Chapter 1 The Club World Cup

The Champions League draw quickly passed, and Chen Hero didn't give the media a chance to hype it up. The reporters didn't know what he was thinking.

After playing the home game against Fulham, they had to go to Japan. This was a long trip.

In the game against Fulham, Liverpool continued to rotate players, but this time the rotation was even greater, and even a reserve team player was included in the eighteen-man squad.

This lucky guy was Caldo Cole, who performed well in the second League Cup game.

After Chen Hero publicly praised him, his reputation soared. More and more media came to report on him and pay attention to him. Scouts from many teams also flocked to the Melwood training base to observe the player's performance up close. More people also came to watch the reserve team training and games.

Now Martin O'Neill brought him into the eighteen-man list, which was a signal. If this young winger performed a little better, perhaps he would officially enter the first team. He could train with Chen Hero every day, instead of only having the opportunity to train with Chen Hero before the League Cup and FA Cup games, as he did in the reserve team.

This was undoubtedly an encouragement to the young Cole.

However, the story of becoming famous overnight did not happen to Cole after all.

Cole sat on the bench for ninety minutes in the game against Fulham, and didn't play for a single minute. He just came here for a walk, and then returned to the reserve team.

When letting him return to the reserve team, Martin O'Neill encouraged him a few words and let him go back.

When he was about to leave, Chen Hero saw that the kid was a little depressed, so he called out to him.

Hearing the voice of his idol, Cole quickly turned around.

Chen Hero gave him a thumbs up, and then smiled at him: "Keep it up, Carlton!"

Maybe Chen Hero would forget about this the next day.

But after hearing Chen Hero's words, a smile appeared on Carlton's originally frustrated face, and then he gave Chen Hero a thumbs up.

Many years later, when Caldo Cole, who had become a first-class star, talked about his early career, he specifically mentioned Hero's encouragement.

"...For a nineteen-year-old kid who had just entered the reserve team, it was such a happy thing to be encouraged and praised by Hero twice! I couldn't sleep well for a whole night after I went back. As long as I thought that Hero still remembered my name, I would be very excited... I always feel that the reason why I was able to persevere and finally make it was largely due to Hero's encouragement..."

Sometimes, just one sentence may change a person's destiny.

Destiny is so wonderful.

※※※

In this game against Fulham, Liverpool narrowly beat their opponent 1-0 at home.

This game was not considered exciting, and Liverpool's performance was not convincing enough, so the score was so small. Fulham had chances from beginning to end.

It was precisely because the situation was relatively dangerous that Cole did not get a chance to play. If Liverpool had led their opponents by three goals in the first half, maybe Cole would have been able to complete his first first-team league appearance record in the sixty-odd minute.

Although the situation on the field was once very critical, although Fulham never gave up their efforts to equalize the score, and although Liverpool's performance was not convincing enough.

But.

But Liverpool had Chen Hero, which determined the final result of the game.

Chen Hero scored the only goal of the game with a free kick.

In this way, Liverpool defeated Fulham 1-0 at home in an unconvincing manner.

No matter what the process was, these three points were the most important.

Liverpool was able to maintain their seven-point lead over Manchester United.

The reason why Martin O'Neill rotated so much was because the team was about to travel a long way to Japan.

After playing the game against Fulham, the entire Liverpool team boarded a plane to Tokyo, Japan at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport the next day.

They were going to participate in the FIFA Club World Cup.

This was Chen Hero's first time participating in the Club World Cup.

The so-called Club World Cup is actually the Toyota Cup. It has always been a competition sponsored by Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan. It is a match between the champion of the European Champions Cup and the champion of the South American Copa Libertadores every year.

The predecessor of the Club World Cup was the Toyota Cup, and the predecessor of the Toyota Cup was the Intercontinental Cup. The purpose of creating this cup was to hope that the two most powerful teams in the world football would compete to determine the real King of the World.

That's why there was a competition between the champion teams from the two continents that represent the highest level of football in the world.

Later, after Toyota Motor Corporation sponsored it, the event became a permanent fixture in Japan and became the "Toyota Cup."

Chinese fans are very familiar with the Toyota Cup, because it was one of the earliest football events broadcast in mainland China. For Chinese fans at that time, when entertainment was not yet developed, a game representing the highest level in Europe and the highest level in South America could even be their expectation for a year.

It was in the process of watching the Toyota Cup broadcast that they slowly learned about world football and even more about European football.

Later, FIFA President Blatter was unwilling to be mediocre after taking office and was surpassed by his predecessor Havelange, so he turned his attention to the Toyota Cup and created a Club World Cup.

Starting from the first edition in 2005, it replaced the original Toyota Cup.

But to be honest, although the current Club World Cup has more participating teams, and the champion teams from all continents come to participate, it can be regarded as a veritable World Club Cup, the gold content of the event has declined, and its attractiveness has also declined. It used to be an annual grand event in world football, but now even after it is finished, probably not many people can remember that there is such an event.

In fact, this is also very normal. As long as the number of participating teams in any event increases, and all kinds of people are mixed together, such problems will occur. Just like when you open a window, fresh air will flow in, but many flies and mosquitoes will also be brought in. This is unavoidable.

When the European Champions Cup was still a competition that could only be participated by the defending champion and the champion teams of the major European leagues, its gold content was very high. However, with the multiple reforms of UEFA, especially after Platini came to power, in order to repay those second and third-rate national football associations that voted for him in the election, after increasing the number of places for many second and third-rate leagues, the schedule of the Champions League was lengthened, and many teams whose names no one had ever heard of appeared in the group stage, and many group stages even became dispensable games.

The gold content of the Champions League is also far from what it used to be.

But this matter has to be looked at from both sides. As Marx said, everything has two sides. Increasing the number of participants is also beneficial to promoting the event. After all, competitions that only allow a small number of elites to participate will eventually be reduced to playthings for a few people, and then slowly abandoned by the public. After all, no one will pay attention to sports that they have no chance to participate in or have the ability to participate in. No one wants to be excluded by others.

To maintain the vitality of this event, more ordinary people must be involved to make them more interested in participating. These people are fresh blood. People choose blood transfusions when they lose a lot of blood, not to mention sports. Without the continuous input of fresh blood, this sport or event will die sooner or later, it's just a matter of dying sooner or later.

This is the same as the Olympic Games. Coubertin first advocated the establishment of a new Olympic Games, and he positioned this event as an "elite sport," that is, only the best among human beings, talented elites, can participate. This can be seen from the Olympic motto of "higher, faster, stronger." The original Olympic Games focused on breaking through oneself, surpassing limits, and challenging records. However, it is not possible to appreciate oneself behind closed doors. If a sport or event wants to survive and also be better than other people's, it must be open and attract more people to come in.

So there is the Olympic spirit of "participation is the most important thing." This is actually a plausible reason and a nice excuse for those who are not very strong but like to join in the fun. This way they will be interested in participating. With more people participating, more people will pay attention, and the event will naturally develop.

"Participation is the most important thing" is actually to fool people to participate. The more people come, the more people pay attention, and with the rise and development of television broadcasting, the Olympic Games has completely changed from a money-losing business to a profitable treasure. Big cities all over the world are vying for it, fighting to the point of bloodshed to compete for the right to host it. Isn't all this because there are more people?

This principle is actually very easy to understand. For people who are not even pseudo-fans, they are not interested in the World Cup at all. No matter how influential the World Cup is, they will not pay attention to it. But what if their relatives, friends, or sons participate in the World Cup? That's different. Even if they are not pseudo-fans, they will be very interested in the World Cup. As long as there is a game with their son, they will watch every game and collect news related to the World Cup. They will pay attention to the rules of football games...etc., and in this way they will naturally become followers of the sport of football.

To make them interested, you have to let them join. This is the truth.

The Club World Cup is also the same.

It's just that the level of this event is too low to withstand the negative impact of mixing all kinds of people together. Perhaps the only role of the current Club World Cup is to allow European powerhouses to pad their stats—there is still a difference between a Grand Slam of six championships in a year and a five-championship win that is only one championship short of perfection.

For the Liverpool players who set off for Tokyo, none of them took the opponents they were about to encounter in the Club World Cup seriously, not even Boca Juniors, the champion of the South American Copa Libertadores.

They were just here to take the third championship they had booked for this season.