Chapter 418: A thrilling warm-up match and a warm welcome from the Dragon Kingdom

Chapter 418: A heart-stirring warm-up match and a warm welcome from the Dragon Kingdom

"aoaooaoaoooooo——"

The cheers at the Zurich Stadium came one after another.

Portuguese fans danced and expressed their joy at expanding the score.

In sharp contrast, the Belgian fans shook their heads and sighed, feeling depressed.

Spain coach Lopetegui, Morocco coach Renard and Persia coach Queiroz all feel heavy hearts and have great worries about the future World Cup group matches.

Four teams compete for two qualifying spots.

Judging from the situation on paper, Portugal and Spain have almost locked in two of the few places.

But Morocco and Persia want to compete.

In addition, Spain's current overall strength has declined a bit, and it can definitely compete.

Coupled with the special nature of the World Cup, even Portugal is the most perfect result in the world of fighting countries.

Both Queiroz and Renard want to cause some trouble in Portugal, the favorite to qualify and the biggest favorite to win the Cup.

If we can achieve an upset in the subsequent games that cause trouble, it will naturally be an upset here in Spain!

As long as you complete the set goals, your chances of qualifying will increase significantly!

Belgium, which was trailing by two goals, obviously did not want to accept such an ending. They had to strengthen their offense to see if they could narrow the gap before the end of the first half.

Only then will there be a greater probability of turning defeat into victory.

The Portuguese defensive system led by Martin was gradually assembled, and the overall defensive strength increased significantly. It did not give any chance to the Belgian national team led by De Bruyne and Hazard.

Until the final whistle of the first half sounded, the scoreboard still showed Portugal leading Belgium 2:0.

"The first half is over!"

Central 5 commentator He Weilang said loudly: "Portugal led Belgium 2:0 at the Zurich Stadium with Martin's passing and shooting achievements. It is worth mentioning that with the addition of Martin, Portugal's strength on both offense and defense has increased greatly, especially since it has been criticized in the past. A defensive and sometimes constipated offense..."

"I believe fans of the Portuguese national team know very well that with Martin, Portugal has not only made great achievements on both offense and defense, but its aggressiveness has also been greatly improved."

Guest commentator Xu Yang said solemnly: "Speaking of this, I have to lament that there was once a road leading to the World Cup of the Warring States in front of us, but the competent authorities..."

He was about to say something. He Wei, who was the main commentator, saw Martin in the broadcast and quickly interrupted: "Martin's ability is really too strong. He can bring huge benefits to any team on both offense and defense. With such an increase, it’s no wonder that Portugal can become the biggest favorite to win this World Cup!”

Although He Wei's explanation was timely and did not cause his superiors to temporarily intervene and warn, the fans in front of the TV still heard a lot of content.

The vast majority of Dragon Country fans have long been very dissatisfied with what the Football Association has done, especially the various outrageous actions in the past two years, which have made it impossible to see any possibility of progress, which has also led to more and more fans becoming angry. .

There are also many fans with "special skills" to express their strong dissatisfaction by invading the official website of the Football Association and the content of official accounts on social platforms.

Masters among the people, this sentence has never been true.

Officials have always been on guard, but to no avail.

Therefore, his actions during the half-time break of the match between Portugal and Belgium aroused the cheers of a large number of Dragon Country fans, venting their strong dissatisfaction with the FA.

……

The fifteen minutes of halftime between Belgium and Portugal passed quickly. The starting players from both sides returned to the court through the player tunnel. However, not all players entered the court, but some of them were transferred to the bench. The substitutes who had finished warming up during the halftime break Players appear.

Both sides have made adjustments to their lineups.

However, the ones replaced are not the absolute core players, but those players who have the ability to compete for the starting lineup to find out their feelings, and by the way, see if they can complete the contingency plan B formulated before the game.

Each player's technical ability is different. How to use changes in tactics to display the player's unique technical ability is an important reflection of the ability of a head coach.

Santos has not changed much at the tactical level, but his players are great.

Martinez has a high level of tactics and knows how to use people well. In order to prepare for this World Cup, it can be said that he forgets to eat and sleep.

But that's the case in many cases. It doesn't take hard work to get the same reward.

Portuguese head coach Santos is not very capable, but his luck is unlucky.

In the European Cup in France two years ago, if it were not for the expansion of the team, they would have been eliminated in the group stage after three consecutive draws.

The 1/8 finals against Croatia and the 1/4 finals against Poland were both tied within ninety minutes and relied on overtime goals and penalty kicks respectively to advance to the semi-finals.

Wales met in the semi-finals and was the weakest team to advance to the semi-finals. It was not surprising to win with two goals and advance to the finals.

Facing the host France's 'sacrifice' Cristiano Ronaldo in the final, when almost everyone thought Portugal would lose in the final, they relied on unity and luck to drag the game into a tense situation. In overtime, the little-known Eder was outside the penalty area. He suddenly used a cold arrow to seal his throat with a sword...

Even in the eyes of many fans, Ronaldo, who was injured, has more coaching temperament than Santos on the sidelines.

It is precisely this that shows that Santos is very lucky.

France won the European Cup, and now that Martin has joined the team, the overall strength of the Portuguese national team has increased significantly and they have become the favorite to win the championship.

Substitutions were also made for half of the main players. Portugal, with Martin, played no worse than all the main players in the first half.

Belgium's overall performance has declined severely, and even if De Bruyne and Hazard work very hard, they can't make changes.

On the other hand, Portugal played impressively on both offense and defense.

The Moroccan head coach, the Persian head coach and the Spanish head coach all felt the same headache, but they were also vaguely aware of the possibility of changing the situation.

Portugal's strength does not seem to decline due to too many personnel changes. The most critical direction is Martin's stable performance.

Although Premier League teams and top European clubs have tried to limit Martin's performance in the Premier League and Champions League, the results have all ended in failure.

But in the eyes of Renard, Queiroz and Lopetegui, there is still a possibility of operation, even if the possibility is very low.

Football is a sport full of uncertainty, and no one knows what the outcome of the next game will be.

So far, no team has been able to restrict Martin from doing nothing in the entire game, but it does not mean that future games will still end like past games.

……

Belgium made substitution adjustments but still couldn't find the feeling. Portugal once again created an absolute scoring opportunity.

Martin received B Fee's aggressive through ball in the middle, stopped and turned, and then without making any adjustments, he made a very light pass to the left rib of the penalty area.

Ronaldo's movement took away the defense of Vertonghen and Kompany.

Andre Silva, who came on as a substitute, appeared at the spot where Martin passed the ball. He completed the stop-and-play transition in one go, and the kicked football flew close to the ground and into the lower right corner of the goal...

Goalkeeper Courtois failed to react in time and declared that the city gate was lost.

The score displayed on the scoreboard also changed from 0:2 to 0:3.

The Portuguese players gathered in a group, and the Portuguese fans in the audience cheered.

The Belgian players on the court were dejected and depressed.

De Bruyne shook his head and sighed in pain.

He has been trying hard to catch up with Martin, but he didn't expect that the distance between them is still getting farther and farther...

In the 57th minute of the game, Portugal made two substitutions.

Ronaldo and Martin were replaced by Guedes and Quaresma respectively.

With Martin still on the court, Portugal's overall performance declined a bit, and there were some problems on both offense and defense. At the beginning, I could still rely on my good personal strength to resolve the problem, but as the game progressed, the problems exposed became more and more serious...

They conceded three goals in a row in the 69th, 76th and 83rd minutes respectively.

Fortunately, Seat B used his strong personal dribbling ability to successfully create points in the penalty area in the 89th minute. Quaresma made a precise hit and fixed the score at 4:3.

No one expected this result.

Especially the fans watching the game were particularly surprised.

Portuguese fans almost had a heart attack...

The three-goal lead was equalized, but fortunately at the last moment of regular time, a penalty kick opportunity was used to exceed the score again, and the score was maintained until the end of the game.

Therefore, the Portuguese domestic media and fans have criticized the performance of head coach Santos.

In their view, although there are factors caused by Martin and Ronaldo being substituted, the role of the head coach is to minimize these potential risk factors as much as possible.

Anyone who watched the live broadcast of the game knew that Santos did not seem to have made enough plans.

In other words, he put all his treasure on Martin.

Martin was outstanding and Portugal were invincible.

Judging from Martin's overall performance after being replaced, if Martin performs poorly or is injured, Portugal may be in chaos and be defeated.

At the routine press conference after the game, the Portuguese domestic media collectively attacked Santos.

The 64-year-old Santos has experienced too many things, but he didn't make much of a fuss when faced with the noise. On the contrary, he took the initiative to take responsibility, claiming that the overall panic after Martin and Ronaldo were substituted was indeed his work. Didn't do a good job.

Finally, he also mentioned that the World Cup of the Fighting Nations will kick off soon, and he will definitely make various plans to bring Portugal to a higher level than two years ago.

In this case, the Portuguese domestic media will be very comfortable.

Only the media reporters from the countries that were the favorites to win the World Cup were unhappy.

Santos's remarks undoubtedly underestimated his national team.

……

Portugal defeated Belgium 4:3 and quickly became the hot focus of major football software.

Fans from each country had their say.

[Martin's personal ability is so outstanding that he can turn the four-way monsters into European hegemons at Arsenal. I think Portugal will also become the absolute hegemon at the national team level under his leadership! (Portuguese fans)]

[How great it would be if Portugal lost Martin~ (Persian fans)]

[Any team that relies too much on a certain player will not have good results. I believe this is the case with Portugal. (German fans)]

[I said, what if Martin gets injured in the warm-up match? (Spanish flag)]

[Portugal’s last warm-up match before the World Cup was against the Dragon Country men’s football team in the Imperial Capital. It is said that that team has great kung fu, and there must be unexpected surprises (French flag)]

[I hope Portugal will perform under the leadership of Martin... (English flag)]

……

The football software [Knowing a Ball] with the most users in Longguo has also become a hot topic.

Some fans are unhappy with Martin's restoration of his Portuguese passport, but many fans also hope that Martin can lead Portugal to the World Cup championship on the top of the green.

According to many almost certain rumors, Martin's restoration of Portuguese nationality is not because he will be unable to be selected for the Dragon Kingdom men's football team, but because of the diary left behind by his adoptive father after his death. Everything is to fulfill the dream of his adoptive father who went west.

If you want to blame, blame those people at the Football Association for not recruiting Martin into the national team.

If you play in two A-level events recognized by FIFA, you will not be able to play for the second national team.

To put it simply, Martin's ability to represent Portugal in the World Cup is entirely the fault of the FA.

In addition, these fans also have a certain bad taste.

Wouldn't it be particularly interesting if Martin led Portugal to win the World Cup?

Some fans even thought about whether Martin would wear a red flag on the night he won the championship?

Many Dragon Country fans are particularly looking forward to it when they think of it.

……

The Portuguese national team ended its international A-level warm-up match with the Belgian national team. The team did not stop in Zurich, but took a special plane back to the training base in Lisbon to prepare for the World Cup group stage.

As for the warm-up match against the Dragon Kingdom men's football team in the Imperial Capital, neither head coach Santos nor the players paid much attention.

The reason is simple. Playing in the Dragon Country men's football team is entirely to allow every player to find confidence.

Why would a team want to win as much as they want?

The vast majority of the 32 teams that have qualified for the World Cup have already submitted their rough match rosters and are just waiting for the group stage of the World Cup to begin.

By then, even if there are injuries, no changes can be made to the lineup.

Portugal's first Group B match against Spain was held on June 6th, local time in the Fighting Nation, and the warm-up match against the Dragons men's football team took place on the evening of June 15th.

According to the plan, the entire Portuguese team will fly to Sochi on a special plane at noon on the 10th to make final preparations.

The time to prepare for the game passes very quickly, but it is torture for the waiting fans.

In the blink of an eye, the time came to the afternoon of the 8th, local time in Long Kingdom.

The flight of the Portuguese national team arrived at the Imperial Capital International Airport.

A large number of fans who follow the Portuguese national team's schedule take the initiative to go, but very few fans can enter the international arrival gate.

The biggest feature of the Dragon Kingdom is the large number of people.

The fan base is also large.

Teito International Airport's international arrival gate has limited capacity, and the airport's capacity is also limited.

In order not to affect the normal travel of other passengers, local patrols have made plans in advance to avoid overcrowding.

Despite this, the Portuguese national team led by Martin and Ronaldo still felt the enthusiasm from the fans of the Dragon Country.

Cristiano Ronaldo has always had a good impression of Dragon Country and has expressed his love for Dragon Country many times in public. Therefore, he has a huge fan base. With the addition of Martin, the attraction will undoubtedly increase significantly.

Everywhere you look, there are banners, slogans and flags related to Martin and Ronaldo.

"Martin Martin! I love you!"

"Cristiano, I love you!"

"Martin! Cristiano! We love you so much..."

……

The fanatical atmosphere that hit their faces also made Martin and Ronaldo fully feel the love from the fans of Dragon Country.

(End of this chapter)