Chapter 533: The British team suffered a huge upset, and all countries were ridiculed

Although judging from the score, this seems to be an easy game.

But looking at the actual process, this is not the case.

Italy's strength is far stronger than what this score reflects. They have the strength of the top eight.

But unfortunately, Italy was unlucky and encountered Spain.

If they had met the second-placed team from another group, such as England, the result might have been completely different.

In the last game of the top 16, the British had an accident as expected.

Before the game, the British generally felt that they were sure of victory and were even considering their opponents in the next round.

The reason why the British are so optimistic is simple: their opponent is Iceland.

From the British point of view, Iceland, with a population of only 300,000, is just a small country with a small territory, harsh environment, and a weak population base.

How can it be compared with my empire on which the sun never sets?

Our empire, the Sun Never Sets, sits in the world's largest league, and almost all of the national players come from wealthy families. How can a civilian team like Iceland with no background be compared?

Iceland has never entered the European Cup before, and it is normal for the British to despise them.

However, the strength of this Icelandic team is definitely not weak, and it can even be called the strongest national team in Iceland's history.

With this group of players as a team, the Icelandic team entered the European Cup for the first time in history, and also achieved good results in the quarterfinals of the European Cup.

Two years later, they once again made a breakthrough, fighting their way through the hellish European zone, making a historic entry into the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and even tied with the Argentina team, which was considered the favorite to win the championship!

The world is just deceived by the name Iceland. When they hear the word Iceland, they think they are a soft persimmon that can be manipulated, just like the British.

However, there is a price to pay for underestimating this team!

When the game started, the British were singing and dancing, and everyone was full of confidence.

In the third minute of the game, the Icelandic goalkeeper made a mistake and knocked down British forward Sterling in the penalty area, giving the opponent a penalty kick.

Rooney scored in one stroke and rewritten the score to 1:0.

The opponent gave a big gift at the beginning, which made the British despise their opponent even more, and they all felt that there was no suspense in this game.

However, only 2 minutes later, Iceland threw a sideline ball from the right side. Odnarsson nodded the ball in front of him, and Ragnar Sigurdsson volleyed the ball into the net.

The Iceland team quickly equalized the score and once again created a penalty kick tactic. This was the second time in this European Cup that the Iceland team used a penalty kick tactic to score a goal!

The British paid the price for their arrogance. If they had studied the Icelandic team's previous game videos, they would not have been so careless in their defense just now.

After the score was equalized, the British still didn't realize the seriousness of the matter and still felt that I had the advantage.

After all, only 6 minutes have passed, leaving them plenty of time to attack.

So when the game restarted, the British pounced fiercely, intending to use their sharp offense to tear apart the opponent's defense.

The British team has a strong forward line-up, with Sterling, Harry Kane, and Sturridge as the front three. Vardy, Rashford and others also sit on the bench.

However, the British attack not only failed to score a goal, but was also succeeded by a sneak attack by the opponent.

In the 18th minute of the first half, the Iceland team launched a quick counterattack. Gylvi Sigurdsson sent a through ball, and Bertsvarsson received the ball and knocked it into the penalty area.

At the critical moment, the British team's goalkeeper Joe Hart made a mistake and saved Siborsson's push into his own goal!

The score instantly became 1:2, and the British team fell behind!

This goal shocked the audience!

The British fans looked at their own goal and the goalkeeper kneeling in front of the goal with disbelief. How could it become like this?

If we are so powerful, how could we be ahead of Iceland?

At this moment, they were already a little panicked.

Is it possible that our British Empire will lose to tiny Iceland?

Fearing what would happen, the score fell behind and the British launched a crazy counterattack.

However, the Icelandic team was united and tenaciously withstood their attacks one after another.

Under the stubborn defense of the Icelandic team, the top shooters of the British team performed abnormally. They either fired their anti-aircraft guns or missed their shots.

They completed a total of 20 shots in the game, but only 4 of them were on target.

On the other hand, Iceland, on the opposite side, had only 8 shots, but 5 of them were on target and scored two goals.

Although the British team had the advantage on the field, it had 20 shots and 72% of the ball possession rate, but was unable to convert these advantages into victory. In the end, it had to reveal a big upset of this European Cup-being defeated Iceland is eliminated!

After this game, media from all over Europe were rushing to report on the matter.

As a troublemaker in Europe, the British have always been very unpopular.

Any country that can seize the opportunity to mock the British will not let it go.

Therefore, after losing the game, major media outlets from various countries started to spray the British team to pieces.

Not only the foreign media are spraying, but the local British media are also spraying, even more harshly.

Some extreme fans even went to protest outside the FA headquarters and demanded that the British team coach Hodgson step down.

This guy has the highest salary among all 24 head coaches in this European Cup, which is higher than the salary of Spain's legendary coach Del Bosque.

Of course the British fans would not be happy with such a high salary but such bad results.

Hodgson could not withstand the pressure and soon announced his resignation.

Although the salary package offered by the Football Association is very attractive, the job is really difficult to do.

He has already earned enough and doesn’t want to be scolded anymore, so he might as well take the money and run away!

While the British people were scolding them in an uproar, there was a lot of joy in Iceland.

The result of this game was really shocking. Even for the Icelanders, being able to break into the knockout rounds was enough to make them proud.

Unexpectedly, this group of young men from the national team could continue to create miracles and eliminate the powerful British team.

This has plunged the entire country of Iceland into a frenzy. Now every step forward for the team is making history, and they are the witnesses of history.

The outstanding performance of the Icelandic team has made many European fans think of a team from 12 years ago. It was a dark horse with a similar grassroots background and was not favored by others. His name was - the Greek team!

Could it be said that the Icelandic team got the same script that the Greek team got twelve years ago?

If this is the case, then the Iceland team's opponent in the next game will be in danger!

As luck would have it, Iceland's opponent in the next round is the host France.

Britain and France are feuding. After losing to Iceland, the British media said with bad intentions:

“Iceland is an underestimated team. If the French team dares to attack aggressively, it is very likely that they will encounter the same ending as the British team. Therefore, if the French team wants to win, the best way is to play defensive counterattack! "

This sentence disgusts the French people!

What does it mean that the French team does not dare to attack with a large army?

Do you really think that the French team is as fat as your British team?

France is a serious top team, right?

So the French all said that they must attack!

If we don't dare to attack Iceland, where will our country's reputation go?

However, some calm French people said that this was the British using provocation.

The Icelandic team's counterattack threat is indeed great. If the French team really attacks in a big way, it will be difficult to guarantee that they will not be attacked by the opponent.

However, the French team has been put on fire. As the hosts, they cannot be cowardly at this time.

You can go to school if you want to, and you can go to school if you don’t want to!

However, compared to the game between France VS Iceland, the most attractive one in the quarter-finals is another championship and runner-up battle - Spain VS Germany!

If the last match between Spain and Italy was a feud between the champions and runners-up of the last European Cup, then this match between Spain and Germany is another showdown between the champions and runners-up of the last World Cup.

Whether Spain, as the champion, will continue its glory and defeat the German team again, or whether the German tank will succeed in revenge and overthrow the Spanish matador, this game will reveal the answer.

…

The German team attaches great importance to Spain as an opponent. Since losing to Spain in the World Cup final two years ago, their head coach Loew has added another task to his daily work - studying Spanish game videos.

Not only studying their national team's game videos, but also collecting information on each of their players, and discussing ways to target each other with the players and coaching staff.

It is no exaggeration to say that the people in the world who know the Spanish team best may not be themselves, but the Germans!

The Germans have been preparing for this battle of revenge for a long time. This time, they vowed to make the Spaniards pay the price!

Compared with the attention paid by the Germans, the Spanish team attaches significantly less importance to the German team.

It's not that they underestimated the enemy, but they really had too many enemies to take care of.

To put it into detail, Spain has quite a few powerful enemies.

On the European side, there are the German team, the Dutch team, the French team and the Italian team.

On the Latin American side, there are also five-star Brazil and Argentina with Messi.

Each of these opponents is not easy to deal with, and each of them cannot be ignored.

Therefore, although Del Bosque is also studying information about his opponents, because there are too many opponents, he is not able to collect as much information as Loew and his team.

"The German team is a top team, and I believe I don't need to say anything more about their strength!"

Before the game, Bosque gathered the players and conducted some ideological mobilization for them.

"Although Klose withdrew from the German team, they have added many strong newcomers, such as Reus."

Reus missed the last World Cup due to injury, which is something that many German fans have always been worried about.

They feel that if Reus had not been absent, the outcome of the World Cup final might have been different.

Royce is very strong, and no one who has watched him play will deny this.

Last season, Royce delivered perfect results in Dortmund with 27 goals and 9 assists in 45 games!

Royce, when healthy, is capable of competing for the fourth man spot in football!

His joining has greatly increased the offensive threat in the German team's midfield and frontcourt, and also doubled the pressure on the opponent's defense.

Historically, Royce unfortunately missed this European Cup due to injuries.

But in this time and space, Royce did not miss this event.

Because of Lin Quan's reminder, Royce reduced his playing time in unnecessary games after communicating with Dortmund coach Tuchel, allowing him to maintain good physical condition.

With the reduction in game time, his performance not only did not decline, but actually improved.

Last season, Royce scored 3 more goals and 2 more assists than ever before.

Although Royce's injury is still a hidden danger, after a season of conditioning, everything is developing in a good direction.

After the departures of Gotze, Lewandowski and Klopp, Dortmund began to enter a period of reconstruction.

Royce also understands that the team's reconstruction cannot be completed in a short time, so when he is on the court, he will weigh the pros and cons, fight hard when he should fight hard, and hold back when he should hold back. physical strength.

After not being overworked like before, Royce's injury condition improved a lot and he finally made it to this European Cup.

This made him very grateful to Lin Quan. He even called Lin Quan before the game and agreed to have a drink after the game.

"So, don't think that we are certain to win, and don't put all your hopes on Lin!"

Del Bosque emphasized the last half of the sentence. He found that after Lin Quan returned, the players were a little too optimistic.

Optimism is a good thing, but too much optimism is bad.

If you don't pay attention to your opponent, even a world champion will overturn in just a matter of minutes.

Bosque's knock made the Spanish players more vigilant.

No matter what he was thinking in his heart, he nodded obediently at this time, as if he understood.

“It’s not all bad for us to meet the German team early!”

After seeing that the players began to pay attention, Bosque changed the subject:

"The German team is undoubtedly one of the strongest teams in this European Cup. As long as we can defeat them, we can clear the biggest obstacle on our way to winning the championship. In this way, the next schedule will be much easier. It will be easier for us to win the championship!”

This sentence was unanimously recognized by the players. Compared with the host France team and the European Red Devils Belgium, the Spanish internationals still recognized the strength of the German team more.

The midfielder of this German team is very luxurious and is one of the few opponents whose midfielder does not lose to Spain.

Moreover, after Guardiola joined Bayern, he brought passing and controlling skills to the German team, which also made the German team one of the teams that knows Spain best in terms of tactics.

Such an opponent, no matter from any aspect, is Spain's biggest threat!