Lin Hai Ting Tao
Chapter 1111 Lin Hai's Ball Chat, Episode 21: This is a Qidian Novel!
But I think this is a Qidian novel.
※※※
Italy and Spain are like a loser and a rich, handsome, and powerful guy going head-to-head. Of course, the rich, handsome, and powerful guy is definitely Spain, the number one ranked team in today's football world, winner of two consecutive international competitions, playing the most gorgeous and powerful offensive football of today, with a wealth of talented players, so extravagant that they can keep Torres, worth fifty million pounds, on the bench. It's simply extravagant!
Everyone is optimistic about them, they are the big favorites. The only ones who can compete with them are another rich, handsome, and powerful team, the German team, who are their "lifelong rivals."
Countless female fans are infatuated at first sight, wanting to offer themselves, body and soul, to such a rich, handsome, and powerful guy… Wherever such a rich, handsome, and powerful guy goes, he is the focus of discussion, wherever he goes, he causes traffic accidents and congestion.
※※※
And Italy? Standard loser appearance. Some people say they are a team of models, but compared to the Italy of the past, this team even looks like a bunch of losers.
Another match-fixing scandal has erupted in domestic football, and the team's prospects are not looking good, as if they themselves have lost confidence…
But when you think about it carefully, isn't this the template for a Qidian YY novel?
Before the match, no one is optimistic, and they can find a hundred reasons to deny the team's future and sentence them to death.
In everyone's eyes, they are complete pigs, only able to wallow in the mud.
But when the competition starts, they gradually begin to show their hidden strength, surprising everyone!
In the first match, they drew with defending champion Spain despite being written off, even taking the lead at one point and having a chance to win the match.
However, in the second match, they were held to a 1-1 draw by Croatia, and the prospect of qualifying was instantly clouded. It also made many people breathe a sigh of relief: "See, I told you, this team can't qualify. With this loser look, what future can they have?"
"Sure enough, this cup is still quite normal, Italy's performance means they are not far from death!"
Many such negative voices were like slaps in the face of the Italians. And Italy, just like the protagonist, is suppressed, despised, looked down upon, and humiliated.
What can he do? Just clench his fists tightly before the match begins.
Doesn't it resemble the beginning of a trash-to-treasure protagonist novel?
All that's missing is a broken engagement.
In the third match, Italy defeated the minnow Ireland in the group stage, which can be regarded as gaining a qualification spot. But in the eyes of many people, this kind of qualification can only be regarded as "luck."
Contempt, humiliation, and suppression continue.
This novel seems to have reached a critical point. If the plot continues to develop like this, and Italy is eliminated in the first round of the knockout stage, it will definitely be a tragedy.
The author's popularity will be threatened. In fact, many readers are already threatening to drop the book, and the comment section has long been in chaos.
At this time, Italy faced England in the quarter-finals.
This is a war between two losers. Before the match, Italy was plagued by domestic scandals, and even the main left-back was taken away for questioning. England, on the other hand, lost a key player in a warm-up match. Fortunately, there weren't many warm-up matches before the competition, otherwise England would have really turned into "Liverpool"…
This was a life-or-death, but not exciting match.
The climax only came during the penalty shootout, when Italy erupted without warning.
Pirlo's elegant and calm Panenka penalty kick was like a tenacious loser sketching out an unyielding smile in the face of adversity—for the first time, he finally grabbed fate by the throat!
All the criticism, hardship, and humiliation that Italy had suffered before disappeared at this moment. They overturned an evenly matched enemy, but that wasn't the most important thing. The most important thing was the spirit embodied by Pirlo in that penalty kick.
This Panenka penalty kick told everyone that even if we Italians are beaten into the mud, we can still get up!
The climax started from this moment and suddenly rose in the semi-finals.
They defeated the title favorite, another rich, handsome, and powerful team besides Spain, Germany, with a score of 2:0!
Balotelli, who scored two goals, is a standard loser in terms of appearance and personality, but those two goals made the rich, handsome, and powerful Germany feel ashamed.
This is the loser's counterattack!
No one is optimistic about us, so we will use one match after another to make you have to be optimistic about us!
Now there are only two teams left. If you are not optimistic about us, then you have to be optimistic about Spain. If you are optimistic about Spain, then we will remind you again who should really be optimistic about.
A novel that has reached this point can be regarded as entering the prelude to the final climax. All the groundwork has been laid, and it has taken the effort of a full three group stage matches. In the upcoming final, there is no need to have any concerns, just vent all the emotions in a hearty manner, release the passion, and that's it…
※※※
Yesterday, I was chatting with a friend and we talked about this Italian team. Suddenly, I felt that this Italian team was very similar to the Italian team that won the World Cup in 2006.
There isn't a particularly outstanding superstar on the team who is far superior to other teammates. If you were to choose the best player of this World Cup from Italy, it would probably be a bit difficult. Many people have stepped up at key moments and saved Italy. But when you look at them again, you feel that they are very ordinary, not outstanding, and not dazzling.
What makes this Italian team strong is not a certain individual, but a whole.
Just like in the 2006 World Cup, Italy relied on a strong overall team and the right tactics to win the World Cup, so the final Golden Ball award was given to Cannavaro. I think he was actually representing the entire Italian team in receiving the award.
If this Italian team can win the championship in the end, I think Pirlo and Buffon have a great chance of winning the best player award, but in fact they are also just representing the entire Italian team.
Because the whole is strong and the individuals are not prominent enough, this team is not considered a favorite in the eyes of ordinary people.
But in fact, this is the most terrifying thing about Italian football—when everyone is not optimistic about them, they often explode with amazing energy.
The Italians are quite unreliable, but their football is exceptionally tenacious, just like their catenaccio defense, as solid as a rock.
※※※
Generally speaking, Qidian novels are happy endings, because readers don't read books to find abuse, think about the meaning of life, and face the cruelty of reality.
So if the journey of this European Cup for Italy is a Qidian novel, I hope there will be a good ending in the end.
Will there be?