Chapter Sixty-Third: Battle of the Cattle Warriors

Chapter Sixty-Third: Battle of the Cattle Warriors

At the Bernabéu in Madrid, Spain, the stands were already full of voices. From a distance, it was a fiery red scene. A World Cup qualifier mobilized all the Spaniards.

Even King Juan Carlos I of Spain said before the game: "Spain cannot live without the World Cup, and the World Cup cannot live without Spain!"

Since 1978, Spain has never missed a World Cup match, and this time is the same. Before the game, Calagones also said in an interview with the media: "This game will be related to the honor of the whole of Spain. If there is any mistake, we will win the game and present the tickets to the World Cup as a gift to the people!"

Although Spain was the double champion of the European Cup and the World Cup in Degan's previous life, before winning the European Football Championship in 2008, although Spain was recognized as a football power in the world, it was unable to achieve outstanding results in international competitions for a long time. Some players can reach the world's top level, but the overall strength is not outstanding.

Previously, Spain's representative honor was only the 1964 European Football Championship, followed by the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Football Championship, and the best previous performance in the World Cup was only the third place in the 1950 World Cup.

In the World Cup held in Brazil in 1950, Spain successfully entered the finals, with teams including England, the United States and Chile. In the end, they completed all the group matches with a complete victory and qualified as the top of the list.

The current competition system is rather special. It is not a single knockout match that determines who the World Cup champion will be. Instead, the four teams that won the top spot in the first round of groupings will play against each other in groups.

The four teams that advanced to the final group were Uruguay, Brazil, Sweden, and Spain. In the end, Spain did not win a game in the final group, finishing the game with 1 and 2 losses and winning the fourth place.

In 1962, the legendary coach Vilalonga was appointed as the head coach of the Spanish team. Under Vilalonga, Spain was able to qualify for the 1962 World Cup, but was eliminated early in the first round of the group stage against Brazil, the Czech Republic and Mexico, and the legendary superstar Ferenc Puskas, originally from Hungary In 2011, he joined Spain to play in the World Cup, but failed to perform well.

Two years later, Spain hosted the second edition of the European Football Championship. They beat Romania, Northern Ireland and Ireland to reach the semi-finals in a two-leg knockout round.

The Spanish team's opponent in the semi-finals was Hungary, the favorite to win the championship at the time. After overtime, Spain struggled to advance with a score of 2:1.

Immediately afterwards, Spain faced the then very powerful Soviet Union in the final held in Madrid. In the end, Spain defeated its opponent by virtue of the right time and place, and won the first international championship in history for Spain.

As the European champion, Spain automatically qualified for the World Cup in England in 1966. The team retained the 1964 champion team, and Vilalonga also stayed as coach. Unfortunately, the Spanish team lost to the same group of strong teams Argentina and West Germany. And then beat Switzerland but still not enough to qualify. Vilalonga resigned after being out of the World Cup, and the Spanish team entered a period of darkness.

Since the defeat of the World Cup in 1966 and the resignation of Vilalonga, the Spanish team failed to make it to the final stage in the next three consecutive European Football Championships and two World Cups. The sluggish situation did not improve until the European Football Championship qualifiers in 1976. They were in the same group as Romania, Scotland and Denmark in the qualifier group and won consecutively. However, they lost 1:3 to West Germany and were still selected. Sai refused.

The 1978 World Cup in Argentina was the first time the Spanish team returned to the international football stage since 1966, and it was also the only competition they participated in throughout the 1970s. After breaking through the qualifiers with the first place in the group, Spain was divided into the third group in the first round of the finals. The same group included old rivals Brazil and Sweden, as well as Austria. However, the Spanish team got off to a bad start and unexpectedly lost 1:2 to Austria in their first appearance. Immediately afterwards, he improved his status. In the second game, he drew 0:0 with Brazil, and in the third game, he also defeated Sweden 1:0. Unfortunately, he still couldn't escape the fate of being eliminated in the first round. It can be said that he paid the price for his slow performance.

In 1982, Spain hosted the World Cup for the first time, and it was also the first time that 16 teams were expanded to 24 teams to compete in the finals. As the host country, Spain generally had high expectations for the national team led by Sindamaria.

However, in the opening game, they were tied 1:1 by Honduras. Fortunately, they beat Yugoslavia 2:1 in the second round.

After the promotion, Spain lost 1:2 to West Germany again, and in the last game they drew 0:0 with England, so they were unable to reverse the situation and advance to the semi-finals. After the finals, the head coach Sindamaria was immediately fired by the Spanish Football Association.

Frustrated in the 1982 World Cup, the new Spanish coach Miguel Venus played. Under his leadership, Spain performed well in the 1984 European Football Championship and the 1986 World Cup.

Spain beat Malta 12:1 in the final match of the 1984 European Nations Cup qualifiers. As a result, they scored more goals against the Netherlands, which originally had an 11-goal advantage in goal difference, and miraculously qualified for the qualifying round. In the first round of the group stage of the final week, he defeated the favorite West Germany to qualify for the semi-finals, and then defeated the impressive Denmark in a penalty shootout in the semi-finals. He entered the finals for the first time since 1964, and finally won 0:2. Enemy host France finished second.

In the 1986 World Cup, Spain reached the last quarter-finals. In the quarter-finals, they defeated Denmark again with a big score of 5:1, but lost to Belgium in the quarter-finals.

Immediately afterwards, in order to prepare for the World Cup in Italy, the Spanish Football Association invited Suarez, who had scored a total of 100 goals for Barcelona and Inter Milan in 1988, and who had won the European Football Championship for Spain in 1964, to coach the team. The players of the Spanish team did not dare to relax under the command of this well-respected celebrity. After they easily passed the qualifiers, they had no record with Uruguay in the first match of the final group. name promotion. In the knockout round of 16, they were eliminated by Yugoslavia.

In the 1994 World Cup in the United States, although Spain appeared in the group stage easily, it was eventually defeated by Italy led by Baggio, and missed the semi-finals again.

In the UEFA European Football Championship two years later, Spain was in the same group as Bulgaria, France and Romania. Spain drew with their opponents 1:1 in the first two group matches, and took advantage of the last game to beat Romania 2:1. No. 2 qualifying.

Then in the quarter-finals, Spain was defeated by the host country England. In order to avoid conceding first and falling behind, both sides played cautiously on the field. Finally, after 120 minutes of no goals, Spain suffered a penalty shootout.

In the 1998 World Cup in France, the Spanish team played a high-profile game before the game, but in the end they did not advance but retreated, which disappointed the supporters. Although they remained unbeaten in the previous series of qualifiers, Spain still has to pay a heavy price for its usual slow-heating habits when it comes to the finals with 32 teams participating for the first time. They defeated Nigeria 2:3 in their first game, and then they couldn't attack Paraguay for a long time, so they made a 0:0 draw. Even if they beat Bulgaria 6:1 in the final game of the group, it was too late and they were out of the game.

The Spanish team went from bad to worse after the World Cup in France. They lost 2:3 to Cyprus in the European Championship qualifiers. This embarrassing defeat made the national team feel ashamed.

Although they finally entered the European Cup in 2000, Spain's results were still unsatisfactory. They narrowly qualified in the group stage, and finally lost to the thriving France in the first round of the knockout round. They had no choice but to accept the fate of being eliminated.

In 2002, the Japan-Korea World Cup was the first World Cup jointly organized by the two countries and held in Asia for the first time. Spain had a complete lineup and sufficient preparations for this World Cup, showing its due strength.

They won all three games in the group stage. Apart from changing the bad habit of not winning the first game in the past, they also showed a good state and scoring ability. The opponent in the first round of the knockout round was Ireland. The two armies drew with their respective strikers Morientes and Robbie Keane in the specified time. After overtime and no more goals, the young Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas became the The protagonist of the final stage, allowing Spain to eliminate a stubborn opponent.

Spain was eliminated in the quarter-finals and caused a huge controversy because the opponent South Korea obviously manipulated the black whistle. During the game, the soccer ball went over the South Korean team's goal twice, but both goals were disallowed by the Egyptian referee Gandour. Therefore, the South Korean team got their wish to enter the semi-finals after shooting penalty kicks, creating the most glorious World Cup result in its history.

In the UEFA Euro 2004, hosted by neighboring Portugal, Spain was placed in Group A with the two last finalist teams, Portugal and Greece, and Russia. Spain beat Russia by one goal in the first game, but they were forced to draw by Greece in the next game when Morientes scored first. In the crucial third game, Spain only needed to draw with their opponent Portugal to qualify. Unfortunately, the only goal in the game came from the opponent's striker Nuno Gomez, who had no choice but to accept the fate of being eliminated.

After this European Cup, the Spanish Football Association immediately decided to hire Calagones as the team's head coach to continue to impact the 2006 World Cup.

If there is no such unexpected factor as Digan, Calagones' appointment will usher in the revival of Spanish football. He won all the championships in the three European Cups in 2010, and also created a glorious era of Spanish football.

But now that there is Degan, if Spain wants to appear, it has to look at his face.

Although Calagones used all kinds of eyebrows and launched psychological warfare before the game, Belgium ignored them and just kept expressing that they wanted to speak for Spain's honor during the game.

You have a fart honor!

If he hadn't taken care of his face as a famous marshal, Karagones would have been cursing the street.

In fact, I don't blame him. Digan is a planning player. If it wasn't because his parents are about to give birth and they are jumping around, he happened to be born in Belgium as a little bastard. He and Belgium can have a relationship. Doggy relationship.

Now traitorous and defecting to the enemy, he actually wants to fight for the honor of Belgium. He is really not a son of man.

Calagones silently cursed Degan in his heart for not shooting for 90 minutes, but Degan was mobilizing his teammates before the game in the visiting team's locker room.

"I know that we don't have to care about the result of this game now, the tickets for the World Cup have been put in our pockets, we can face this game easily, don't care about the result of the game at all, go to Have fun with football."

Digan was still looking at the faces of his teammates while talking. Obviously, most of them thought so. Even though they didn't say anything, their expressions had already betrayed their hearts. They woke up from the joy of qualifying from the group, and this trip to Spain was almost regarded as a vacation by them.

Digan then changed the subject and his expression became severe: "But what I want to tell you is that people are lazy, you can easily face a failure today, then you can face it with the same mood in the future. For our World Cup, if we lose this game, we will not have any loss, but in the World Cup, if we also lose, then we will face the fate of being eliminated!"

"I don't want to tell you the truth, because in my opinion, football is never a happy game. As long as we stand on the field, we are fighters. Now we wear this shirt of the Belgian national team, so what we represent is The interests of the whole country! Victory! Only victory! Can the fans who support us feel happy, only victory! Can Belgian football win people's respect again, and let them feel afraid when they mention Belgium and the European Red Devils from now on. Legs are trembling, today is our chance, a chance for people to recognize the European Red Devils again, in the previous group stage, we lost to Spain, now it is time for us to recover our honor, the Spaniards call themselves matadors, today Our crazy Red Bull is going to completely overthrow their matador.