Chapter 81 The French team attacks
Lin Quan really hasn't paid attention to this issue because he is not the favorite this year.
He only played for less than half a season. Although he performed well, it was too short and far behind those popular players who had been playing for one or two years.
"The selection for the Golden Boy Award starts in late October every year and is announced before Christmas in December. Now is the critical period for the selection of the Golden Boy Award. The Spanish Football Federation is working hard for Isco. I want to fight for you. .”
Between Isco and Lin Quan, Bosque definitely prefers Lin Quan.
After all, the latter is a player he single-handedly promoted, and Isco has not yet been selected for the national team. Among the two, he will definitely choose Lin Quan.
"Even if you don't get selected this year, you still need to create momentum. That way, it will be easier to come back for selection next year!"
"Moreover, our team's penalty kicks have always been unstable. Almost all of these players on the field have a record of missing penalty kicks."
This is the reason why Bosque insists on doing this. The group of players in the team are really unreliable.
As long as they were more reliable, they would not hand over the responsibility of taking penalty kicks to a young player who is not yet 17 years old.
Lin Quan still had concerns. To be honest, he was a little tempted by Bosque's proposal.
Who doesn’t want the privilege of taking penalty kicks that can increase the number of goals scored?
Maybe if we take a few more penalties during the game, the top scorer's Golden Boot award will be secure.
According to the rules of the system, if you win the Golden Boot Award, you will be rewarded with points.
But if this kind of privilege is really given to him, will the veteran players in the team be convinced?
He didn't want to ruin the atmosphere within the team and make the old players unhappy.
So he thought for a moment and said:
"Thank you for your kindness, but I think it's not fair to other players to just let me take a penalty kick. So..."
Seeing that he was about to refuse, Bosque sighed and changed his words:
"Okay, in that case, let's add you to the list of penalty kicks. You and other players take turns taking penalty kicks. Whoever misses the penalty will take the next one's turn. If he doesn't miss the penalty, he will continue to take penalty kicks until the penalty kick is taken. Until I throw it away, what do you think?"
This proposal is good. It does not give him special privileges, but also gives him the opportunity to compete with other teammates.
If his teammates missed the penalty kick, then he would have a chance, and his teammates would have nothing to complain about.
"Okay, I'll follow your arrangement!"
Bosque shook his head. This kid, everyone else was vying for the privilege of taking a penalty kick, but it turned out that he was lucky enough to take the penalty kick, but he didn't want it.
While Spain was preparing nervously for the match, their opponents, the French team, had already arrived in Madrid by plane.
Because the home team is strong, Spanish fans did not do anything excessive towards the away team.
They often go to the national team's training base to cheer for their home team.
"Does that mean we have Messi?"
"Wow, this is so beautiful!"
"Tsk, tsk, this footwork is worthy of coming from the La Masia youth training camp!"
Many fans who made a special trip to see Lin Quan came over outside the training base. Most of these fans started to fall in love with this young man in the team after watching the live broadcast of the match between Spain and Belarus.
They held slogans with various words in their hands. Some were wearing Lin Quan's No. 30 jersey for the national team, while others were holding up his No. 10 jersey for Werder Bremen. The expressions on their faces were all excited.
"Tsk tsk, you have so many fans!"
Morata is a little envious and jealous. Why doesn't he, who is tall and handsome, not have so many fans?
He must have not scored enough goals. If he can score three goals, then these people will definitely become his loyal fans.
"Compared to the captain and the others, they are still far behind!"
Lin Quan looked to the sidelines, where Casillas and Ramos were signing autographs for their fans.
There were so many fans for the two of them that their arms were sore when they signed, and they had not yet come out of the circle of fans...
The training base of the national team is in Madrid, which belongs to Real Madrid.
Ramos and Casillas are both Real Madrid's main players, so it's no surprise that they are warmly welcomed by the fans on their home turf.
On the contrary, Barcelona players are very low-key in Madrid because they know that even in the national team, there are still many Madrid fans who do not welcome them.
Just like the boos Pique received when he came in, although this has something to do with him humiliating Real Madrid by holding out five fingers on the field.
However, the grievances between Barcelona and Real Madrid have been too deep over the years, and it is common for fans of the two teams to attack and slander each other.
Add to that Catalonia’s separatism, and things get even more complicated.
In this case, it is better to keep a low profile.
This is also the reason why Lin Quan did not sign autographs for the fans who supported him. Although he has never played for Barcelona, he is still a Barcelona player in name.
So he was worried that he would be booed when he went out, after all, he had benefited from Pique before...
At around 6:30 in the afternoon, the players of the Spanish national team took the bus and started heading to the Calderon Stadium, the venue for this game.
This may be the last time the Spanish national team plays a World Cup qualifying match at the Calderon Stadium. After Atletico Madrid received a capital injection from Wanda and decided to build a new stadium, the Calderon Stadium is likely to face the fate of being demolished.
Therefore, among the several candidate stadiums that applied to host this group stage, the Spanish Football Association deliberately chose the Cadelon Stadium, abandoning stadiums with better conditions such as the Bernabeu.
This match between Spain and France is a highlight of the third round of the 2014 Brazil World Cup European Qualifiers.
In addition to many TV stations in Spain choosing to broadcast it live, Sky Sports also broadcast the game.
Because the game between Britain and Poland will not be played until tomorrow afternoon, this game has also attracted a lot of attention in the UK. Sky Sports even arranged for an ace commentator like Martin Taylor to explain the game.
"Spain has won 24 consecutive games in the world preliminaries. They slaughtered Belarus 6-0 in their last away game. The team is currently in a hot state.
In addition to the World Cup winning members, there are also some new faces in their team.
Like their No. 30 player Lin, this is the core of the frontcourt offense of Werder Bremen, which ranks fourth in the Bundesliga this season.
He has currently played 6 games in the Bundesliga and scored nine goals. His ultra-high efficiency of 1.5 goals per game ranks first in the entire Bundesliga.
As for the national team, he has only played one game for the Spanish national team, but has scored three goals and three assists.
Although this player is young, he has already shown the potential of a superstar. I believe there will definitely be many wealthy clubs chasing him this winter. "
Like Martin Taylor, there are many people who pay close attention to Lin Quan, such as the French commentators. In their pre-match analysis, they emphasized Lin Quan's threat to the French team in the frontcourt.
Ribery, who has played against Lin Quan in the league, also emphasized that Lin Quan is the most threatening player in the Spanish team in an interview before the game.
In the current state of the French team, they have little chance of winning against Spain without Lin Quan.
When Lin Quan joined and Spain began to evolve towards the ultimate body, when they met Spain, their winning rate might be even lower.
“Although we don’t want to say it, we have to admit that in the face of the team’s hard power, we are no longer the top team in the world.
There is a big gap between us and Spain, the double champions of the World Cup and European Cup. Our goal in this game should be to maintain a tie. As long as we don't lose on the road, we will have hope of winning when we return to our home court in the next round! "
France's commentators are pessimistic, and so is their head coach.
In this game, they took a defensive stance and planned to play back.
During the European Cup, they let their hands and feet play against Spain, but they were beaten 2:0 by the opponent.
Now that the opponents have become stronger, if they still play like that, wouldn't they be looking for death?
Of course, just kicking back doesn't mean they give up.
On the contrary, compressing one's own formation into the backcourt and allowing the opponent's formation to press up will be more conducive to their counterattack.
Although Spain's passing and control system is very powerful, the French team pursues efficiency, not ball possession.
As long as they can score one or two goals in the counterattack, they will most likely win in the end. What's the use of Spain having a higher ball possession rate?
At 19:45, players from both sides began to enter the stadium one after another.
The formations of both sides in this game are 433, and the starting lineup is:
Spain: No. 1 Casillas, No. 17 Arbeloa, No. 16 Busquets, No. 15 Ramos, No. 18 Alba, No. 8 Xavi, No. 10 Cesc Fabregas, No. 6 Ines Ta, No. 21 Silva, No. 30 Lin Quan, No. 11 Pedro
France: No. 1 Lloris (the one in the 2022 World Cup final) No. 2 Debich, No. 21 Koscielny, No. 5 Sakho, No. 3 Evra, No. 6 Cabaye, No. 17 Gonalons, 12 No. Matuidi, No. 14 Mene, No. 10 Benzema, No. 7 Ribery
After playing the national anthem and shaking hands, the time came to 20:00 sharp.
With the referee's whistle, the game officially started.
