Chapter 29 Challenge

The Japanese media present were well aware of the situation between Zhou Yi and the Japanese Olympic team, but their reports gave a different impression. It was clearly Zhou Yi who displayed confidence and dominance.

But in the Japanese media's version, Zhou Yi became a challenger.

"...Chinese Olympic team leader Zhou Yi has issued a challenge to our Olympic team..."

This was the tone of the Japanese media.

So, only reading the Japanese media reports, one would definitely think that the Japanese Olympic team had the advantage.

But unfortunately, only Japanese reporters were present for the whole thing, without any media from other countries, so they could say whatever they wanted.

Zhou Yi didn't care what the media said about him, because football ultimately depended on what happened on the field.

Beating opponents on the pitch was much better than arguing with words.

On the evening of July 29th, the Chinese team welcomed their second opponent in the group stage, the Swiss Olympic team.

Because European teams generally didn't pay much attention to the Olympics, and many even sent their U19 teams to participate in the Olympic qualifiers, it was rare to see traditional European powerhouses among the sixteen teams participating in the Olympic finals.

This year's Olympics only had four European teams participating in the finals: host nation Great Britain, Switzerland, Belarus, and Spain. Among them, perhaps only Great Britain and Spain could be considered strong teams; Switzerland and Belarus were of average strength.

Group B, where the Chinese team was located, really only had one strong team, Mexico. Switzerland and Gabon were unlikely to pose any threat to the current Chinese team.

The course of the match after it began proved this point.

Near the end of the first half, the Chinese team broke the deadlock. He Ying received an assist from Zhou Yi and scored his first goal of the Olympics.

This goal helped China take a 1-0 lead over Switzerland.

However, after the two sides switched sides in the second half, in the sixtieth minute, Sun Pan's goal was breached.

At the time, Swiss forward Emeghara's shot hit Guo Nu's toe in mid-air, causing a deflection. Facing this deflected ball, Sun Pan was unable to reach it and could only watch as the ball flew into his goal.

However, Sun Pan did not blame Guo Nu after conceding the goal, but instead punched the ground hard to vent his frustration.

Guo Nu himself seemed very embarrassed. He wanted to apologize to Sun Pan, but he was too afraid to.

At this moment, Sun Pan had already gotten up from the ground, and seeing Guo Nu's constipated expression beside him, glared at him: "What are you doing? It's not like you scored it, so don't just stand there!"

※※※

The Swiss players were very happy after scoring, because it gave them hope of winning. In their first group match, they drew 1-1 with Gabon. If they could beat China in this match, their chances of qualifying from this group would greatly increase.

However, the Chinese team suddenly erupted after conceding the goal, catching the Swiss team off guard.

Zhou Yi led the team in a sudden surge of attacks after conceding the goal, instead of continuing with their defensive counterattacks.

This wave of attacks threw the Swiss team into disarray, and eventually Wu Lei's shot was blocked out of bounds by their goalkeeper Benaglio.

The Chinese team was awarded a corner kick.

Zhou Yi went to take the corner kick. He had a relatively large workload in the Chinese Olympic team, and all the set pieces in the attacking third were assigned to him.

He kicked the corner kick straight towards the near post of the goal.

Guo Nu, who was lurking in the penalty area, saw Zhou Yi kick the ball out and accelerated towards the near post. Taking advantage of his small size, which made him less noticeable, he bypassed the defenders, appeared at the near post, and then, relying on his excellent explosiveness, jumped high!

He jumped even higher than the other defenders in the penalty area!

To jump so high, he even threw his entire center of gravity out, just to be able to head the ball. Zhou Yi's kick did not lower its height just because Guo Nu was going to head it. He maintained a normal height, and it was not easy for Guo Nu to head the ball with his height.

But Guo Nu headed it. He lay horizontally in the air, a "looking at the moon", heading the ball towards the goal behind him!

"Guo Nu—!"

Amidst He Ping's cheers, the ball flew into the goal from the near corner!

"In the sixty-fourth minute, three minutes after the Olympic team conceded a goal, they took the lead again! Beautiful! The difficulty of Guo Nu's header was very high, and it was also very sudden. Benaglio didn't react at all! Guo Nu has redeemed himself! Because the previous goal was conceded after the ball touched his foot and changed direction... now he has made up for this mistake with a goal!"

Guo Nu roared after scoring, his face ferocious and not very cute, but at this moment, in the eyes of all Chinese fans, he was the most adorable person!

Swiss goalkeeper Diego Benaglio was helpless. He shook his head. He knew two players in the Chinese Olympic team relatively well, one was Zhou Yi, and the other was Yang Muge, because these were opponents he could encounter in the Bundesliga. As Wolfsburg's main goalkeeper, he probably knew Zhou Yi even better, and he knew that Zhou Yi's assisting ability was outstanding.

But he really didn't expect that the goal would be headed in by that small center back.

※※※

The Swiss team became somewhat impatient after conceding the goal, and their tackles became increasingly aggressive. Two minutes after conceding the goal, Swiss defender Morganella fouled He Ying too hard while defending, almost causing He Ying to get injured. His foul caused a clash between the players of both sides on the pitch.

In the end, the referee showed Morganella a yellow card, but Morganella still looked angry. If Benaglio hadn't pulled him away, he might have gone up to argue with the referee, and then it might not have been just a yellow card.

Guo Nu also received a yellow card for the Chinese team. He had a direct "conversation" with Morganella during the clash. He also received a yellow card as a result.

In the following match, the Swiss team, unwilling to accept defeat, launched a fierce attack on the Chinese team's goal, while the Chinese team relied on a solid defense to resist the Swiss team's attack, while also counterattacking at will, preventing the Swiss team from pressing forward too much.

In the final stages of the match, two of their forwards received yellow cards in quick succession due to impatience. They had four players receive yellow cards in this match. According to FIFA regulations, if a team has five players receive yellow cards in a match, they will be fined. The Swiss team was just one yellow card away from this penalty.

But even this failed to save them from defeat.

When the referee blew the whistle to end the match, the score was frozen at 2-1. The Chinese team defeated Switzerland and secured two consecutive victories in the group stage!

"The match is over! We won!" He Ping announced excitedly. "The Olympic team, with two wins in two matches, has already secured qualification from this group in advance! We've qualified!!"

The other match in this group had already ended before the match between China and Switzerland. Mexico defeated Gabon 2-0. After two rounds of group matches, the Chinese team had six points from two wins, Mexico had three points from one win and one loss, while Switzerland and Gabon both had one point from one draw and one loss. With only one match remaining in the group stage, the Chinese team was leading the third-place team by as many as five points, and had naturally qualified in advance.

If Switzerland wanted to qualify, they would have to fight Mexico to the death in the last group match. And Mexico only needed to draw with them to ensure qualification.

This time, the Chinese team did not have to play a life-or-death battle or a battle for honor in the last match of the group stage. They could sit back and watch the tigers fight, which was truly a rare experience for Chinese football...

※※※

Winning against Switzerland and securing qualification from the group was originally a very happy thing. The Chinese internet was also celebrating wildly in the early hours of the morning, and the Chinese media was also full of joy the next day.

But in this situation, there were discordant voices.

After losing the match, Swiss defender Morganella made a statement on social media that caused an uproar.

This player, who had repeatedly clashed with Chinese players during the match and had even had conflicts, said on Twitter: "I want to beat up the Chinese, burn them to death... these trisos!"

"Trisos" is a French slang term meaning "Down syndrome." This term is used to describe people with intellectual disabilities and special facial features. He used this word to describe the Chinese, with a very obvious meaning of insult and racial discrimination.

After Morganella's statement was released, it quickly spread across the internet and caused an uproar.

Chinese netizens happily greeted Morganella's eighteen generations of ancestors on the internet. Weibo was almost a complete collection of Chinese swear words from all over the country.

The Chinese Olympic team also quickly learned about this. Zhou Yi asked Guo Nu: "Lao Guo, who is that idiot? We've already qualified from the group and we still run into such a mess."

"I, I don't kn-know..." Guo Nu spread his hands.

"Aren't you playing in Serie A? That idiot is also playing in Serie A, Palermo, right?" Zhou Yi asked.

"Just bec-because we're b-both in Serie A do-doesn't mean we ha-have to know each other!" Guo Nu was very aggrieved.

"Damn, you Serie A people are really uncivilized!" Zhou Yi said.

"Get lost! Do-don't use a broad attack!"

Everyone laughed, Zhou Yi was once again indirectly roasting Lao Guo.

Just then, Zhou Yi's phone rang. It was a Swiss reporter calling to ask him what he thought of Morganella's statement.

Zhou Yi's answer left the reporter speechless. He asked: "Who is Morganella?"

The Swiss reporter didn't know if Zhou Yi really didn't know who Morganella was, but they still had to explain to Zhou Yi that Morganella was the number 17 of the Swiss Olympic team, playing as a defender.

After listening to the reporter's introduction, Zhou Yi "suddenly understood": "Oh, sorry, I can't remember those players who don't have much presence. As for what I think of his statement... just a trisos's statement from a trisos."

"Will this hurt the feelings of the Chinese people?" the Swiss reporter asked.

"Don't be silly, the Chinese people are not trisos, they won't be hurt by such trisos remarks," Zhou Yi said.

"But we noticed that there are also many voices scolding Morganella on the Chinese internet..." the Swiss reporter continued to ask.

"Well, we scold trisos, that doesn't mean our feelings have been hurt, that's just a normal and polite response," Zhou Yi defended his country's netizens.

The Swiss reporter was speechless.

Just after hanging up the phone, Zhou Yi's phone rang again, still a reporter calling.

After that, Zhou Yi received many such calls. Faced with these reporters' questions about Morganella, Zhou Yi's first answer was always "Who is Morganella?"

"This answer is good, I think we can unify our statements and answer the reporters like this," Sun Pan had just finished speaking when Yang Muge's phone rang as well. Sure enough, it was someone calling to ask him what he thought of the Morganella matter.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Yang Muge said to the reporter on the other end of the phone: "Who is Morganella?"