Chapter 1 A Novel Experience

Filming the documentary was a new experience for Zhou Yi, especially the brain scan part. It really opened his eyes, making him realize how amazing his brain was.

In the end, Dr. Li jokingly gave Zhou Yi the nickname of "Super Brain" among football players.

Mark Lawrenson wondered if Zhou Yi hadn't been someone who started playing football halfway through middle school, but had been trained in a club's youth academy since he was a child, would he have become famous earlier? Maybe he would have become famous at sixteen or seventeen?

This test fulfilled Mark Lawrenson's long-held wish, and it was also an important reason why he agreed to join the documentary filming team.

After the documentary filming ended, Zhou Yi left the participants with countless topics to talk about with relish. He himself returned to his daily preparations.

On the other side, after Real Madrid finished their La Liga season, they also began to prepare for the Champions League final.

Although Real Madrid beat Espanyol 3:1 in the last round of the league, they still only ranked third. They had the same eighty-seven points as Barcelona, but because they didn't have the advantage in head-to-head record—they were double-killed by Barcelona in the league this season—they could only be behind Barcelona.

Third in the league is still enough to participate in the Champions League group stage next season.

Real Madrid failed in the league this season, but their performance in the cup competitions was very good.

Not to mention the Champions League final, in the Spanish King's Cup, they beat Barcelona 2:1 in the final.

The second goal scored by Gareth Bale for Real Madrid became a classic and was talked about for a long time.

At that time, he forcibly broke through Barcelona's center-back Bartra on the wing with his speed. After he passed the football, he was squeezed out of the field by Bartra. In this way, Bale actually completed the forceful overtake on the outside with his speed, made a circle, ran a longer distance than Bartra, still surpassed Bartra to catch up with the football, and then dribbled into the penalty area and scored a single-handed goal.

This goal instantly made many people climax.

Many people even think that Real Madrid spent a reported 100 million euros to buy Bale this season, and this goal alone has paid off the transfer fee.

Chinese fans even described Bale's speed as: "The shortest distance between two points is Bale."

Not the shortest straight line, but the shortest Bale.

You know, Cristiano Ronaldo didn't even play in this final. He was watching the game from the stands.

Real Madrid's recent games have all been made into highlight reels by the Dortmund coaching staff, so that Dortmund players can watch them repeatedly to fully understand this opponent.

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But just as the Champions League final between Dortmund and Real Madrid was approaching, a wave suddenly arose in China.

Although Zhou Yi and Yan Min were absent from the national team's training camp, the national team's training work was still carried out normally.

And two warm-up matches were held.

But the Chinese team's performance in these two warm-up matches was not good.

The draw for the group stage of this World Cup was held last December.

The Chinese team, which entered the World Cup finals for the second time in history, and the other three Asian representative teams and four teams from Central and North America and the Caribbean were considered third-tier teams.

After the draw, the Chinese team was assigned to Group B with Spain, the Netherlands, and Chile.

This group assignment is not very favorable for the Chinese team.

When the result came out, a pessimistic atmosphere permeated China.

After all, the Chinese team was assigned to the same group as the champion and runner-up of the previous World Cup. The luck was really bad. In terms of the strength of the four teams in the group, it cannot be considered a death group, but for the Chinese team, it may be a death group.

When the world media analyzed the World Cup group situation, they all believed that Spain and the Netherlands would qualify together without accident, after all, they were the strongest. If there is to be an accident, then the Chinese team is the accident.

Because the group situation was unfavorable, the Chinese team's World Cup preparation work was very tense. As the team's head coach, Gao Hongbo has been working under great pressure.

In response to this group result, the Chinese team found three warm-up opponents, two European teams, and one Central and North American and Caribbean team, striving to restore the opponent situation in this group...

The opponent in the first warm-up match was the Belgian national team. Belgium and the Netherlands are next to each other, so based on this reason, the people of the Chinese Football Association believed that it might be helpful for the Chinese team to study the Dutch team.

Belgium also entered the Brazil World Cup finals. They were in the same group as the South Korean team, so they were also happy to compete with the Chinese team. After all, China and South Korea are both East Asian teams. Belgium believed that the two teams had similar styles and could be used as a reference.

As a result, in that game, the Chinese team lost to the Belgian team 1:3.

Although they scored a goal, they were almost completely passive throughout the game.

In the words of the Chinese media after the game, "The Chinese team without Zhou Yi shows its true colors."

After this game, many people were worried about the Chinese team's prospects in the World Cup.

The group result was already very unfavorable. If the team is still in this state, I am afraid that it will become a devastating performance in the World Cup.

Of course, it is a bit alarmist or even worrying too much to say this problem after the first warm-up match.

After all, the warm-up match is to find problems and then solve them.

The key is to look at the results of the second warm-up match.

In the second warm-up match, the Chinese team's opponent was Bosnia and Herzegovina, a newcomer to the World Cup.

The opponent's strength is not strong, but the Chinese team still lost this game.

And like the situation in the first game, it seems that the problems exposed in the first game were not solved in the second game.

After losing to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the domestic media was full of fierce criticism of the national team's preparation work.

The criticism is all-round, from the training plan to the choice of warm-up opponents, of course, it all has to fall on Gao Hongbo, the coach of the national team.

Who made Gao Hongbo not popular enough in the media circle?

And the head coach of the national team is of course the person with the most power. If he has credit, he will take the big head. If he has responsibility, of course, he must bear it hard.

"...It is understandable to lose to Belgium, after all, Belgium is also a national team full of talented monsters, and its strength is not weak. It is also the twelfth-ranked team in FIFA. But losing to Bosnia and Herzegovina is incomprehensible. I know why the national team chose Bosnia and Herzegovina. I must be thinking that this is a soft persimmon that can be kneaded at will. Before the World Cup, winning a warm-up match is very important for the team's confidence and morale. So there is nothing wrong with choosing soft persimmons to knead. But I never expected that such a soft persimmon would actually pinch the Chinese team... Not many of the problems exposed in the first warm-up match have been solved, and new problems have emerged..."

"The domestic league has been suspended for the national team's training camp, giving way to the national team's training camp. What is the result? After practicing in China for so long, and spending huge sums of money to go to Europe for training, have we only gotten such a result? So what are we doing in the training camp? Are we going on a free tour of Europe?"

"The people of the whole country pay taxes not to let the national team travel to Europe. The warm-up match can actually explain the results of the training camp. So from the current point of view, we can assert that the Chinese team's training camp results are approximately equal to zero. According to this trend, when the World Cup starts, I am afraid that our training goals will not be completed. How can we break through the death group at that time?"

"I said a long time ago that although Gao Hongbo's level among domestic coaches is still acceptable, it is still a very risky move to lead the team to the World Cup. Because he has no experience in the World Cup, this is the most fatal thing. When the Chinese team won the World Cup qualification, they should have decisively replaced him and entrusted him with the task of team leader, and then find a more professional world-class coach to lead the team, so everyone is happy... As a result, the World Cup training camp has already started, and the national team's preparation work is a mess. It is almost too late to change coaches temporarily... It is not easy to enter the World Cup finals, but the final result is so disappointing..."

"Gao Hongbo's advantage is that most of these players were brought up by him, and the locker room WeChat is self-evident. The team is stable. But his disadvantage is that his level is not high enough to reach the level of a World Cup coach. The huge gap in level can be easily compensated for without other factors..."

"It's not about being obsequious to foreigners, but the level of Chinese football coaches is indeed inferior to that of foreign coaches. The performance in the warm-up match has already explained the problem very well..."

"Gao Hongbo has coached some teams. Whether in Xiamen or Changchun, the teams he led all started high and went low. At first, they gave people an amazing feeling, but then they would be difficult to move forward for various reasons. In the end, they could only leave sadly. I think he is an immature head coach..."

"History has a positioning for everyone. Gao Hongbo's historical positioning is the first local coach to lead the Chinese team into the World Cup. This should be his positioning. As for the World Cup finals, I don't think that is Gao Hongbo's historical positioning..."

……

In addition to the traditional media, many people on the Internet also criticized Gao Hongbo. They believed that it was too child's play to let Gao Hongbo lead the team to the World Cup. They did not deny Gao Hongbo's contribution in the process of leading the team to qualify, but after calm and rational consideration, Gao Hongbo was not a suitable candidate to lead the Chinese team in the World Cup finals.

These remarks were naturally refuted and criticized by Gao Hongbo's supporters.

The two sides fought fiercely on the Internet, each with celebrity supporters standing on the platform, and no one could convince anyone. But they hyped up the topic and let more people know that Gao Hongbo is currently encountering difficulties in the national team's preparation work.

Against this background, on May 21, twenty-two days before the opening of the World Cup, a shocking news suddenly came from the Chinese team's training camp—Gao Hongbo suddenly fainted to the ground while guiding the team in training!