Chapter 30 Spoon penalty and invitation from the German Football Association

On July 29, Werder Bremen rushed away to face their last warm-up match opponent of the month, Paderborn from the Bundesliga 2.

In this game, coach Schaff did not adjust the lineup of the midfield and frontcourt, but instead focused on adjusting the arrangement of the defense.

Paderborn ranked fifth in the Bundesliga 2 last season, not far from the promotion zone.

Therefore, their club president is very ambitious and wants to realize his dream of reaching the First Division.

For this reason, they have made great efforts to recruit players this season and bought many powerful players.

Therefore, in terms of overall strength, they are stronger than their previous warm-up match opponent Cottbus.

Werder Bremen and Paderborn are both teams with strong offense and weak defense. In this game, the two sides played like a spark hitting the earth.

In the 13th minute of the first half, Paderborn, playing at home, scored the first goal.

Just five minutes later, Werder Bremen used a counterattack to score a goal to even the score.

In the 28th minute, Werder Bremen took advantage of a free kick in the frontcourt to score directly, and the score became 2:1.

In the injury time of the first half, Werder Bremen had a great opportunity, but De Bruyne's shot bounced off the post.

After the intermission, the two sides changed sides and fought again.

In the 53rd minute, Lin Quan, who came on the bench, dribbled the ball into the opponent's penalty area and was tripped by a defensive player. The referee awarded a penalty kick.

Because captain Fritz, the team's first penalty kicker, took a break, Schaff asked Lin Quan to take the penalty kick himself.

Penalty kicks are a test for the players' psychological quality. He wanted to take this opportunity to observe Lin Quan's ability to withstand pressure and his psychological quality.

Lin Quan has eight years of career experience with Messi and has long been accustomed to penalty kicks.

He stood at the penalty spot, observed the goalkeeper's position and then started to run.

When approaching the football, he suddenly used the change of rhythm to shake the goalkeeper. When the opponent subconsciously made a save action, he kicked the football.

Seeing that Lin Quan touched the ball on his toes, coach Schaff stood up immediately.

This kid must be so courageous, he actually dares to take a penalty kick in this way!

The ball jumped high, not very fast, and had a high arc.

It passed over the head of the goalkeeper who had just made the save and flew steadily into the goal.

Lin Quan scored a goal with a spoon penalty and the score was rewritten to 3:1.

"This kid's mental quality is too good, right? Ordinary players should play as safely as possible, but he was not good at it, and he actually used a spoon to take a penalty..."

Seeing the ball go in, Coach Schaaf breathed a sigh of relief.

After sitting down, I couldn't help complaining to several colleagues around me.

"Well, let me ask, is it possible that a penalty kick is the safest way for this kid to handle it?"

Hernebach's words silenced everyone. . .

In the following dozens of minutes, neither side could change the score.

The final score of 3:1 was maintained until the end, and Werder Bremen won its third consecutive victory in the warm-up match.

Lin Quan, who played in all three games, also scored an economical three points.

Unfortunately, the team has no warm-up match before the end of the second phase of training.

In other words, he would have no games to play in the next half month, which made him feel a little melancholy.

The day when you can buy top talents is still far away!

…

Just when Lin Quan was worrying about not having a game, at the headquarters of the German Football Association, officials from the German Football Association were discussing the team invitation quota for this season's Deutsche Telekom Cup with the sponsor telecommunications company T-Home.

The Deutsche Telekom Cup was founded in 2009 and was formerly known as the German League Cup.

This event is sponsored by the famous telecommunications company T-Home and is held annually.

There are four teams participating in each competition, in addition to the regular invitations to the champions and runners-up of last season's Bundesliga.

We will also invite one team from the mid-table team and one team from the relegation team.

Because there are relatively few teams participating, the rules of the competition are also very simple.

The Deutsche Telekom Cup uses random drawing to conduct two semi-finals. The winning team will advance to the finals, and the two losing teams will advance to the third-place finals, a total of 4 games.

Therefore, the prize money is not high, and the prize money for the champion is only 300,000 euros.

However, it is still attractive for the invited teams to have such a high-level competition before the start of the season to test the success of their respective teams' signings.

In order not to affect the team's preparations, the Telecom Cup competition time is relatively short, and the four games are arranged to be completed within two days.

Moreover, the time of a single game is also limited, with only 30 minutes in each half.

If the game is still tied after sixty minutes, it will go directly to a penalty shootout.

Because of this special competition system, the Telecom Cup has always been an unpopular event.

Even giants like Bayern Munich often fall over. Since the inception of the Deutsche Telekom Cup, the Bundesliga giant has never won a championship.

This season, the first three invited teams for the Telecom Cup have been determined, namely last season’s Bundesliga champion Dortmund and runner-up Bayern Munich.

The team in the relegation zone chose Hamburg, which was just 1 point away from relegation last season.

These three teams are all easy to choose, but who is the best mid-table team to choose?

The German Football Association and sponsors do not agree on this issue.

According to the German Football Association, there are 18 teams in the Bundesliga, and the mid-range team must be ninth or tenth.

The two teams are Werder Bremen in ninth place and Nuremberg in tenth place.

However, the sponsors felt that the cities where these two teams were located were too small, which was not conducive to publicity and promotion, so they wanted to choose Stuttgart from a big city.

Stuttgart is the sixth largest city in Germany, with a larger population and greater business value.

The Telecom Cup competition will be held here, which will have a stronger advertising effect on sponsors.

The two sides were at loggerheads, and the German Football Association insisted that the rules could not be broken.

Football is a national sport in Germany and its commercial value is huge, so there is no need to worry about not having sponsors.

The reason why I cooperated with T-Home was entirely because the other party was a local company and I had a very pleasant cooperation experience in the past, so I chose them.

If they get carried away because of this and criticize the work of the Football Association, then the German Football Association does not mind changing to another sponsor, such as Volkswagen, which is very good.

Upon hearing this, T-Home immediately became scared and expressed its respect for the Football Association's choice.

Seeing that the other party had compromised, the German Football Association also gave the other party a favor and chose Bremen, a slightly larger city, among Werder Bremen and Nuremberg.

Soon, the invitation from the German Football Association was sent to the club's head coach Schaaf.

Seeing this invitation, Shaf was a little hesitant:

Should I accept it or not?

Accept the invitation and you will have the chance to receive the €300,000 bonus and a share of the ticket sales.

However, this will disrupt the team's training plan.

And two consecutive games in two days is also a test for the players.

The older players may be fine, but for the young players, especially those who have not played in the Bundesliga, it is a huge challenge.

In particular, they are very likely to play against strong teams like Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.

If they were accidentally beaten by the opponent, the confidence they had accumulated from the previous three consecutive victories might be completely wiped out.

So, instead of making a decision on his own, he summoned the coaching staff and called Lin Quan and De Bruyne, the two most outstanding young players, to ask for their opinions.

Lin Quan's eyes widened as soon as he heard that there were still games to play, and that he was still the Bundesliga champion and runner-up.

This is a game worth two points!

Go, must go!