The warm-up match with Macedonia was held in Guangzhou on December 23, which was the last game of the Chinese national team in 2010. After this game, the Chinese team will announce the 23-man roster to finally go to the Asian Cup in Qatar.

If nothing unexpected happens, Zhou Yi will definitely be on the roster unless he encounters a serious injury in the warm-up match against Macedonia...

Not enough, the probability of this happening is too low and not worth mentioning.

There is no suspense on most national teams. Players who are often selected for Gao’s army and perform well should be on the big roster.

There are only some marginal international players, hoping to take advantage of this last warm-up match and seize the time to show themselves, hoping to impress Gao Hongbo and catch the last bus of the national team.

As an opponent in the warm-up match, the star in Macedonia is naturally Inter Milan striker Pandev.

He and Zhou Yi have just played in the Champions League group stage, and Zhou Yi is probably the only Chinese international player who can be named by Pan Dev.

At the pre-match press conference, Pan Defu said that Zhou Yi left a very deep impression on him: "Although it is a warm-up match, we will still do our best, after all, the Chinese team has Zhou Yi here."

This really made Chinese journalists and fans almost collectively say that the forward who was able to win the triple-winning champion was evaluated. Everyone thinks that Zhou Yi is already a top European player.

Macedonia did not perform like perfunctorily in this game. People like Ma De, a famous national team reporter for "Sports Weekly", would always question Gao Hongbo's low performance in leading the team, because most of the games he led the team were warm-up matches.

The opponents in the warm-up competition are uneven and they still work hard.

But Macedonia worked very hard today in this warm-up match.

Therefore, although the Chinese team played at home, they were unable to open up the situation.

In a FIFA ranking in July this year, the Macedonian national team ranked 61st. This ranking is actually not high, but it is also a very strong opponent for the Chinese team.

It was not until the 81st minute that Zhou Yi was tripped by a Macedonian player in the penalty area and won a penalty for the Chinese team that the game turned around.

Deng Zhuoxiang scored a penalty kick, which was a perfect kill of Macedonia.

Although the process was a little difficult, the Chinese team ended their entire game in 2010 with a victory. Their results this year can be refreshed - eleven wins, four draws and three losses throughout the year, and their performance is excellent.

Of course everyone knows that the Asian Cup in half a month is the most important thing. If the Asian Cup is not played well, then all the exciting performances this year will be quickly forgotten, and the world rankings of the highest 75th place will not be worth a penny, and the joy brought to everyone by those victory will not offset the fans' anger and disappointment about the failure of the Asian Cup.

No matter how many times you say "sports spirit", "focus on participation", "not judge heroes by success or failure", and "process is more important than results", it cannot change the fact that football is a utilitarian sport that only looks at results.

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One day after the game, the Chinese team announced their 23rd roster and submitted it to the AFC for registration.

As expected, Zhou Yi was listed.

As the second overseas returnee, Hao Junmin has basically not played much in Schalke 04, but he is still included in the national team list. He cannot play in Schalke 04, but he is still a very capable player for the Chinese team.

There are basically no surprises in other aspects. Players who performed well in the previous year and who are in good shape recently have all been selected.

After the final 23 players were announced, the players who were not selected left the training ground and they can start the rest period after the league ended.

The remaining twenty-three people will continue to train in Guangzhou for a period of time, and will not set off for Qatar until December 30th.

This is the youngest national team in the history of Chinese football to participate in world-class competitions.

From this point of view alone, we can know that the Asian Cup training that Gao Hongbo mentioned is really not a joke...

The Chinese Football Association also expressed support for Gao Hongbo when it was a hot topic, saying that the Football Association did not arrange any specific task goals for Gao Hongbo and the Chinese team in the Asian Cup. As long as they show their style, they should mainly learn and practice the team and prepare for the Asian qualifiers in the World Cup in May.

In this way, the youngest national team in history left China with expectations and controversy and flew to Qatar.

What impact this team can have on Chinese football? Whether it is positive or negative, it is hard to say now.

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After the whole team arrived in Qatar, they played two more warm-up matches to further integrate the team's lineup.

Although Zhou Yi played as a midfielder at Dortmund, Gao Hongbo still placed him in the front midfielder in the national team.

Because Zhou Yi still needs to get closer to the goal to be more threatening. Moreover, at Dortmund, Zhou Yi plays as a midfielder and Shinji Kagawa in front, which can completely guarantee offensive firepower. The Chinese team does not have such a good staffing configuration in this regard.

By pushing Zhou Yi to the front midfielder, while creating more shooting opportunities, he also has the opportunity to shoot by himself and personally threaten the opponent's goal.

This is Gao Hongbo’s plan.

Zhou Yi himself has no objection to playing as a front midfielder in the national team. Anyway, he is not a fixed-position midfielder at Dortmund. He often runs forward and participates in the offense. At this time, there is no difference between him and a front midfielder.

In fact, it is not uncommon for such a player to be unable to match the club and the national team.

For example, Park Ji-sung plays a role player in the midfield at Manchester United, but in the South Korean national team, he is the core player in the middle.

There is no live broadcast of the two warm-up matches, so if domestic fans want to know the information about these two warm-up matches, they can only report through texts from domestic media.

Domestic media are actually focusing on other players of the national team, not Zhou Yi.

Because there is nothing to say about Zhou Yi's performance, it can be summarized in one sentence - "Zhou Yi plays stable in the front midfielder position."

Of course, Zhou Yi's level is OK, but can other international players cooperate with him?

This is the issue that everyone is concerned about.

Judging from these two warm-up matches, the players of the national team actually performed quite well. After all, Zhou Yi has been selected for the national team for a year. Although he has not had much time to participate in the national team training, he is not unfamiliar with this team. From the first day he came to this team, he has shown his special abilities.

Although the Chinese team won the game against Macedonia until the last moment with a penalty kick, their performance was not too satisfying. However, the two warm-up matches after coming to Qatar have restored some confidence to the Chinese reporters who watched the game on the spot. If this is the case, there should be a chance to qualify in the group.

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With some expectations and anxiety, the Asian Cup kicked off.

At 00:15 am on January 8th, Beijing time, host Qatar was the first to debut, which is the opening match of this Asian Cup.

However, the hosts' first-time volume is not very satisfactory - they lost 0:2 to Uzbekistan, the second-level team in this group at home.

This is not good news for the Chinese team, because it means that as the host, Qatar, if he wants to qualify in the group, they will have to defeat the Chinese team in the second game.

And this is at their home court, and the West Asians are particularly good at playing outside the game, which makes people think a lot...

In response, Gao Hongbo said at the pre-match press conference the next day that he didn't care about his opponent's behavior. What the Chinese team should do now is not to be inertial, but to play their own game well.

Because there is still one hour left, the Chinese team will make its debut in this Asian Cup, and their opponent is Kuwait, the weakest team in this group.

Kuwait is not a very strong team. With Zhou Yi's Chinese team's strength has also improved. When the two teams met, China quickly gained the upper hand.

Under Zhou Yi's dispatch and command, the Chinese team firmly controlled the situation on the court.

The commentator mentioned Zhou Yi again and again, praising Zhou Yi's performance.

Zhou Jianliang in front of the TV shook his head when he heard it. After seeing it, Li Cuiyun asked, "Are you very proud?"

Zhou Jianliang coughed and said seriously: "Where is it? Isn't this a normal behavior he should have?"

Although I controlled the situation in the first half, I didn't score.

The first goal of the Chinese team came from the 50th minute. The player who scored was full-back Zhang Linpeng, and this goal was passed by Zhou Yi.

At that time, Zhou Yi took the ball from the left side to the middle, while the Chinese team launched continuous offensives on the left side to look for opportunities, so Kuwait's defensive focus also adjusted to this side to prevent the Chinese team's attack. Zhou Yi was also looking to the left, as if he was really going to pass the football over.

But after attracting Kuwait's defensive attention to the left, he suddenly scored the football to the right.

After Zhang Linpeng, who cut in from the right back at high speed, received the ball and directly shot from the penalty area line. The football drew an arc, bypassed the Kuwait goalkeeper and flew into the goal!

"1:0!! Zhang Linpeng! Beautiful long shot! This is the first goal of the Chinese team in this Asian Cup! Assisted by Zhou Yi!"

After scoring the goal, Zhang Linpeng ran to Zhou Yi who assisted him, and directly picked up Zhou Yi. Other teammates rushed forward to celebrate the goal together.

As everyone mentioned before the game, that is, the internal atmosphere of this national team is really great, and there is no mountain doctrine or factional dispute that has been criticized before. Whether it is old or old, everyone is the same. This is also something Gao Hongbo has always pursued.

In China, the Chinese society, the national team is also a small world. Where there is a world of world, there are troubles that cannot be explained.

These troubles are not conducive to the team's pursuit of good results. So not long after Gao Hongbo took office, he firmly excluded veterans like Zheng Zhi and Li Weifeng, who were outstandingly successful.

This naturally attracted many people's dissatisfaction, but Gao Hongbo insisted on doing so.

If his team leader has good results, fewer and fewer people will object. On the contrary, if his team leader has poor results, then what he does is the reason for his dismissal.
Chapter completed!