Chapter 1 The Opponent After Qualifying

The Chinese fans' and media's euphoria over qualifying lasted less than a day before everyone realized another problem: Who would the Chinese team face after qualifying from the group stage?

The media then told everyone: the host, Brazil.

Instantly, the joyful atmosphere of celebration cooled rapidly.

Everyone had hoped that the Chinese team could go further in the World Cup after qualifying from the group stage, but they ended up facing the host.

Did the Chinese team have any chance?

Leaving aside Brazil's formidable strength, how could the Chinese team withstand the advantages of the host?

Some conspiracy theorists immediately suspected that FIFA might be pulling strings behind the scenes to ensure higher ticket sales, broadcast ratings, and advertising revenue by letting Brazil go further.

This was an "official whistle," blatantly screwing you over while leaving you speechless.

But others said this was much ado about nothing. In the previous World Cup in South Africa, everyone thought that South Africa, as the host, should at least qualify from the group stage, right?

But they didn't. South Africa was eliminated in the group stage.

The only relatively unusual case was the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. The Japanese team made it to the knockout stage, eventually stopping in the round of sixteen, which could be attributed to the home advantage being relatively restrained.

As for South Korea, they completely unleashed themselves. Two of the top ten infamous refereeing scandals in World Cup history were related to South Korea in that World Cup, and South Korea benefited in both cases. Ultimately, with blatant refereeing assistance, South Korea made it all the way to the World Cup semi-finals. In the third-place play-off, they lost to Turkey, but they still achieved the best result for an Asian team in World Cup history.

However, this best result was not glorious, and it was rarely touted by people in other Asian countries, except for South Korean fans and media.

More optimistic Chinese fans felt that no matter how corrupt the Brazilians were, they still had very high moral standards and a sense of superiority in football, and they firmly believed that their team's strength was enough to eliminate the Chinese team without resorting to bribery and underhanded means.

But regardless, the fact that the Chinese team ran into the host after qualifying from the group stage was indeed not a good sign, causing Chinese fans to worry about the Chinese team's prospects in the World Cup again.

Some fans were already a little fatalistic, feeling that since they were facing Brazil, they didn't even think about the quarter-finals. They only hoped that the Chinese players could play in their own style in the match, not be cowed, and face Brazil head-on. Even if they died, they should die standing tall, like fireworks blooming, welcoming death in their most brilliant moment, and leaving their names forever in World Cup history.

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While the Chinese team was playing against Spain, another match was between Chile and the Netherlands.

China defeated Spain 2:0, and the Netherlands also defeated Chile 2:0, with Depay securing the victory for the Netherlands in the ninetieth minute.

As a result, the teams that ultimately qualified from Group B were the Netherlands and China. The Netherlands finished first in the group with two wins and one draw, accumulating seven points, while China finished second with one win and two draws, accumulating five points.

According to the schedule of this World Cup, the pairings after qualifying from the group stage were cross-matches between the top two teams in Group A and the top two teams in Group B, i.e., the first place in Group A would play against the second place in Group B, and the first place in Group B would play against the second place in Group A.

In the last two group matches in Group A held on the same day, Brazil defeated Cameroon 4:1, and in another match, Mexico defeated Croatia 3:1.

As a result, both teams accumulated seven points. In the case of the same points, the goal difference was compared. Mexico suffered from only defeating Cameroon 1:0 in the first match, and the goal difference was significantly less than Brazil's by two goals, ranking second.

In this way, the Chinese team's opponent in the round of sixteen was Brazil, not Mexico.

If the Chinese team played against Mexico, perhaps the Chinese fans and media would have been more confident, believing that the Chinese team could eliminate Mexico and enter the quarter-finals of the World Cup.

The news that their opponent in the round of sixteen was Brazil dampened everyone's joy and made many fans and media worry about the future of the Chinese team in the World Cup.

But within the national team, Lippi was constantly instilling a completely opposite idea into the Chinese players.

"Brazil is not strong, or rather, not so strong that they can crush us. We are not without opportunities against Brazil, and we can even say that the opportunities are not small, at least larger than the outside world imagines. I don't believe in conspiracy theories. In football matches, only strength and on-the-spot performance determine the outcome. This Brazil team should be considered the weakest Brazil national team in the history of Brazilian football..."

Lippi was exaggerating slightly, but he was doing this to build the confidence of the Chinese players, or rather, to break the myth and superstition in the minds of the Chinese players about the kingdom of football.

He wasn't just talking empty words, making people feel that he had no evidence. He also used data and examples to prove that what he said was true.

Because Brazil was the host, they didn't have to participate in the World Cup qualifiers, which seemed like a good thing, at least they didn't have to worry about not being able to participate in the World Cup finals. But in fact, for a team aiming to win the championship, this was the opposite, not a good thing, but a bad thing.

Because of the lack of high-quality, continuous matches to train the team, the team's form was difficult to maintain.

Some people said that they could play warm-up matches. Of course, the Brazilian team arranged warm-up matches for every international match day, but the intensity of warm-up matches was completely different from the real World Cup qualifiers. The strength of the opposing teams was different, and the mentality of the opponents was also different. Ultimately, the effect on the match was very different compared to the real qualifiers.

If you play in the qualifiers, of course, there is a possibility that you may not be able to enter the World Cup finals. For example, the Netherlands team in the 2002 World Cup lost the qualification to enter the Japan-Korea World Cup because they did not play well in the qualifiers.

But the more difficult the qualifiers are, the more it is a training for the team. In this process, the coaching staff can constantly discover problems and then solve them, and then verify whether the problems have been solved through the next qualifier. The players can also maintain their form through high-quality matches. In addition, the qualifiers are also a process for the players to gradually enter the rhythm of the national team matches.

Still taking the example of the 2002 Japan-Korea World Cup, the Brazilian team played very difficultly in the qualifiers of that World Cup. At one point, people thought that they would historically miss the World Cup finals for the first time. Finally, after changing many head coaches, they finally stumbled into the finals. Because of the poor performance in the qualifiers, this Brazilian team was naturally not favored, and they were not the favorites to win the championship.

Similarly, the German team also performed poorly in the qualifiers in that World Cup. They even had the embarrassing record of losing 1:5 to their arch-rival England at home in the qualifiers.

The result was that these two teams that did not play well enough in the qualifiers finally made it to the final of the Japan-Korea World Cup. In the end, the Brazilian team, which had a more difficult qualifying process, defeated Germany 2:0 in the final, winning the World Cup championship for the fifth time in history.

This is a typical example of the importance of the qualifiers.

In this World Cup, as the host, the Brazilian team did not play a single qualifier, relying entirely on warm-up matches. But how did they perform in these warm-up matches?

Starting from the 2010 South Africa World Cup, the Copa America in 2011 and the London Olympics in 2012 can actually be regarded as "warm-up matches" for the Brazilian team to prepare for the World Cup at home.

Logically speaking, after the 2010 South Africa World Cup, Brazilian national team coach Dunga was dismissed, leaving his successor Menezes with plenty of time to adjust and integrate this team for four years.

However, in the 2011 Copa America, the Brazilian national team led by Menezes had one win and two draws in the group stage, accumulating five points. They only gained the advantage of being one goal ahead of Venezuela in the goal difference, and won the first place in the group. However, after entering the knockout stage, they encountered Paraguay. The Brazilian team, which had always given people the inherent impression of being strong in attack, could not break through Paraguay's goal in one hundred and twenty minutes of the match. The two sides entered a penalty shootout with a score of 0:0. In the penalty shootout, the Brazilian team missed all three rounds, and Paraguay only scored two rounds of penalties, eliminating Brazil.

Without even entering the top four of the Copa America, the performance of this Brazilian team was indeed difficult to satisfy people.

The most important match after the Copa America was the London Olympics.

Brazil is the kingdom of football, having won the World Cup championship five times in history, but has never won the championship in the Olympic football event.

Therefore, the Olympic gold medal is highly valued by both Brazilian fans and the Football Association.

Menezes coached the Brazilian Olympic team as the coach of the Brazilian national team. This Brazilian Olympic team has many players playing in European leagues, as well as established stars such as Neymar, Marcelo, Thiago Silva, David Luiz, Ganso, Hernandez, Danilo, Pato, Hulk, Coutinho, and Ronaldinho.

This lineup fully demonstrates Brazil's emphasis on winning the gold medal at this Olympic Games.

What was the result?

The Brazilian Olympic team did make it to the final of the Olympic Games, but facing the Mexican Olympic team, Rafael's back pass error in the opening twenty-eight seconds shattered the Brazilian team's dream of winning the Olympic gold medal.

The successive failures in the Copa America and the Olympic Games made the Brazilian people very dissatisfied with Menezes's performance. Brazilian celebrity Mazzola believed that it was absolutely impossible to win the World Cup with the current team, and the Brazilian team needed players with personality.

Although the failure of the London Olympics exposed the Brazilian team's problems such as strong attack and weak defense, weak offensive ability, and lack of leaders, Menezes firmly denied that there was a problem with the direction: "We lost the final, but we won the silver medal, which is very close to our ultimate goal. We don't need to change all directions..."

Although he was stubborn, this could not change the result of Menezes's failure.

In the second leg of the "South American Super Derby Cup", the Brazilian team lost to their arch-rival Argentina, and this Menezes's coffin was nailed with the last nail.

Subsequently, the Brazilian Football Association announced the change of coach, and Scolari, who had previously led the Brazilian national team to win the 2002 World Cup championship, took over, with only one goal: the Brazilian World Cup championship.

In the Confederations Cup held in Brazil in 2013, Scolari led this team to win the championship, especially the 3:0 victory over the world champion Spain in the Confederations Cup final, which seemed to allow Brazilian fans to see the hope of winning the Hercules Cup at home.

But the following warm-up matches made the hearts of Brazilian fans fall to the bottom again - under the leadership of "Big Phil" Scolari, the Brazilian team created an embarrassing record of not winning for the first time in five consecutive matches since July 2001.

The warm-up matches were not well played, and basically had no effect, and the role that should have been played was not played at all.

Finally, the official World Cup match arrived, so what kind of performance did the Brazilian team put on?

The first match against Croatia was very difficult to win. It was not until the last minute that they secured the victory.

The second match against Mexico, everyone originally expected the Brazilian team to defeat Mexico, so as to become the first team to qualify from the group in this World Cup, but they drew 0:0 with Mexico in the attention of countless people.

This was considered a small upset in this World Cup.

The last match against the weakest Cameroon in the group was a 4:1 win.

But it is worth noting that their defense still conceded a goal.

And finally, winning the right to qualify as the first in the group also successfully concealed the problems facing this team.

For the Brazilian team, this is really not good news.

"...Brazil is not as strong as people think, and we are not as weak as they think." After analyzing the current Brazilian team in detail, Lippi said to his players.