Chapter 36: Asia Trip, Part
Ricardo fell asleep three times on the plane, watched three movies, ate three meals, but went to the bathroom nine times... He couldn't help it. Seeing people coming and going always aroused his desire, and the bathroom was too close. He could get there just by turning around. It was convenient...
Finally, the international flight that the Barcelona team took slowly landed at Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan; the rising sun shone through the clouds onto the wide runway. The plane's tires made slight contact with the ground, making a slight friction sound, followed by the roar of the plane gradually slowing down...
The flight took off from Barcelona on the evening of the 27th. The flight time was extremely long, and considering the time difference between the two places, it was already early morning on the 29th in Tokyo, Japan when we landed.
Although in Ricardo's impression, Old Li Qi had been to Tokyo many times and played many tricks... but this was the first time for Ricardo to come to Tokyo. Sitting on the bus to the hotel in the city, he watched the gradually awakening oriental city, the extremely busy traffic and the hurried flow of people intertwined...
Ricardo was a little dazed. This really seemed like a lifetime ago. It would be better if he didn't feel like...
After settling in the hotel, the whole team went their separate ways. The head coach and some first-team stars had to attend commercial activities, while the rest of the coaching staff and the remaining players had most of the day to move freely. They didn’t need to regroup at the hotel until 17:18 in the evening, and headed to the Tokyo Olympic Stadium at : for an open training session, so that the fans who bought tickets could come and see the monkey, oh no, to see the idol…
During the day, Ricardo took Sarafina to explore downtown Tokyo... Ricardo realized that his aesthetic taste was oriental. Looking at the Asian beauties wearing miniskirts or waist-length shorts, camisole tops or translucent T-shirts in the hot summer, Ricardo felt a little uncomfortable...
After a while, Ricardo's arms and lower back were already bruised by Sarafina:
"Brother, what's so good about these short-armed and short-legged mediocre girls?"
"Brother, so you like the type with big butt, round face and carrot legs?"
"Brother, they all used Asian magic, and they all look ugly after taking off their makeup at home..."
Huh?! I didn’t expect Sarafina to know the four most famous East Asian sorcery techniques: Korean plastic surgery, Thai sex change, Japanese makeup and Chinese Photoshop…
Well, let's take Sarafina to eat some authentic Japanese food and experience the great contribution of East Asian civilization to the world's food culture! Speaking of food, Sarafina's attention was immediately diverted!
……
During the two days in Japan, Ricardo always accompanied Sarafina on his trips. Although they did a lot of shopping, it was mainly Sarafina who did the shopping. They bought some inexpensive Japanese specialties. The more expensive thing was two custom-made kimonos... Ricardo had no chance to go out and have fun, oh no, to walk around the streets...
This also avoids the situation that Barcelona teammates may see themselves in the European and American regions in the future...
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东京当地时间2005年7月30日的下午18时，能容纳接近6万名观众的日本蓝鸟体育场(NissanStadium)--2002年韩日世界杯决赛的主办地(当时名叫横滨国际竞技场)座无虚席，西甲冠军巴塞罗那将在此进行亚洲行的第一场友谊赛，对手是日本J联赛冠军横滨水手队。
In fact, on June 6 last month, when Ricardo was fighting in the Netherlands, the Barcelona team, which was mainly composed of substitutes and second-line players, had already traveled to Japan to play against Yokohama F. Marinos. At that time, the two sides drew 12-3.
After a month and a half, the two sides played again. In the last game, Barcelona was in the penultimate game during the off-season at the end of the season. The whole team was exhausted and had no intention of playing. This game was the first game against a professional team in Barcelona's first two weeks of preparations for the season. The whole team was still looking for its form...
Yokohama F. Marinos are in the middle of the league and are in good form, but it is a period of high competition and they may be a little tired.
Before the game, the media predicted that Ronaldinho, Marcos and Messi would make their first appearance for the team in the new season, but the three were not seen in Rijkaard's starting lineup.
Rijkaard also experimented with a new formation in this game. He also changed his traditional 4-3-3 formation into 4-4-2. Giuly and Eto'o formed the double striker, Ricardo, Ronaldinho and Messi all sat on the bench, and the Dutch midfielder Van Bommel who joined this summer started the game.
The first half of the game was difficult to describe. Both teams played in a rather chaotic manner and Barcelona had very few shooting opportunities.
Although Deco and Van Bommel were very active, especially the Dutchman, his dribbling and organization in the frontcourt made up for the absence of Ronaldinho.
But Yokohama F. Marinos clearly took advantage of Barcelona's jet lag, constantly increasing the intensity of the confrontation and changing the rhythm, making it impossible for Barcelona to find the right rhythm; and turning the game into a chaotic mode, giving themselves opportunities to fish in troubled waters.
However, just when the home team's attack was improving, Barcelona launched a fatal attack. In the 43rd minute, Giuly made a cross from the sideline, but it was the tall and not so obvious Xavi who headed the ball in from the back row to open the scoring. Barcelona ended the first half with a 1-0 lead.
At the start of the second half, Rijkaard made five substitutions, with Iniesta, Larsson, Sylvinho, Gabri and Li Qi coming on. Li Qi replaced Albertini (who is about to retire this summer) to help Xavi sort out the midfield.
After Li Qi came on the court, he teamed up with Xavi and began to constantly try to control the rhythm, reduce the speed, and increase the success rate of passing and attacking... This changed the situation in the first half, and Barcelona gradually took more control of the initiative.
In the 60th minute, Rijkaard saw this and replaced Eto'o with Ronaldinho, and arranged for Ronaldinho to lead the team to launch a general attack on the opponent...
However, Barcelona's wing defense made a mistake at this time. In the 77th minute, Yuzo Kurihara, who came on as a substitute in the second half, broke through Valdes' goal with a quick counterattack. The score became 1-1.
In the next ten minutes or so, Barcelona had many good chances to score, but the shots of Giuly, Iniesta and others were just a little off.
However, just as the game was about to enter injury time, Li Qi, who had been responsible for intercepting and organizing the defense near the midfield, suddenly moved forward, received Ronaldinho's over-the-top pass, and calmly shot into the far corner!
In the end, Barcelona won the first game of their Asian tour with a score of 2-1. Ricardo also scored a winning goal for Sarafina in the audience... Fortunately, there was a statistic to report.
The next day, the Barcelona team continued to relax and participate in commercial activities in Tokyo, Japan. Ricardo was also arranged to participate in an interview. In addition, as one of the global spokespersons for Nike and Coca-Cola, Ricardo also had to attend two commercial activities and photo shoots...
On the afternoon of August 8, the whole team who had not had enough fun and the club who felt they had not earned enough had to take an ANA flight to Macau. Fortunately, the flight only took 2 hours.
On the morning of August 8, in the palm-sized Macau, the whole team walked around and ate freely and participated in some commercial activities. In the afternoon, they went on the field for open training. At 3 o'clock in the evening, they played a football invitational match with the SZ Jianlibao team, the champion of the first year of the Chinese Super League.
Although they are the leaders of the Chinese Super League, the SZ Jianlibao team is a second-tier team after the league just ended last weekend and many of the team's main players have already left for the national team to prepare for the upcoming East Asian Cup. This makes the difference between the two teams, which was already very different in strength, even greater...
This game was exactly the opposite of the previous one, with Barcelona's top star Ronaldinho starting in midfield, assisted by Li Qi in organizing the attack, the defense was led by captain and Spanish international Puyol, and the forward line was partnered by Swedish international Larsson and French forward Giuly.
Eto'o, who started in the previous game, and midfield main players Deco, Xavi and Messi sat on the bench.
The unorganized Jianlibao team was at a disadvantage right from the start, and the game was mainly played in Jianlibao's half. Under the command of Ronaldinho's father, Barcelona launched waves of attacks on Jianlibao's goal with a combination of wing and center.
In the 25th minute, after a series of dazzling penetrations in the middle, Li Qi assisted Iniesta to complete the final blow, and Barcelona took the lead 1-0.
In the 38th minute, Larsson received a cross from Giuly and used a juggling move in front of the goal to flick the ball into the net.
In the 40th minute, Giuly broke through the middle again, dribbled past the goalkeeper of the Jianliburg team and shot into the empty goal.
Before the end of the first half, Li Qi returned the favor, this time assisting Ronaldinho's father to score a lob shot from the top of the penalty area!
It sounds nice to call it an assist, but in reality Li Qi just passed the ball to Ronaldinho's father in the middle, then watched Ronaldinho's father perform 1vs3 in the middle, and finally suddenly shot the ball into the 10-point corner...
Barcelona went into the halftime break with a 4-0 lead.
Ronaldinho's wonderful lob shot in the last minute of the first half, as well as his exquisite ball control, dribbling and distribution skills won continuous applause and cheers from the 1.6 spectators in the stadium... So Ronaldinho's father punched out and went to rest at halftime.
In the second half, Rijkaard replaced Ronaldinho with the entire main midfield except him - Deco, Xavi and Van Bommel; the number one striker Eto'o and Argentina's rising star Messi also appeared... Li Qi was also replaced.
Under the continuous attack of dribbling masters such as Deco, Eto'o and Messi, the Jianlibao team lost five goals in the second half. Eto'o and Messi scored twice, and Deco scored another goal. Among them, Messi scored a goal with a half-side volley in the 63rd minute, which shocked the audience and won warm applause from the audience.
Another thing I have to mention is that in the 57th minute of the game, Eto'o broke into the penalty area and won a penalty, but then he missed the penalty, which also showed the humanity of the Cameroonian football king... Otherwise, if the score reached double digits, the leaders' faces would not look good...
There was also a small detail in the game that neither Barcelona nor the European media would pay attention to, but Ricardo had been paying attention to it: the great emperor Li Yi, who was not selected for the national team this time, was traveling with the team to Macau...
According to local media reports, after failing to be selected for the national team and playing against the CQ Hotpot team, the Great Emperor disappeared. It was not until two days ago that he returned to the team for training. In the match against the Hotpot team, the Great Emperor was replaced by Xiao Guo at halftime, so the Jianlibao team was scored 3 goals in the second half...
In this game, the Great Emperor did not play in the first 89 minutes, and the Jianliburg team was scored 8 goals! This shows the irreplaceable role of the Great Emperor in the team!
Just as Ricardo, who was resting, was bragging to other second-tier players, the Great Emperor, who Ricardo claimed could be compared with Henry, finally came on as a substitute in the 90th minute of the game!
This also made the second-tier players on the Barcelona bench excited: After losing 8 games, could the legendary player in the Chinese team, who Ricardo mentioned as a hidden dragon and crouching tiger, still have an amazing performance? !
The emperor who just came on the field also showed extraordinary dominance. He waved his arms to signal the backcourt players to kick the ball forward. This also made the Barcelona second-tier players who didn't know the truth on the bench full of expectations!
However, the slap in the face came very quickly... Barcelona immediately responded to the emperor's passionate behavior and poured cold water on Ricardo's shameless words. Before the emperor even touched the ball, Eto'o received a pass from the backcourt and broke into the penalty area and shot at a small angle, and the score became 9-0...
It doesn't matter! As long as you are not embarrassed, others will be embarrassed... Ricardo and the emperor on the field may think so...
Ricardo thought: Anyway, it’s the emperor who’s playing on the field, not me…
The emperor thought: Anyway, it was the coach who sent me to play, and it was the goalkeeper who lost the ball, not me...
Anyway, the emperor is still running hard and fearlessly in the frontcourt...
Although the emperor acted as if he didn't care and had a chance to equalize the score at any time; but the referee was a wise man. The Cameroonian football king had set an example, so he couldn't add any more time. It would be embarrassing if the score reached double digits. He blew the whistle to end the game after a symbolic one-minute extra time...
Thus ended the battle between the Emperor and the Barcelona stars! The stories on the top of Huashan Mountain are always very short... But Ricardo knew that the story of the Emperor was not over...
……
The next morning, the Barcelona team had half a day off to play, except for some key players who had to wait for arrangements to attend business activities...
Ricardo had no business plans this time, so he accompanied Sarafina to visit the Ruins of St. Paul's and the Fortress Park, took a lot of photos, and bought a lot of souvenirs...
Neither of them is a fan of gambling, so they don't have any special feelings about the world-famous Oriental Las Vegas.
Of course, Ricardo knew that old Richie’s knowledge included many other interesting things about Macau...but he was accompanying the underage princess, so he couldn’t do anything rash!
I’ll wait until next time… until there are more readers following and following me…
…On the evening of August 8, Ricardo and the entire team passed through Hong Kong International Airport and boarded a Cathay Pacific Airways flight back to Barcelona, Spain.
But this time, Sarafina did not go with them.
It’s a rare trip to Asia, and Sarafina still has 2-3 days of vacation - she has exams and competitions next week, so Sarafina plans to have a good time in Hong Kong, known as the Pearl of the Orient, and then fly back to Milan on August 8 - the destination is also different from Riccardo...
Therefore, Ricardo, who is used to keeping a low profile, did not ask for an upgrade on the return trip. He just asked for a quieter economy class seat to rest well...
Shortly after the plane took off, the lights in the cabin were dimmed and it was time to sleep. Ricardo looked at his teammates who were either sleeping or busy with their own things, and pressed the button to call the flight attendant...
I only heard the beautiful stewardess gently reply: "I'm sorry, sir, the last business class seat on this flight has just been upgraded by your teammate..."
"Yeah, yes, it seems to be a short young man..."
Only then did he realize that the seats in the first two rows where Messi was originally sitting were empty. Ricardo was so excited that a group of alpaca horses were galloping in his heart...
Damn, someone got there first?! This is retribution...
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