Chapter Forty-Eight: The Young Vice-Captain

The Madrid derby, which had a bit of a twist and turn, ended in a 3-2 win for the home team, Atletico Madrid. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 InfoAtletico Madrid are three points ahead of Real Madrid on points after this crucial battle for the top spot, and they are at the top of the league table with 67 points.

Real Madrid, on the other hand, dropped to third place in the rankings, because in the next La Liga game, Barcelona beat Almeria 4-1 at home, tied Real Madrid in points, and squeezed Real Madrid out of second place in the standings on goal difference.

After this game, the title race for La Liga began to become somewhat clear, with Atletico one position ahead of the other two teams. Judging from Atletico's current form, they are likely to break Real Madrid and Barcelona's monopoly on La Liga titles this season and rise to the top of the league title.

After this game, Simeone cooled down the excited Atletico Madrid players in time, and now there are twelve rounds left before the end of the league, and if they capsize in the gutter in these twelve rounds of the league, they may be caught up by the opponent at any time, so Atletico Madrid cannot be taken lightly.

The current Spanish media are reporting on this battle for the top spot, and as for the previous doubts about Li Qingshan, the media naturally pretended not to have such a thing.

Against a team like Real Madrid, all three of Atletico Madrid's goals are directly related to it, and such a performance cannot be used as evidence of a decline in "goal rate".

In fact, when Li Qingshan first joined Atletico Madrid, some Spanish media were not optimistic about Atletico Madrid's recruitment. Many Spaniards would argue that there are too many precedents for this player to be able to excel in a lower league like the Chinese Super League, and to be sluggish once he gets to the top flight. Many of the players who did well in the lower leagues and small teams did not do as well as they could have done when they arrived in the top leagues and big teams.

And now with Li Qingshan, Simeone's lineup has been greatly enriched.

In the post-match press conference, Simeone did not hide his ambitions: "Our goal is to win La Liga this season, every next game is a final, and my team will not relax in the slightest. ”

Li Qingshan, as the best player of the game, also gave a brief interview to the media, standing in front of a billboard full of sponsor logos, his clothes were stained with mud, and the grass clippings on his face and hair were clearly visible, Li Qingshan said in front of the media camera: "We know that there are two very fierce chasers behind us, but as long as we don't stop, we can win the championship in the end." Twelve wins in a row? Why not! ”

On the front page of the media the next day, Li Qingshan's sentence was on the front page of major newspapers and media when combined with the picture of him shaking his head in the air to attack the goal.

Twelve wins in a row? Why not!

It's rare for such arrogant words to come out of Li Qingshan's mouth, but now no one questions whether Li Qingshan is qualified to say this - he is now one of the top players in La Liga!

Just like playing a game, Atletico Madrid's La Liga journey will next face twelve levels that they will need to beat one by one in order to get the final spoils.

Their next leg up is to face Celta Vigo away on March 9.

But for Li Qingshan, there is one more thing that is closely related to him before this match. Lippi, his former mentor at Guangzhou Evergrande, personally called him and invited him to join the Chinese national team.

In the Asian preliminary round on March 6, the Chinese national team lost 1-3 to Iraq, and finally advanced to the 2015 Asian Cup in Australia with a goal difference. Then the acting head coach Fu Bo was announced to be out of class by the Chinese Football Association, and the new head coach who was announced immediately afterwards was Marcelo Lippi!

In fact, the day before this game, Lippi personally called Li Qingshan and promised that the only tactical core of the Chinese national team was Li Qingshan!

It's rare for a manager to call a key player before taking over. This also shows that Lippi relies on Li Qingshan enough!

In fact, as early as a year ago, the Chinese Football Association contacted Lippi, but at that time Lippi refused the invitation of the Chinese Football Association - because he felt that the strength of the players of the Chinese national team really made him unconfident, after all, this is not like Guangzhou Evergrande, with high-level foreign aid as the core.

A year later, Lippi, who has led Guangzhou Evergrande to win the AFC Champions League and even the Club World Cup, once again received an invitation from the Chinese Football Association, and even the club's owner Xu Jiayin personally came forward to lobby Lippi to take over as the coach of the Chinese team.

This time Lippi did not refuse again, in addition to the temptation of this annual salary, more importantly, because of the existence of Li Qingshan, Lippi has the confidence to build a team with a certain combat effectiveness that operates around Li Qingshan, the fulcrum of the front court.

The Chinese Football Association gave Lippi a five-year contract, which means that Lippi's position will continue until 2019. The goal of the Chinese Football Association is obvious, that is, it hopes to rely on Lippi to bring the Chinese team to the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Cai Zhenhua, the chairman of the Football Association, is not a person who does not understand football at all, and as a bureaucrat, what he desires most is to get political achievements and then be promoted. If Lippi can lead the Chinese team to the World Cup, then he will naturally be a great achievement as the chairman of the Football Association who single-handedly hired Lippi! As a member of the system, he knows the minds of the leaders at the top.

Boss Xu of Evergrande Group naturally understands this, so of course he is willing to "dedicate the head coach of Guangzhou Evergrande to the country". Boss Xu is a giant in the world, so naturally he will not do loss-making business.

The news of Lippi's takeover of the Chinese national team quickly caused a shock in the entire Chinese football community. And then Lippi's actions after taking office made many people stunned.

In addition to the first team of the Chinese national team, the Chinese national football team from the national team, the National Olympic team to the U22, U20, U18 and a series of echelons all accept the leadership of Lippi head coach, forming an unprecedented "big national team", Lippi inserted his assistant into the National Olympic team, U22 as the head coach.

If such a move only shows that the Football Association has enough power to give Lippi, then what Lippi announced next will be even more shocking to the Chinese football circle.

He announced at the press conference that the Chinese national team had accepted his fate, and Zheng Zhi was still the captain of the Chinese team, and Lippi's next sentence caused a commotion among the news media reporters at the scene.

"Announce the appointment of Li Qingshan as the vice captain of the national team!"

The scene was in an uproar. This news is too informative.

In China's traditional society that pays attention to seniority, a hairy boy under the age of 21 actually became the vice captain of the Chinese national team?

And since Lippi announced the captain's resignation, it means that Li Qingshan has become a core member of the Li family army without any suspense.

More importantly........... Li Qingshan has not played a single game for the Chinese team so far! Not even a warm-up game.

Wouldn't this be too hasty?

Will this announcement of the appointment of the vice-captain make the other players unconvinced?

Will this put too much pressure on Li Qingshan, a young player?

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

All sorts of questions filled the minds of journalists and fans alike. This may be the first time in the history of Chinese football, right? Perhaps it should also be unique in the history of world football.

A player who has never played for the national team is appointed vice-captain, and the world is crazy.

But Lippi was clearly well thought out.

First of all, in his team system, Li Qingshan is naturally the most core link. In other words, he will build a set of tactics completely around Li Qingshan, so it is not surprising that the core players of the team are the vice captains of the team.

And where is the age of the current captain Zheng Zhi, if the team is aiming for the World Cup in Russia, then at that time, whether Zheng Zhi can play is also a question, and Lippi's move is also to cultivate a leader in the locker room in advance.

The backbone members of the Chinese national team are still from Guangzhou Evergrande, Li Qingshan and them naturally do not have any unfamiliar problems, at least in the locker room, Li Qingshan will still get the support of Guangzhou Evergrande's players, so that he, the "vice captain", is not a bare commander.

As for whether Li Qingshan, the successor of the "leader", can do a good job, it's hard to say now....

In any case, a strange story in the history of football was born - the Chinese national team appointed a vice-captain who had never played for the national team.........