Chapter 174 Asian Cup Final!

For the Chinese team, reaching the semi-finals has almost all of China boiling.

You must know that in the two Asian Cups before this Asian Cup, the Chinese team failed to qualify from the group, and went home after three group games.

However, despite the poor results of the last two Asian Cups, for Chinese football, the Asian Cup can be regarded as an event with good memories and worth remembering.

Because since the first participation in the 6th Asian Cup in 1976, the Chinese team has not only participated in the finals of eight consecutive Asian Cups, but also won two runners-up, two thirds and two fourths. The overall record of 41 games, 15 wins, 11 draws, 15 losses and 65 goals scored and 44 goals conceded also made Chinese football, which has little proud capital, only ranked third in Asia after the "treble" Iran and the two-time champion South Korea in the historical ranking statistics of the Asian Cup.

And this time, the Chinese team with Li Qingshan is expected to reach the Asian Cup final again and compete for the honor of the Asian champion.

As long as they beat their semi-final opponent – the UAE.

However, the day before the semi-final between China and the United Arab Emirates, another semi-final will be played first.

Hosts Australia take on Iraq at the Australian Stadium in Sydney.

After 90 minutes of intense action, Australia eliminated Iraq 2-0 thanks to goals from Sainsbury and Cahill to reach the final.

The day after this match, another semi-final will be played.

At 17 o'clock local time on January 27, the match between the Chinese team and the United Arab Emirates team was played at Newcastle Stadium.

The UAE drew with Japan in the quarter-finals, a result that the Chinese team did not dare to take lightly.

However, the UAE's strength is not among the best in Asia, and their individual players are not much better than those of the Chinese team.

However, Messi Omar's individual ability is indeed quite outstanding, and his breakthrough once caused huge trouble for the Chinese team.

However, in the end, with Wu Lei receiving a pass from Li Qingshan in the 78th minute of the game, the Chinese team defeated the United Arab Emirates 1-0 and entered the final.

Their opponents in the final will be hosts Australia.

Australia is not geographically part of Asia, but their FA is affiliated with the AFC.

In fact, Australia only officially joined the AFC in 2006, and for Australia, joining the AFC naturally has many benefits. First of all, Asia has 4.5 World Cup places, while Oceania has only 0.5 places. If Australia stay with the Oceania Football Federation, they will only be able to secure a play-off spot and then compete with South America or Asia for a place in the World Cup finals.

Asia's okay to say, but competing with a certain South American team for a place in the qualifiers is too difficult for the Australian team.

But joining the AFC is different. First of all, the level of football in Asia is not very high, except for Japan, South Korea and Iran, Australia basically do not have many opponents in Asia to threaten their opponents, so it is not difficult for Australia to compete for four official World Cup qualification places.

In fact, it is not uncommon for Australia, which is geographically part of a continent to be on a different continent in terms of FA organization.

Israel, for example, is located in West Asia, but it is UEFA. Of course, Israel had to do it out of political considerations – the biggest financiers of the AFC are the oil tycoons of the Middle East, and Israel certainly knows that if they are in the AFC, they will definitely have a hard time.

The same is true of Kazakhstan, a former member of the Soviet Union, which chose to join UEFA instead of the AFC after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Of course, the AFC is also happy to accept a strong team to join the AFC to improve the strength of Asia and strive to win more World Cup places for Asia in the World Cup. And there are also such precedents, the so-called concubine and concubine are a hit.

As a result, Australia's secession from Oceania and its entry into the AFC went very well.

It's just that for the rest of the Asian teams, the addition of Australia has made them bitter.

Australia's skills are not much better than those of Asian teams, but they do have one thing that no other team in Asia can match – and that is their immense physicality.

Many of the Australian players have made the switch from rugby, and despite their rough technique, their strong bodies have made them look like tigers breaking into a flock of sheep against many teams in Asia.

The Chinese team has gone all the way, relying on Li Qingshan's strong play, crushing many teams to reach the finals.

But Li Qingshan's strong body can resist the tiger-wolf-like Australian kangaroo, which makes many people feel bottomless.

Moreover, this is Australia's home stadium, and the home whistle is inevitable, even if Li Qingshan can have an advantage in physical confrontation, but if the referee's scale is biased towards Australia, Li Qingshan will suffer a lot.

What's more, apart from Li Qingshan, it is estimated that other Chinese players will have a hard time competing with the Australians in physical confrontation.

The physical fitness of Chinese players is considered to be at the upper level in Asia, although it is not as good as a team like Iran, but it can still have a clear advantage compared to Japanese and Southeast Asian teams.

But it still can't compare to the Australian players.

In this match, the Australians will definitely make a fuss about the physical confrontation.

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The final was played at the Australian Stadium in Sydney.

For the Chinese team, their semi-final match was a day later than the Australians, and they had to travel from Newcastle to Sydney immediately after the semi-final, while Australia were waiting for a long time.

Despite this, in a pre-match interview, Li Qingshan expressed great confidence.

"Now that we're in the final, we're definitely going to give it our all. Australia is very strong, but we are not weak either. It's going to be a good race, but the winner will be ours. ”

..........

At this time, at the Australian stadium, a large number of Chinese fans occupied the surrounding area early.

Many of them flew directly from China to watch the Asian Cup final of the national football team, and some of them have been in Australia for some time with the Chinese team's game, and there are also many local Chinese in Australia.

"Although this is Australia, with the support of our enthusiastic Chinese fans, I believe that the national football team will not feel lonely in the Australian football stadium again."

Duan Xuan was holding the microphone, and behind him was a crowd of fans.

"According to the official news of the Asian Cup, the 20,000 tickets provided by the organizers to the Chinese team have already been booked, and if you add the fans and friends who buy bulk tickets and travel tickets, it is expected that more than 40,000 Chinese fans will pour into the Australian stadium."

"Now the team's bus has been slowly driving over, and this much-anticipated Asian Cup final is less than two hours away from kick-off!"