Chapter 294: Win all three matches and advance to the top spot in the group!
On June 24, the final round of the group stage began.
The Brazilian team withstood the pressure. When facing Cameroon in the final round, they defeated their opponent with a score of 4:1 and successfully advanced to the knockout rounds as the first in the group.
Although Mexico also defeated Croatia, their goal difference was 2 points less than Brazil's and had to advance as second in the group.
As for Modric's Croatia, they had one win and two losses after three games, ranking third in the group and unfortunately eliminated.
Cameroon, from Africa, lost all three games, scoring 1 goal and conceding 9 goals, and was eliminated in humiliation.
After the qualifying teams of Group A were confirmed, the two qualifying teams paid special attention to the final result of Group B.
Since Spain has qualified early, Bosque arranged many substitutes to play in the last game.
De Gea, Koke, Martinez, Juanfran, Villa, Mata, Fabregas, Pedro and others started the game for the first time.
However, in order to ensure that the game can be won stably, Del Bosque still left some main players on the court. Iniesta, Lin Quan and Alonso continued to play.
The team's main center back Ramos was suspended for accumulating two yellow cards. Xavi, David Silva and others sat on the bench to watch the game.
In this game, all the Spanish soldiers were in a relatively relaxed mood and basically had no pressure.
But they still have to fight to win this game!
Although Spain qualified early, it did not completely lock in the first place in the group.
If they lose to Australia by a large margin in the final round, it is theoretically possible for them to lose first place in the group.
But this possibility is relatively small, because Spain currently has a goal difference of 8, 11 goals ahead of the Netherlands and 10 goals ahead of Chile.
With such a big gap, they have to recover unless they can get a big win and pray that Spain loses miserably to Australia.
The former is still somewhat possible, the latter is almost impossible.
Australia has failed both games and is at the bottom of the group. If we expect them to suffer a tragedy against Spain, then we might as well expect to win the jackpot by buying lottery tickets!
The situation of the game also developed as expected.
Facing the weak Australian team, although Spain used most of their substitutes, their substitute lineup was still much stronger than Australia's.
In the 16th minute of the first half, Villa scored, helping the team lead the opponent 1:0.
The Australian players played quite tenaciously. They had already been eliminated early. This game was completely about fighting for honor.
In this case, they did not retreat to their own half and defend blindly, but bravely pulled out to attack Spain.
For Australia, winning is impossible, but if they can score a few goals against Spain, it will be worth it. When Spain wins the championship in the future, they can brag to others after returning home: We have defeated the world champion. Spain's goal!
However, Australia's choice made them a little unable to withstand Spain's fierce attack.
In the 36th minute of the first half, Spain scored again.
After Lin Quan, Mata, Iniesta, Fabregas and others completed many consecutive passes, the football was almost passed into the Australian goal by Lin Quan.
Only at this moment did the Australian players feel the sense of suffocation and powerlessness facing the world's most powerful team. They were able to keep up with the opponent's players at the beginning.
Later, after Spain passed the ball multiple times in a row, they all fainted. A large number of players almost subconsciously followed the ball, and huge holes appeared in the entire defense line, allowing Spanish players to penetrate and shoot at will.
In this case, conceding the ball is not surprising at all, but not conceding the ball is a miracle!
After taking a two-goal lead, Australia finally woke up.
They did not dare to attack anymore and began to shrink their defense line and put on a defensive posture.
The huge strength gap between the two teams made them realize the reality. It is really difficult to score from Spain.
A team as strong as the Netherlands only scored one goal, and the Chilean team didn't score a single goal. That's still Spain with one less player!
Facts have proved that setting up buses does work.
The score of 2:0 remained until the halftime break.
In the second half, the team changed sides and fought again, and Spain made personnel adjustments.
Iniesta was replaced, Torres played, and Spain adopted a two-forward tactic.
However, the double forward tactic seems to be of no use. Facing the opponent's intensive defense, neither Villa nor Torres can find a good chance to score.
Del Bosque continued to make personnel adjustments. In the 65th minute, he replaced Xavi Alonso and replaced him with Xavi.
This substitution quickly achieved results. In the 69th minute, Harvey launched an attack in the midfield. After passing the ball through Lin Quan, it was handed over to Torres' feet.
Torres relied on his strong physical fitness to carry the opponent's defender's pull, broke into the penalty area, and suddenly shot with his feet and scored the ball!
This is Torres' second goal in this World Cup. Both goals came from Lin Quan's assists!
After scoring the goal, Torres was very excited and ran to the sidelines to celebrate with an elegant little slide.
It's so fucking fun to play with these teammates from the national team. There are always a group of selfless and powerful teammates here who are keen to pass the ball to him. As long as he runs out of opportunities, the ball will definitely be delivered to his feet. All he has to do is send the ball into the goal!
Scoring 2 goals in 3 games, and also on the World Cup stage, this makes him feel like he is back at the top!
Torres' best performance in the World Cup was the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when he scored 3 goals in 4 games, including a brace.
Unfortunately, Spain met the powerful French team in the quarter-finals and ended its World Cup journey early. Otherwise, with Torres's fiery state at the time, he would definitely have scored more goals.
Eight years have passed in the blink of an eye, and Torres is already 30 years old. After experiencing the decline of the club and the national team, I thought it would be difficult for him to make any achievements on such an international stage.
Unexpectedly, Lin Quan's appearance gave him a second spring!
He could have scored the few balls that Lin Quan passed to him, but Lin Quan still passed them out selflessly!
It would be great if such a good teammate could be brought to the club!
It's a pity that I can't take it away, and Manchester City won't sell it!
Besides, Torres couldn't say anything about Lin Quan being a green leaf all the time!
After Torres scored, Bosque continued to make substitutions.
He replaced David Silva and replaced Lin Quan.
Although Lin Quan only scored one goal in this game, his role on the court is obvious to the fans.
So, when they saw Lin Quan being replaced, the fans at the scene stood up and applauded him.
Lin Quan also responded by applauding from all sides of the court, thanking the fans for their support.
Seeing this scene, Bosque showed a satisfied smile.
He specially reserved the last substitution spot for Lin Quan, in order to make up for the lack of substitution spots in the previous game, allowing Lin Quan to enjoy the applause and cheers of the fans alone.
"Well done!"
After Lin Quan walked to the sidelines and high-fived David Silva, Del Bosque took the initiative to open his arms and gave him a warm hug.
"Lin, you must be thirsty. Come on, drink some water to replenish your energy!"
As soon as Lin Quan sat down on the bench, coach Tony immediately handed over a bottle of energy drink to ask Lin Quan to replenish his water.
Lin Quan politely thanked him, took it and drank heavily.
He was indeed a little thirsty, and the drink was still iced. Under the scorching sun, he drank it in one sip and felt refreshed!
The other players on the side looked at Lin Quan with envy. The two coaches really favored him!
"Coach Tony, I'm a little thirsty too, can you give me a drink?"
Pique reached out to ask for a drink, but did not receive an enthusiastic reply from Coach Tony.
"Don't you have legs? It's over there, get it yourself!"
Tony replied rudely.
That attitude seemed to say: You're a substitute, you haven't played for a minute, you haven't sweated a drop, and you drink a shitty drink, are you worthy?
Even the main players like Pique were sent back, and the remaining players who were eager to try gave up their ideas.
The club's qualifications are of little use to the national team, and being a big name doesn't work here.
If they leave a bad impression on the coaching staff, their names may not be on the next roster!
After Lin Quan came off the field, Spain's offense seemed to have returned to its old problems.
The team has many attackers in the frontcourt. Pedro, Mata, Fabregas, David Silva, Villa and Torres are not weak in strength.
But there was no way to continue scoring. Spain's ball control advantage was very obvious. The offensive seemed to be wave after wave, but it just couldn't score and was unable to continue to expand the score.
This scene gave Bosque a headache again!
The team on the field was a little familiar and a little strange. What was strange was that he had not seen a Spanish team like this for a long time.
What is familiar is that a few years ago, before Lin Quan joined the Spanish team, Spain under his hands was like this.
Back then, they couldn't even win against the inferior Georgia, and they were almost tied against the national football team.
Thinking of this, Bosque sighed.
What if Lin Quan is injured or suspended one day?
But it's not all bad news. The good news is that Lin Quan has not suffered any major injuries so far, and his physical condition is also very good. He has not received any yellow cards, so there is no need to worry about these problems for the time being.
Moreover, in order to solve the problem of Spain's weak forward, he specially recruited Diego Costa to join the team.
Although this kid is injured now and cannot play for the team yet.
But after he returns from injury, Spain may try to use Diego Costa to replace Lin Quan in the absence of Lin Quan!
While Bosque was thinking about these issues, Spain scored again.
In the 88th minute, Mata scored directly with a free kick, helping Spain rewrite the score to 4:0.
Australia was unable to recover, and still failed to win the last game of the World Cup. Instead, they were massacred by a huge score.
But they didn't feel frustrated or anything. After the game, the Australian players came to find the Spanish players to exchange jerseys.
Some people even ran to the sidelines to get paper, pens and cameras prepared in advance, and asked for autographs and photos from their favorite players.
Looking at the Australian players looking for Spanish players to take photos with each other on the field, the fans at the scene had a strange feeling:
It feels like these people are not here to play football, but to chase stars!
But even so, fans cannot criticize Australian players.
"This is normal. The moment the draw ceremony ended, the Australians should have given up. After all, whoever is assigned to the same group as the world champion and world runner-up would be numb!"
"Yes, in addition to the champions and runners-up of the last World Cup, there is also a strong South American team, Chile, in the group. None of these three teams can be dealt with by Australia. They come to participate in this World Cup, which is really a challenge. Fight for honor."
Australia belongs to the AFC, which is recognized as the weakest region.
In this World Cup, several teams in Asia performed very poorly in the group stages. Not only did they not see any hope of advancing to the knockout rounds, they couldn't even win a single victory. This almost created a record for Asian teams in the World Cup. Worst record ever!
This has once again brought up the proposal on the Internet to reduce the number of places in the AFC World Cup.
Many fans from Europe say that instead of giving up World Cup spots to regions with relatively backward football standards such as Asia and Africa, it would be better to allocate more spots to Europe.
Because there are a lot of good teams in Europe, but due to quota restrictions, they cannot make it to the World Cup.
Of course, this proposal will definitely not be adopted.
In order to encourage the development of areas with relatively backward football standards, FIFA not only will not reduce the World Cup quota for Asian regions, but also wants to allocate more quotas to them.
After all, the World Cup is a stage where all countries in the world are expected to participate.
Even if not every country can send a team to compete, it should be as balanced as possible to benefit all regions on the five continents.
Otherwise, it would be easy for the World Cup to change from a worldwide football event to a carnival in a certain region.
This is completely opposite to their original idea!
Therefore, FIFA is currently discussing the expansion of the World Cup and wants to expand the current 32 participating teams to 48.
In this case, a certain men's football team that has missed consecutive World Cups due to performance and quota may have a chance to play in the World Cup again!
FIFA is very covetous of this country's huge market of 1.4 billion people. After all, even if their own national football team fails to enter the World Cup, they can send so much sponsorship fees to the National Football Federation.
If their national team can enter the World Cup, the commercial income it will bring is unimaginable!
Of course, judging from the current situation of a certain national football team's gradual decline, it seems that even an expansion of the army will not help.
After all, even Thailand can lose 1:5, so it doesn't seem impossible to lose to Vietnam and then Myanmar, right?