Chapter 70 Knockout Match

"Ronaldo, you liar."

"so bad!"

After the game, Dong Fangzhuo ran to the Portuguese locker room and caught Ronaldo.

He punched Ronaldo in the chest, but he grinned.

"Congratulations, you made the cut."

Cristiano Ronaldo felt embarrassed and avoided Dong Fangzhuo a little.

"Well, you know,"

"China is stronger than Portugal, we want to go to the bottom half..." Ronaldo expressed his thoughts.

"You should be able to go further in the lower half, hahaha."

"Just laugh...can't you tell from this year's game? It's hard to beat anyone. You have to be careful and don't be as careless as your teammates. If you are careless, you will die!"

"I am serious."

Ronaldo stopped smiling.

"Ok, I know."

"This is really a strange World Cup. I always feel that it is very different from before." Ronaldo agreed. Of course, he also felt that this cup was different.

And two days later, when all the group matches were over and the tournament organizers made statistics on the group matches, many of the records were incredible.

Because of the intervention of VAR technology, there have been more penalty kicks.

The record of 18 penalty kicks held in the 2002 World Cup was achieved in 64 games, but it only took 36 games to break the record of 18 goals in this World Cup. Ever since FIFA announced the introduction of VAR in this World Cup, there has been constant controversy. The controversy over VAR focuses more on the results of penalty kicks - which is also the direct reason for the surge in the number of penalty kicks so far in this World Cup. In the 48 games in the group stage, 23 penalties were taken and 18 were scored. Judging from the current trend, the number of penalty kicks will continue to rise.

The second point is that there are so many games where we don’t score!

There were 36 games without 0:0 in this World Cup in Russia. It was not until France's 0:0 victory over Denmark in the third round of the group stage that it broke the record of 26 games without 0:0 in the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland and successfully created the single record in the history of the World Cup. There is no record for the most 0:0 games.

The third point is that there are so many 1:0 scores.

1:0 in the group stage of this World Cup has become an eye-catching phenomenon. As Belgium defeated England 1:0 in the last group match, this was the 13th game in this World Cup with a final score of 1:0. You must know that in the last World Cup in Brazil in 2014, only 12 games in the entire tournament were scored 1:0, and the 2018 Russian knockout has exceeded this value before it even started.

Next is the knockout match.

China VS Uruguay, I knew this at the end of Group B, but I didn’t know at that time which teams were in the top half.

Everything is clear now.

Russia's top 16 for the World Cup: the top half includes Argentina, France, China, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Belgium and Japan; the bottom half includes Portugal, Russia, Croatia, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, England and Colombia.

Indeed, Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portugal made the right bet. They bet on the lower half, and the lower half is obviously much simpler than the upper half. At least in terms of name, the upper half is indeed scary enough.

16. There is no Germany in the strong force. This is surprising, but not surprising. The German tank can no longer run, but Argentina unexpectedly appears...Messi's fate in the national team does not look very bad...

However, Argentina's opponent is France, and its fate doesn't seem to be much better. Really no one is optimistic about them, even if Argentina has Messi, the more powerful France is more optimistic. Of course, France's group stage performance was actually not that good. In the first round of the group stage, France defeated Australia 2:1. In the second round of the group stage, France narrowly defeated Peru 1:0. In the last round of the group stage, France tied with Denmark 0:0. Three goals were scored in three group matches, including one penalty kick, one own goal, and only one goal in open play. France relied on these three goals to achieve 2 wins, 1 draw and 7 points, taking the first place in Group C.

Argentina is even worse.

Argentina drew 1:1 in the first match with Iceland, which was competing in the World Cup for the first time. In the second round, Croatia defeated Argentina 3:0. In the third round, Argentina 2:1 Nigeria. Argentina stumbled through the group stage and was on the verge of death. Being pulled back by Croatia, the big brother in this group, they narrowly qualified for second place in the group.

The other matches are Brazil VS Mexico and Belgium VS Japan. Portugal VS Russia, Croatia VS Denmark, Sweden VS Switzerland, Colombia VS England.

As for China VS Uruguay?

The Chinese team also played against Uruguay in the last World Cup. In the end, the Chinese team defeated Uruguay 3:2. At that time, the game was controversial. Uruguay believed that China could not win. This year, the two teams met again. Uruguay has Chance has a revenge, if only they have the means.

Suarez, the team's ace, believes, "Luck cannot always be on China's side. It's time for us to win this year."

"But the Chinese team is still very strong. Spain was defeated by them. I think we have to show 200% of our strength."

"They have the best players in the world and that's the most special thing about them. "

After he and Messi are no longer teammates, Suarez is not as careful when speaking. He used to say that Messi is the best player in the world, but now he has changed his mind.

The media also carefully captured the highlights of Suarez's words.

"Luis, didn't you say Messi was the best player in the world before? Why did you become Dong?"

"Oh, in some years, Messi is indeed, but this year Dong is indeed the best player, and most of the time he is..."

"But I think the main reason is that Dong did not appear on the front line. If he appeared on the front line, I believe he has always been." What Suarez said was not hypocritical at all. In fact, his answer did not offend Messi, but he did not speak highly of Dong Fangzhuo.

"How are you going to beat the Chinese team?"

"Defense,"

"Use your best defense."

"We need to use a more powerful offense to threaten them, so that Dong cannot approach our penalty area and let him return to the midfield. I think when we reach the knockout stage, Dong will no longer play forward. If he does not return to the midfielder , the Chinese team’s midfielder has a big problem, they have done this before, and this time is probably no exception.”

"Are you saying that everyone else except Dong is not a threat?"

"It can be said that the Chinese team has many excellent players, but they are not enough to pose a threat to us. Thank God, they did not bring those Brazilians with them in the end, otherwise it would be difficult to deal with."

"You mean naturalized players?"

"Yes, naturalized. Elkeson is still quite a threat. If he is on the front line, then Dong can concentrate on playing midfield."

…

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