requirements for autographs and group photos did he get in the car and went to the training base where the national football team is located.

In order to prepare for this crucial World Cup qualifier match in the Asian round of 40, the Chinese Super League has even been suspended for two weeks so that the international players who play in the Chinese Super League can get to the local area in advance to adapt to the local climate.

Of course, Li Qingshan does not have this treatment, and it is impossible for Manchester United to give him a holiday during the non-international break - as a core player of Manchester United, if he misses two weeks, it is estimated that Manchester United fans will go crazy.

The airport was not too far from the Chinese team's local training base, and after more than 20 minutes of going around and around, the car stopped at the entrance of a training ground.

At the gate of the training base, a large number of reporters had already gathered.

When Li Qingshan got out of the car, the reporters immediately surrounded him. In addition to Chinese journalists, local media reporters in Qatar are also waiting for Li Qingshan here.

After all, he was the biggest star on the pitch in this game.

Manchester United's influence is big enough, and Li Qingshan, as a core player of Manchester United, will naturally increase his influence.

When he got off the plane before, Li Qingshan found that in addition to Chinese fans, there were also local Qatari fans wearing his Manchester United No. 9 shirt, and there were quite a few of them.

This shows that Li Qingshan's influence is not limited to China, with his performance at Manchester United, Manchester United's global influence has also given Li Qingshan many more fans.

To some extent, Li Qingshan is the only star in the current Chinese sports world with world-class influence.

Raiola often sighs about it. In his opinion, Li Qingshan is guarding a pile of gold mountains and will not use them. Li Qingshan's indifference to commercial development made Raiola Mo helpless.

After Li Qingshan got out of the car, he was not frightened by such a scene surrounded by a large group of reporters, he was used to it.

As he walked forward, he randomly answered questions kicked out by reporters.

"What is the goal of this game?" A reporter asked.

Jose Mourinho has said that the level of sports journalists in China is much worse than that of Chinese football.

Li Qingshan has been in contact with the media for a long time, and he also thinks so.

Look at what kind of idiot question this is asking.

Li Qingshan didn't reply.

"Of course we won!"

"Qatar is not weak."

Li Qingshan stopped and replied very seriously: "We are the Asian champions, the question of whether we are weak or not should be considered by the opponent, we are here to win this game!" And our focus is not on the round of 40, the big challenge is in the round of 12. Reaching the 2018 World Cup in Russia, this goal is unswerving! ”

................

Although the outside world is very cautious about this game, the atmosphere in the Chinese team is quite optimistic.

Winning the Asian championship has significantly improved the self-confidence of the players of the Chinese team.

In fact, in general, due to the unreasonable selection mechanism of the Chinese Football Association, the players of the Chinese team are generally above 180 cm tall, and the physical fitness of Chinese players is also relatively good in Asia, at least compared with many West Asian teams and Southeast Asian teams, Chinese players can still occupy some advantages in physical confrontation.

Therefore, Lippi does not think that the strength of the Chinese team will be weaker in Asia.

After Li Qingshan joined the training, the coaching staff obviously felt that the players' confidence was even stronger.

That's what a core, a star does.

..............

However, despite the confidence of the Chinese team, Lippi does not think that Qatar can pose much of a threat to the Chinese team in terms of strength. But Lippi is not without his worries.

That's the home of Qatar, the home of the Harifa Stadium in Doha.

Khalifa Stadium, the venue for the competition between China and Qatar, once attracted the world's attention for hosting the Asian Games. Now, after being renovated to host the World Cup, another label has caught the eye. In the article of the Western media ", it was called the world's first and largest open-air air-conditioned stadium.

During the acclimatization training before the game, the Chinese team experienced the taste of playing football on an air-conditioned court. It's really different from the average course.

In fact, in order to prove that it is feasible to play football in stadiums even in desert and arid regions with summer temperatures of more than 40 degrees, Qatar has spent a lot of money to build several air-conditioned stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. At that time, all the teams participating in the World Cup will play in air-conditioned stadiums.

The players were also very curious about the air conditioning system in the stadium.

When Li Qingshan walked into the stadium, he saw that around the upper and lower stands of the stadium, two neat circles of large round holes were whistling. A gentle cool breeze is blowing continuously, and the wind is very strong near the air outlet. If you pass by here, your hair and clothes will be blown up.

At this time, the temperature outside Qatar is as high as 378 degrees, and when you walk into this stadium, the temperature drops sharply, and you can't feel the hot heat wave outside the stadium at all.

According to the staff responsible for maintaining the air-conditioning system on site, the temperature of the air-conditioning system on the turf can be up to 20 degrees lower than that outside the field. Even the stands in the high places can be 15 degrees lower than those outside the stadium. In other words, the temperature of the player playing in the center of the field will never exceed 25 degrees.

When Li Qingshan walked into the court, he even felt a little cold because he hadn't warmed up yet.

"It seems that the fans who come into the stadium to bring their jackets need to be reminded." Li Qingshan joked to Zhang Linpeng next to him.

"It's really much cooler here than Tianhe Stadium." Zhang Linpeng said while doing stretching movements.

The weather in Guangzhou is also a famous stove, and many teams that come to Guangzhou to play in the summer have a hard time adapting to the hot and humid weather in Guangzhou.

And the Qataris really have the money to install air conditioning in the stadium, so that the football match can be played in temperatures as high as 40 degrees outside.

.............

Doha, Qatar, October 9.

The fifth round of Group C of the World Cup Qualifiers Asian Top 40 was played between the Chinese team and the Qatar team.

"There's no doubt that this is a focal point for this group. This match between China and Qatar will determine who wins the group. CCTV sent a commentary team on the spot, and Duan Xuan was on the commentary seat of the Khalifa Stadium at the moment, and next to him was naturally his old partner Xu Yang.

"It's fair to say that this time we are in the round of 12 and the key question is whether we will be first or second in the group. We had a very good draw and basically there were no quality teams in this group other than Qatar. We have to go for the first place in the group to be safe. ”

"That's right, the format of the top 40 is that the top 8 groups and the 4 best group runners-up will advance to the third round of the top 12, that is to say, for the Chinese team, let's not think about the second place in the group with the best results, our only goal is to be the first in the group and directly advance to the top 12!"

"That's right!! If we can break the curse of not beating Qatar away from home, then we have a good chance of topping the group! ”

"I hope the players of the Chinese team will calm down and not take this kind of thing to heart. Football matches are ultimately decided by strength, and we even won the Asian championship, so it is not natural for us to reach the top 12! ”

"That's right, we still have Li Qingshan!"

Before the game started, Duan Xuan and Xu Yang began to encourage each other, and their hearts should be very nervous at the moment.

Before the game officially began, the players of both sides were still warming up on the field. But CCTV's live broadcast signal has been connected.

In front of the TV, I don't know how many viewers are nervously watching this focus battle.

..............

The Chinese team's tactics are no secret. Anyway, it revolves around Li Qingshan.

In Asia, Lippi does not think that there is a team that can defend Li Qingshan, so the Chinese team will never be conservative in the qualifiers against various teams in Asia.

The same goes for this game.

Lippi lined up a 451 formation.

The goalkeeper is Zeng Cheng, and the center-back combination on the back line is Mei Fang and Feng Xiaoting. The right wing-back is Zhang Linpeng, and the left wing-back is Li Xuepeng. The combination of the two midfielders is Zhao Ritian and Hao Junmin, Yu Hanchao on the right of the forward line, Zhang Xize on the left, Li Qingshan in the front, and behind him there is a guerrilla striker Wu Lei.

And Qatar, which is playing at home, has also sent its full main lineup. In order to defend Li Qingshan, Qatar sent a lineup of three central defenders, while the midfielder had four defensive midfielders. At the top of the pack is their number 10 Haydos.

It's a 541 formation.

Judging from this formation, Qatar is still quite jealous of the Chinese team, after all, the opponent is the new Asian champion. Even on their home turf, the Qataris have opted for a conservative counter-attacking strategy.

But it turns out that if you want to defend, the Qataris really can't defend against Li Qingshan.

In the eighth minute of the game, the Chinese team took the lead.

Li Qingshan received Hao Junmin's pass in the middle and leaned on the opposing defender.

No matter how hard Qatar's central defender Cazorla tried, he couldn't interfere with Li Qingshan.

Li Qingshan easily passed the ball to Wu Lei, who was inserted in front.

As soon as Wu Lei led the ball, he went straight to the knife.

"Wu Lei single-handedly !!"

"Is this ball here!!"

Duan Xuan stood up from his seat.

"Oops!! Ah!!! This single shot hits the goalkeeper and pushes it at an angle..........."

Just when Duan Xuan regretted hugging his head, the football that hit the goalkeeper bounced back, and Li Qingshan stretched out his long legs, hooked the ball back steadily, and stopped in front of him.

He proved at the moment that he was facing the Qatari goal, with two centre-backs coming up ready to snatch the ball from him.

Li Qingshan made a feint and quickly flicked the ball, and picked up his right leg to hit.

The goalkeeper has no choice but to watch the football go into the net!

"The ball is in!! Although Wu Lei lost a single knife, fortunately, the football rebounded back and was picked up by Li Qingshan, Li Qingshan had more and more shooting methods in the penalty area, and he played this ball quite confidently. With a flick of his right foot, he raised his leg and shot, the ball passed between the two central defenders, and the goalkeeper did not react! ”

"The Chinese team scored the first goal and led the Qatar team 1-0 away from home!"

After conceding a goal, the Qataris wanted to press the attack and pull one back.

Soon, though, they conceded their second goal.

In the sixteenth minute, Hao Junmin's long-range shot from the periphery hit the defender and went out of the bottom line.

The Chinese team won a corner.

Hao Junmin's corner kick was issued, Li Qingshan pressed the defense of the two central defenders, jumped high, and shook his head to attack the goal!

Li Qingshan!! The ball went in!! Iconic header, no one in Asia can defend him!! Asia's No. 1 Player!! Duan Xuan exclaimed excitedly.

Conceded two goals early and left the Qataris completely discouraged.

They also have no desire to recover the score, and for the Qatari mercenaries, they just want not to keep conceding goals at home.

But they failed to realize this wish, and before the end of the first half, Wu Lei finally received a pass from Li Qingshan and hit the ball into the empty goal.

3-0, the Chinese team locked the win.

In the end, the score of the game was 5-0, and the Chinese team beat Qatar on the road.

Li Qingshan scored another goal in the second half to complete a hat-trick, and central defender Feng Xiaoting also scored a goal with a header through a free-kick opportunity in front.

The curse of a failed away win against Qatar?

Inexistent!