Chapter 1 The Sino-Japanese War Arrives

After two days of training in Japan, the Sino-Japanese War finally arrived.

The match was scheduled for 6:30 PM Beijing time on September 11th, which was 7:30 PM local time.

In Japan, it was already dark. The lights of the Tokyo National Stadium were all on, illuminating the field.

In China, countless fans were already waiting in front of their TVs for the game to begin. The TV stations were also busy, starting their live broadcast at 4:00 PM, with guest discussions in the studio and on-site reporter connections, covering the game from multiple perspectives.

Besides the fact that this was the Chinese team's first appearance in the Top 12 in eleven years, the all-around rivalry between China and Japan was another reason why everyone was paying so much attention to this match.

If it had been a match against a team like Oman, even at home, the broadcasting lineup wouldn't have been so extensive.

At 4:30 PM Beijing time, the entire Chinese team appeared in the hotel lobby, ready to board the bus to the stadium.

The fans waiting outside the hotel cheered excitedly when they saw the Chinese players, and the reporters snapped photos through the glass.

From the footage, it could be seen that the Chinese players were chatting in small groups while waiting in the lobby, and they seemed quite relaxed.

Whether they were genuinely relaxed or just pretending to be calm in front of the cameras was unknown.

Zhou Yi was the focus of everyone's attention. He came down from the elevator with his teammates from the national youth team, greeting everyone he met, just like usual.

Because he came down a little late, all the sofas in the hotel lobby were already occupied. He directly found a place that wasn't in the way with Yang Muge, Guo Nu, He Ying, and others, and stood there chatting.

No one could hear what they were talking about, and to prevent the reporters from reading their lips, they covered their mouths with their hands while chatting, not allowing the cameras to capture their "crimes." This was a habit they had developed on the field.

During matches, there were many cameras pointed at the players, and everything the players did on the field was difficult to escape the "eye" of the camera. For example, Lehmann once ran to the advertising boards to urinate during a match, and the entire process was recorded by the camera...

Sometimes, players would say some impolite things in the heat of the moment, which they themselves might not even remember after leaving the football field, and it wouldn't have any impact. But if it was caught on camera, it could become a problem after the game. At first, the players thought that they weren't wearing microphones, so no one outside could hear what they were saying, and they were unscrupulous. But later, the media hired lip-reading experts to interpret the players' lip movements, and they started covering their mouths when talking to avoid trouble.

Although the reporters didn't know what Zhou Yi was chatting about with his teammates, seeing them laugh from time to time, it seemed like they were in a good mood and were really relaxed.

After chatting for a while, the bus arrived at the hotel entrance. The coaching team appeared, and assistant coach Fu Bo began to call the players to board the bus.

Everyone then walked towards the bus while covering their mouths and chatting.

As the players walked out of the lobby, the Chinese fans waiting nearby waved the national flag and shouted to the players, "Go, China! Go, China!"

When a player waved to them, it was met with cheers.

Amid the cheers of the fans and the clicking of the reporters' cameras, the bus carrying the entire Chinese team closed its doors, slowly started, and drove towards the stadium.

At the same time, on the other side, the players of the Japanese national team also boarded their bus and drove towards the stadium. There were also many Japanese fans cheering for them in front of their hotel.

The Japanese team had already played three matches in this Top Ten, with a result of two wins and one draw. This result was considered good. The draw they got was a 1:1 tie against Australia on the road. If there wasn't the Chinese team, this would be a decent result, especially when they drew with Australia away.

But now that there was the Chinese team, Japan's advantage seemed somewhat precarious. If they couldn't defeat the Chinese team at home, it was hard to say what would happen when they went to the Chinese team's home field.

Therefore, the Japanese side also perked up and went all out to prepare for the match against the Chinese team, and they called back all the overseas players they could.

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As the bus drove towards the stadium, the starting lineups of both teams were announced.

There were no surprises on the Japanese side. Coach Zaccheroni sent out their strongest possible lineup.

But it was the Chinese side that everyone was most concerned about—both the Japanese and Chinese reporters.

This starting lineup would answer many questions that everyone had been asking for the past week.

When the starting lineup was announced, everyone realized that although Gao Hongbo had recruited many players from the national youth team into the national team, only He Ying actually appeared in the starting lineup. Zhou Yi was already a national team player, so he wasn't considered to be a member of the national youth team who was transferred to the national team. Before Zhang Linpeng participated in the Olympics, although he balanced both the national youth team and the national team, he generally played more for the national team, because the national team had more matches than the national youth team...

This surprised everyone. Before the game, Japanese reporters had been speculating that Gao Hongbo would send out national youth team rookies, because these people had just played against the Japanese national youth team and had the freshest experience of facing them. At the same time, because they had won against the Japanese national youth team, they also had a psychological advantage.

Who would have thought that Gao Hongbo would only arrange for one national youth team player to enter the starting lineup? Yang Muge, Guo Nu, Cao Yun, and Wu Lei were all outside the starting list.

This was something that the Japanese media didn't understand. In their previous predictions, Guo Nu and Yang Muge should definitely start. In the Olympic finals against the Japanese team, the performance of these two people had left a very deep impression on the Japanese reporters and fans.

When Sugimoto Kenyu was first substituted, Guo Nu was at a disadvantage in the confrontation because he didn't know enough about him and because of objective factors such as the glare of the sunlight. But he quickly regained the initiative by using his strength and jumping ability, and Sugimoto Kenyu was never able to create any threats again.

And Yang Muge? At first, he wasn't very noticeable on the field, but when the Japanese team was two goals behind and was about to "break the pot" with the Chinese team, Yang Muge stood up and used his excellent positioning and tenacious defense to dissolve the Japanese team's fierce counterattack.

These two people might not be as prominent or as eye-catching as Zhou Yi, Sun Pan, and He Ying, but they were definitely important cornerstones for the team.

Many Japanese reporters even analyzed that Gao Hongbo could do without He Ying, but he couldn't do without Yang Muge and Guo Nu. After all, the first priority in away games was not to concede goals, and strong enough defense was the most important thing in the face of the home team's aggressive offense.

But the result was that Gao Hongbo didn't play Yang Muge and Guo Nu, but He Ying, seeming to want to strengthen the offense. He was planning to have a head-on confrontation with the opponent at the Japanese team's home ground.

The Japanese reporters didn't know whether to say that Gao Hongbo was courageous or unreasonable...

But in the eyes of the Chinese reporters, it meant something else—Gao Hongbo had finally learned to be more mature... He finally didn't carry out a major cleaning within his team, replacing half the team in one go. This was right, this was correct.

The Chinese reporters breathed a sigh of relief. As Chinese people, they understood Chinese football and Chinese players the most. They had been worried that Gao Hongbo's radical measures would lead to infighting within the team, causing the team to lose its fighting power.

In Chinese society, which emphasizes human relationships, everything is actually about dealing with people in the end. Gao Hongbo won the league title with Changchun Yatai, but ended up being swept out the door. Many people felt that Gao Hongbo hadn't done well in this aspect of dealing with people.

If he continued to stick to his own ideas in the national team, even if he had led this team to win the runner-up in the Asian Cup, it probably wouldn't guarantee his position in the national team was stable.

And Gao Hongbo's current approach actually showed that he wouldn't take very radical actions. He still chose to respect the current players of the national team more. He recruited a large number of players from the national youth team, perhaps hoping to give the national team players more stimulation on the training ground and cultivate their sense of competition, but not really to knock them all down with one blow.

This was the result that the Chinese reporters wanted to see the most.

Ensuring the stability of the team was ensuring the team's fighting power.

Playing Japan away, we need stability and fighting power.

Anyway, with Zhou Yi, the current Chinese team might not be unable to compete with the Japanese team.

That's right, in the eyes of the Chinese reporters, Zhou Yi was like a god descending to earth, with no problem he couldn't solve. This was the same feeling that the national team teammates had about Zhou Yi. No matter when or where, no matter what difficulties they encountered, Zhou Yi was the person they could trust.

In the first match of the Top Ten, against the menacing Qatar playing at home, Zhou Yi had two assists, helping the team successfully swipe its card on the road.

In the second match, back at their own home, facing Oman, the weakest team in the group, the Chinese team didn't perform well. In the end, they barely managed to win with Zhang Linpeng's header. Although the goal was scored by Zhang Linpeng, the corner kick that led to the goal was indeed created by Zhou Yi's long shot.

Zhou Yi had already used his actual performance in the Asian Cup, the Top Ten, and the Olympics to make everyone feel that he was almost omnipotent.

This time, challenging Japan away, Zhou Yi was also the biggest reliance in the eyes of the Chinese media and fans that they could compete with Japan away.

As for the others... as long as they could coordinate well with Zhou Yi, this national team had cooperated well with Zhou Yi in the Asian Cup, performed well, and won the runner-up, so the foundation of the national team was not a problem, and there was really no need to replace too many people in one go...

Looking at this starting lineup, many Chinese reporters were full of hope for this match. In their eyes, this was an experienced team with good cooperation, and a national team that could hold out against the Japanese team for a long time even without Zhou Yi in the Asian Cup. Now with Zhou Yi, wasn't it like adding wings to a tiger?