Chapter 522 Lin Quan is absent, Spain wins with difficulty!

Before Spain played, the battle between Croatia and Turkey in Group D started first.

Croatia almost scored in the first minute.

Rakitic's shot missed the post and flew out of the baseline, and Croatia almost got off to a dream start.

Turkey is not weak. In the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, it reached the semi-finals and finished third.

Facing Croatia, a direct competitor, the Turks were not timid at all and directly set up a 4141 formation. Their intention to score points against the Croatians was very obvious.

Facing the aggressive Türkiye, the Croatians played very calmly.

With their strong midfield, they gradually controlled the rhythm of the game after the two sides tested each other.

Mandzukic, Perisic, Brozovic and others received excellent scoring opportunities one after another, but unfortunately they failed to seize these opportunities.

In the end, Modric stood up. In the 41st minute of the first half, he seized the opponent's chance to clear the ball and volleyed the ball into the dead center on the left side of the goal, helping the team break the deadlock and score. Rewritten to 1:0.

This goal was very beautiful and very difficult to score.

Originally, Croatia's left midfielder Brozovic wanted to pass to Mandzukic in the penalty area and let him attack the goal with a header.

As a result, Mandzukic failed to grab the first shot and the ball was cleared by the opponent's defender.

By coincidence, the ball that came out of the clearance landed right in front of Modric.

Modric, who was on the outside, saw the ball flying toward him. He didn't make any adjustments at all and shot directly into the air. The hit was not only sudden, but also extremely tricky. The opponent's goalkeeper had no choice but to watch the ball go into the net.

After taking the lead, Croatia played more calmly, constantly taking advantage of the weakness of the opponent's single midfielder and frequently attacking the opponent's ribs, making the Turks lose sight of one thing.

Although the gap in ball possession between the two sides is not large, Croatia's ball possession rate is only 52%, and Turkey's is 48%, which is only 4 percentage points different.

However, the number of shots between the two sides is very different. Croatia completed a total of 19 shots in this game, 6 of which were on target. If many shooters did not frequently waste good opportunities, they would have scored more goals.

On the other hand, Turkey only completed a total of 9 shots, 2 of which were on target. There were very few threatening shots, and they did not achieve the effect they wanted to see before the game.

After winning this game, the Croatians breathed a sigh of relief.

Turkey is their direct competitor for qualifying in the group. Defeating the opponent means that they have the initiative to qualify.

As long as they can defeat the Czech Republic in the next game, they will be guaranteed to qualify.

If you are lucky, you can even look forward to scoring points against Spain and fighting for the chance to top the group.

For Turkey, the results can be described as very bad.

They will face the defending champion Spain in their next game. Even the outside world feels that the Spanish team has been severely weakened after losing Lin Quan, and Turkey's chances of defeating them are still slim.

After the match between the two teams, Croatia and Turkey both chose to pay close attention to the match in Spain.

They want to judge the strength of Spain through the game between Spain and the Czech Republic, and by the way, verify the outside speculation to see if Lin Quan will really miss the game.

There are many teams with the same idea. The match between Spain and the Czech Republic attracted many fans to watch the game, and countless viewers watched the live broadcast on TV and the Internet.

In the German team's training base, Loew led the coaching staff and sat in front of the TV to watch the game attentively.

The expressions of the Germans were quite serious and they were extremely focused, especially the head coach Loew.

The defeat of the last World Cup made him and all Germans very upset. In the past two years, Mrs. Le has thought of countless ways to defeat Spain and take revenge on the opponent.

And this European Cup is the time to verify the results of their efforts over the years.

For the Germans, this European Cup has two main purposes:

1. Win the championship

2. Defeat Spain!

If the opponent in the final is Spain and they complete a gorgeous revenge in the final and win the championship by stepping on Spain's corpse, there is simply nothing more wonderful than this.

At the same time, in the French team's training base, France's head coach Deschamps was doing almost the same thing.

At the same time, in the training bases of many national teams, many of them silently turned on the TV and locked the TV program on the Spain VS Czech Republic game!

On the Internet, fans have already been making noise.

"Do you think Emperor Lin will appear today?"

Whether Lin Quan will play or not is the focus of most attention in this game.

Many people pay more attention to this matter than the game itself.

There are different opinions on the Internet and major media. Some people think that Lin Quan will play. What happened before is just that he and Spain put a smoke bomb to the outside world to confuse the opponent.

Some people also believe that Lin Quan was injured in the Champions League final. This is something that fans all over the world have witnessed. It is less than half a month until the end of the Champions League final. If he was seriously injured, it would be impossible in such a short time. He has fully recovered, so there is a high possibility that he will not play.

Neither side can convince the other, and the final answer will not be known until the game starts.

At four o'clock in the afternoon on June 13, the match between Spain and the Czech Republic officially started.

At the beginning of the game, there was a spectacle on the court: the fans' eyes were not focused on the court, but instead turned to Spain's bench.

Not only Spanish fans are doing this, neutral fans and even Czech fans are doing the same thing.

The reason for them to do this is simple. Lin Quan was not seen in Spain's starting lineup.

If no one is found in the starting lineup, he may end up on the bench.

However, after searching the Spanish bench and looking at the dozen or so players sitting on the bench, they still couldn't find the person they were looking for.

Finally, people saw Lin Quan watching the game with Guardiola and several younger brothers and sisters in the stands.

Lin Quan was wearing casual clothes, sitting in the stands and chatting with Guardiola from time to time, looking relaxed.

Seeing the camera pointed at him, Lin Quan waved to the camera and said hello to the fans at the scene.

However, his appearance also meant that he missed Spain's first game.

This result quickly spread online and offline with viral speed.

The tag that Lin Quan was absent from the European Cup even went directly to the top of the Twitter trend list. The major media couldn't even wait for the results of the game and started writing directly to report the news as soon as possible.

All of a sudden, various reports came one after another.

"The world's first man is absent from the European Cup!" 》

"In the absence of Spain's core figures, the Bullfighting Legion may encounter Waterloo!" 》

"Lin Quan is absent from the European Cup, and the suspense over who will win the championship suddenly arises!" 》

This is quite satisfactory, but some unconventional media seized this opportunity and wanted to make big news:

"The Manchester City superstar may have broken his leg, and the world's number one man will be destroyed by injury!" 》

"The football superstar has fallen, and it is rare to see Lin's breakthrough in the world!" 》

Relying on some baseless things, these media dared to conclude that Lin Quan was ruined by injuries.

This is not the most outrageous thing, there is something even more outrageous:

"Man City did not renew the contract with Lin Quan, the Manchester City legend may be abandoned!" 》

"The number one player in football is frustrated and may retire early!" 》

…

What a good guy, Lin Quan would call him a good guy when he saw it!

Just because he missed a game, these shameless media and reporters had already sentenced him to death.

Three people can become a tiger, and everyone can make money. The media's ability to stir up troubles is truly terrifying.

But at this time, he was in the stands and didn't know anything about it.

"By the way, why doesn't Bosque let you play?"

Guardiola is Lin Quan's coach and his adoptive father, so he is most familiar with Lin Quan's situation.

Although it sounds incredible, after careful and comprehensive examination by the Manchester City team doctor, it was determined that Lin Quan's injury is not serious, and he can resume training and competition after a week or two of rest at most.

Lin Quan and the Manchester City club also informed the Spanish national team of this result, but Del Bosque still chose not to let Lin Quan play, not even giving him a chance to be a substitute.

There are two main purposes for doing this. One is to extend Lin Quan's rest time as much as possible to ensure nothing goes wrong.

The second is to take advantage of the external hype and put a smoke bomb to competitors to confuse them.

Spain's first opponent is not strong and has a high probability of winning.

If they can win successfully, then the possibility of qualifying will be very high.

In this case, Bosque could consider hiding Lin Quan's killer move, and then suddenly reveal it in the knockout stage to catch his opponent off guard.

Of course, if they fail to win the first game, or lose to Turkey in the second game, and have to fight Croatia in the third game, then Del Bosque will have no choice but to use this trump card in advance.

After explaining Bosque's plan to Guardiola, Guardiola nodded:

"His approach is considered safe, but without you in the national team, the game will probably be ugly!"

Guardiola’s words came true!

The Spanish team played in this game was indeed very unsightly!

When Del Bosque sent out all the main players except Lin Quan, Spain's offense was like a constipation.

With its strong midfield, Spain has been firmly in control of the game, with a ball possession rate of 72%, 729 passes in the game, and a pass success rate of 89%!

With their super high ball possession rate, they created a total of 18 shots. However, the forwards had terrible feet. Only 4 of the 18 shots were on target. The opponent only had 4 shots but 3 of them were on target. In terms of threatening the ball, the two teams are evenly matched!

The Spanish fans in the stands were dumbfounded!

Is this still the invincible fleet we remember?

How did TM become like this?

It's only been one game, and Spanish fans have already begun to miss Lin Quan.

If Lin Quan had been present, he wouldn't have played so badly!

These guys simply wouldn't know how to play football without Lin Quan!

Spanish fans were tortured to death by their own team, and neutral fans were drowsy by Spain's endless kicking.

The Czech fans were startled by the frequent shots taken by the Spanish forwards.

Although the opponent's shooting rate is very low and the accuracy is terrible, the more it is like this, the more scary it is!

Because even he himself doesn't know which direction his shot is going, how can the goalkeeper predict and save?

The Czech goalkeeper is none other than the legendary Blues goalkeeper Petr Cech.

Cech was cautious at the beginning of the game because of Spain's huge reputation.

I kept reminding myself: Although Lin Quan is not present, the opponent's team is full of big-name stars, so don't be careless.

However, after experiencing the opponent's unreliable rounds of bombing, Cech was numb!

That's it?

Is this the level of Spanish forwards?

Even if I go up and kick a ball, I can do it more reliably than you guys!

On the sidelines, Del Bosque really couldn't stand it anymore.

After seeing Morata miss a single shot again, he began to make substitution adjustments.

Morata, Nolito, and Fabregas were replaced one after another, and Spain's frontcourt offensive group was overturned and reset.

However, the substitutes who came on the field were equally unreliable.

After getting the ball, all I know is passing it around, but I can't penetrate the opponent's defense.

Finally, relying on a set-piece opportunity, central defender Pique grabbed the opportunity to header. In the 87th minute of the second half, he knocked on the opponent's door with a header and defeated the opponent 1:0 with difficulty. .

The fans who watched the game, whether they were Spanish fans or neutral fans, all cursed and left the stadium.

We came with the expectation of appreciating the highest level of football, but you did this to us?

For those who don’t know, you might think this is the King of Kitchen Competition?

The name of the Spanish champion is indeed resounding, but its actual performance is really unbearable.

This performance was even worse than the performance of the French team in the opening game.

After all, the French team's goals are really scored by the forwards, but your Spanish goals have to be scored by the defenders. It's so eye-catching!

Not surprisingly, after the game, there were a lot of voices that looked down on Spain on the Internet and in the media.

Some people even couldn’t wait to jump out:

"I declare that Spain will withdraw from the European Cup championship!"

"I agree. With Spain's current state today, I doubt they can beat Croatia!"

"Croatia is not weak. Spain might really lose. Once Spain loses, their first place in the group will definitely be lost. Without first place in the group, Spain will be in trouble in the knockout stage!"

There are many people who hold this view. Even the coaches and players of other teams felt that their opportunity had come after watching this game!

Especially Spain's next opponent, Turkey, they seem to see hope of qualifying!