Chapter 1 Copa America

Is the Chinese team participating in the Copa America?

This may sound like a joke, but it is a fact.

The 39th Copa America will start in Paraguay on July 17, and end on August 6. There are a total of twelve teams participating in the competition, divided into three groups.

Originally, before 1993, the Copa America team had always had only ten teams in South America. Unlike other Continental Cups, the time for the Copa America had never seemed to have no fixed rules.

As early as the Copa America was first established, it was once a year, then it became biennial, and then it became four-year. After 1989, it returned to a biennial game.

After 1993, in order to expand its influence and the revenue of the tournament, the Copa America began to invite teams from other continents to participate. First in 1993, the United States and Mexico were invited to participate. Then this year, due to the sudden withdrawal of the United States, South American Football Federation urgently sought a substitute.

So the Chinese team fell into their eyes.

China is the most populous country in the world, not to mention that their performance has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years. The fourth-place finish in the World Cup will not surprise people even if they win the championship in the Copa America. In addition, this image is also present on FIFA, so naturally, the Chinese team squeezed out the original position of the Japanese team, and as the first Asian team received an invitation to participate in the Copa America.

This decision was announced half a year ago. After the season ended, it should have been a tense pre-match training, but Ling Feng ran to the United States with his butt to watch the Women's World Cup. However, other Chinese team members could not learn from Ling Feng, so they had to go back to China to participate in training honestly. Ling Feng will meet with them directly in Paraguay after the Women's World Cup.

The Chinese team's lineup for the Copa America this time is roughly the same as the World Cup lineup a year ago, but there are many new faces on the bench. Li Ming, Shen Si, Peng Weiguo, Mao Yijun and other domestic league players appeared on the roster. The starting striker Hao Haidong couldn't stand it, and Yang Chen, in another position, had to compete with Gao Feng, Su Maozhen and others for the position.

None of the young players in Fiorentina were selected. Of course, Liu Dong and Yue Lingxiang, who were shining in the World Cup, were not in Fiorentina now, so they were selected for the national team. Ding Rui, a young player used by Ling Feng to exchange Ronaldo, squeezed out Li Jinyu at the last moment because of his outstanding performance in Inter Milan and was selected for the new national team.

The twelve teams are divided into four groups.

Group a: Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia and China;

Group b: Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela;

Group c: Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and Ecuador.

Among them, Peru's preparations were the most active. They started preparing four months ago and played eight friendly matches. The Chinese team only started training a month and a half ago, with a total of three friendly matches. Ling Feng only participated in a match with Costa Rica after watching the Women's World Cup - and after playing for half an hour, he scored a goal and went back to sleep...

In Ling Feng's words, I'm embarrassed to go to other people's territory and grab their championship. I'd better take it easy and just try to exercise.

Of course, even if he is so bold, he dare not make this clear. There are two overlords in South America who are holding on, Brazil and Argentina. It would be enough for Ling Feng to take a random shot.

When it comes to Argentina, it has to be said that the god of war Batistuta, Argentina stopped in the quarterfinals in the World Cup, and head coach Pasarella stepped down in disgrace, and the one who came with Argentina's madman Bielsa.

According to Ling Feng's memory, Bielsa, a madman, does not buy anyone's account. It can be said that he is more domineering than Passarella. Therefore, in this Copa America, Barty, Peron and others deliberately made excuses not to participate, let alone Redondo.

But the situation is different now. Even if Bielsa comes to power, he always has to give Maradona some face. Originally, Bielsa did not give Lao Ma a face, but the problem is that he won fourth place with a broken team (Argentine media said) and led Fiorentina to set a world record in a row, and won the title of Triple Crown for two consecutive years. So Lao Ma is very happy now. Even if he handed over the coaching stick of Fiorentina, his fame is much greater than before. After all, it was just fans respected him, and the top leaders of the Argentine Football Association did not buy his account at all, but now it is different.

Mr. Ma told the media that the Argentine team needs to inject young blood, so the senior management of the Argentine Football Association ordered Bielsa to recruit young players. Bielsa doesn't do it, so you just get out of here...

Argentina is a country with crazy people. Passarella, Bielsa, and Maradona, none of them have a normal mind. Bielsa stepped down and the Argentine Football Association has been calling on Lao Ma to come back to coach. Anyway, Maradona has completely quit her job as a head coach in Fiorentina, so she doesn't mind taking over Bielsa's class and signing his contract until the 2002 World Cup.

In other words, the old hooligan is going to take the Argentina team to compete for the 2002 World Cup championship, and at that time he will be one of Ling Feng's biggest obstacles.

Bielsa is capable, but he is too crazy. His famous saying is that Argentina is full of football geniuses, and I can win the World Cup championship by just a few people.

He doesn't like Batistuta, his love will be Crespo.

Before the World Cup, he didn't even leave any chance for Barty. No matter how high the domestic call for the God of War was, he even insisted on not recruiting Barty into the national team!

Another thing is that he doesn't like Riquelme.

It is precisely because of his persistence that Barty was replaced every time he played in the 2002 World Cup. It is also because of his persistence that Rikelme was not even taken to South Korea in 2002!

Riquelme's voice in Argentina is very high. In 2001, his voice even surpassed the old donkey Ortega. Although Riquelme was abducted to China by Ling Feng, the domestic voice has not weakened at all.

As soon as the old horse sticks out his butt, it can be said to represent the voices of most Argentina fans.

Under his appeal, the Argentina team united unprecedentedly, Batistuta, Riquelme, Canigia, Redondo, and Veron all returned to the team honestly. In addition, the old horse is not as partial as Bielsa. He left a place for Crespo and recruited the current top rookie Saviola of Argentina and the "madman" Palermo of Boca.

In addition, Emmar and Cambiaso, who performed well in the 1997 World Youth Championship, were also able to enter Lao Ma's roster, and almost all of the well-known Argentina superstars joined!

And more importantly, Lao Ma is willing to give others a chance.

Cardinho Lopez and Batistuta partnered in the World Cup, one of which was quick and the other was steady to form the sharp offensive line of the Argentina team.

The 32-year-old son of the wind, Canigia, is not old now, and he will compete with Lopez for this position, and the rabbit Saviora is also competing for it.

In the selection of center, Batistuta is the first choice for Argentina, but Maradona did not give up the other completely like Bielsa. He left Crespo in the team and even arranged a lineup of three forwards - Bati and Crespo's double forwards, next to Lopez or Saviola as the winger.

Maradona's bold tactics did make many people sweat.

As for the midfield, Argentina's current midfield can even be described as gorgeous.

Redondo's return greatly enhanced the control ability of the Argentine midfielder, as well as Simeone's stable defense, the double midfielder formed by Peron and Ortega, Riquelme, Emmar and Cambiaso as substitutes, also performed well in the warm-up match.

There was basically no change in the defense line. The only surprise was that goalkeeper Roa patted his butt and announced his retirement because of his belief in Buddhism. Maradona had to leave Bonano of the River Plate team as the starter.

In the three warm-up matches, they won against China, Peru and Spain (When China and Argentina were playing against football, Ling Feng was still watching the game in the United States, and he didn't even leave the phone number of Lao Ma asking him to go back to participate). Maradona was the limelight in Argentina for a while, and Argentina also became one of the teams with the highest call for winning the World Cup this year.

Another team that is very popular is Brazil, which is naturally possible - you can think of it with your toes.

Ronaldo has been recuperating in China for half a year and can finally return to the stadium. However, he has not participated in the competition for half a year. The mule has gained a little weight, which has forced him to conduct more than a month of weight loss training to lose fat on his body.

In the words of the doctor, Ronaldo's chronic disease has been almost cured, and he still has a little injury, but which player is not injured - except for Ling Feng, a pervert...

Romario still has not been selected for the national team, but Rivaldo, who helped Barcelona win the league championship last season, has now become a new idol figure for Brazil. Ronaldinho, who is very cool among Saint-Germain, has also been selected for the national team. People are affectionately called him: "Ronaldo Jr..."

The 3R combination that Brazil had invincible in the World Cup in 2002 has now arrived, and is stronger than in 2002 - because Ronaldo is no longer troubled by injuries.

There are three seed teams, two world-class teams, and one host... But the host's current situation does not seem to be very good.

Paraguay's top star and world's number one goalkeeper Chilavit refused to participate in this Copa America.

Chilavit believes that Paraguay does not have the ability to hold a large cup now, and the three large stadiums built specifically for the cup are meaningless, so he refused to be selected for the Paraguay national team. This behavior even caused dissatisfaction among the senior management of Paraguay nationals, but that guy still did his own thing.

Ling Feng was yawning. He thought he could coach this guy well, but it seemed that there was no chance now.

The teams are ready to go, ambitious, and the one who is least confident is Venezuelan coach Pastorissa. The Argentinian even said before the game: "We are satisfied if we can win the second-to-last place."

There was a Japanese team in history at the bottom, and Venezuela really got the second to last place as she wished. Unfortunately, now that the Japanese team has been replaced by the Chinese team, it is really difficult to realize this wish.

Ling Feng's transfer next season still has no trend, and he only said in an interview that his goal is still the La Liga champion, but the team is something that no one can imagine.

No one knows what medicine is sold in Ling Feng's gourd, but everyone knows that this guy has always been so sneaky and too lazy to talk about him.

Chinese fans' enthusiasm for this Copa America is beyond the imagination of South American Football Federation. No wonder, the women's football team won the World Cup just now, so the men's football team naturally needs to support it. Don't want to win the championship, at least don't lose our Asian people.

The first game after the opening ceremony was Peru vs. China.

Peru is a traditional American strong team, but now their level can only be ranked second in the world. After a year of training, the Chinese team members have matured more. With their incredible confidence, the outcome of this game has actually been decided before the game.

To be honest, the other three teams in Group A were not in Ling Feng's eyes. Even the strongest host Paraguay, who lacked the leadership of leader Chilavit, was just a mess of sand, so Ling Feng sat on the bench and prepared to deal with the accident at any time in the second half.

Now the head coach of the Chinese team, Zhu Guanglu, has been learning in the Americas. His coaching style is more inclined to the Americas. It is very strange. Ling Feng did not point fingers at Zhu Guanglu’s tactics like he did back then, but Zhu Guanglu didn’t understand Ling Feng’s meaning. He had to discuss everything with Ling Feng first to see if it was feasible.

Ling Feng laughed. He had no choice but to steal Qi Wusheng's coaching power back then, because at that time, the Chinese team had no comparison with the current ones, and he naturally had the final say in the tactics. But after all, Zhu Guanglu had been with Santana for two years, and now he wanted his personal coaching level.

It is impossible for the Chinese team to be supported by Ling Feng forever.

The Chinese team played very well in the first game, overwhelming the opponent from beginning to end, and finally defeated the opponent 3:1 without Ling Feng playing, achieving a good start.
Chapter completed!