A few hours after the match between France and Argentina, another high-profile match also took place as scheduled, the match between Uruguay and Portugal.
But in the end, Uruguay eliminated Portugal, which had Cristiano Ronaldo, 2-1. In this game, Cristiano Ronaldo was blocked by Uruguay and did little. He failed to save Portugal again like when he faced Spain.
The two prides in football ended one after another on the same day, which made countless fans sigh.
On July 1, the host Russia faced Spain.
Before the game, no one was optimistic about the host Russia, and they all believed that even if Spain could not easily win, it would be no problem to win.
However, the result of the game once again shocked countless fans. Russia forced a draw with Spain in regular time and dragged the game into a cruel penalty shootout. In the end, it defeated Spain 4:3 on penalty kicks.
On July 2nd, at 7 o'clock in the morning, Nizhny Novgorod, the center of Russia's machinery industry, will usher in its fourth World Cup quarter-final match, with Croatia facing off against China.
Regarding this game, countless gamblers, fans and media from various countries are a little timid, and they have not directly concluded who will lose and who will win.
Croatia has a midfield trio of Modric, Rakitic and Brozovic, while China also has a rising star, China Yang.
The excellence of that champion midfielder has been seen by people all over the world through the three rounds of Group C.
No one dares to say that the champion midfielder will definitely be defeated by Croatia.
Even Croatian head coach Dalic did not dare to speak harshly when being interviewed by reporters, fearing that he would be slapped in the face like the Danish head coach.
In an interview with British Sky Sports, Dalic said euphemistically that Mo Yang is the best and most talented super player among the young generation of midfielders in today's football.
For such a super genius, no player can limit him. This task can only be completed by the whole team.
In addition, when being interviewed by the Chinese media, Dalic also mentioned other Chinese players besides Mo Yang, and his attitude of paying special attention to them made many Chinese fans secretly feel comfortable.
After more than ten years, they have finally seen that the strong European teams attach great importance to Chinese football, instead of the previous kind of contempt that looked confused when the Chinese team was mentioned, with "is there such a team" written on their faces?
look.
Lippi, the head coach of the Chinese team, also gave Croatia a lot of face when being interviewed by media from various countries.
Lippi said this in a media interview, "Croatia is a strong opponent. Croatian football has no obvious weaknesses. The overall cooperation is very tacit. They have the strongest midfielder in this World Cup!"
The head coaches of the two teams want to be as humble as possible in the media, but in private they want each other to die immediately and are racking their brains to target each other.
Temporary hotel in the center of Nizhny Novgorod, Croatia.
Today is a match day. In order to allow the players to get adequate rest, Croatian head coach Dalic only arranged some light ball feel training in the morning.
After the training session ended at 9 a.m., Modric returned to his room to wash up, sat down on the breezy balcony, opened his laptop, pressed the space bar, and played the match between Denmark and China.
Not long after, Rakitic, who lived with Modric, came back from the gym. He stood in the living room and looked at the balcony. When he saw Modric looking intently at the computer on the small round table in front of him, he smiled and shook his head.
Rakitic felt that his little friend became a little bit crazy after Real Madrid's three consecutive Champions League triumphs were shattered by Liverpool.
During this period, Modric repeatedly watched the three group matches of the Chinese team and didn't know what to watch.
Rakitic did not bother Modric and turned around and entered the bathroom.
Not long after, Rakitic walked to the balcony wearing a bath towel, sat down directly next to Modric, and said with a smile: "How is it, have you found a way to deal with that kid? Haha!"
Modric looked solemn, raised his head and looked directly at Rakitic, and said in a warning tone: "Yin Wan, you have never played against Yang, so you don't have a complete concept of how terrifying he is, but
I still want to tell you that when facing Yang in the game, you must not slack off or be distracted, not even for a second, otherwise you will never guess what magical things he will do!"
"What a risk!" Rakitic raised his voice and rolled his eyes, "Man, I have heard this countless times since we came to Russia! My ears are almost calloused!"
Seeing Rakitic still looking careless, Modric smiled with helplessness on his face. He had said this many times in the team, but except for the two players Mandzukic and Subasic.
Liverpool have played against each other, but others don't seem to pay much attention to it.
Even what Mo Yang's Liverpool teammate Lovren said, these guys didn't care much.
Modric can guess what his teammates are thinking.
Football is a team sport of 11 people, and individual abilities rarely affect the outcome of the game.
This is true, but sometimes I really can’t resist the flash of inspiration from those super geniuses.
There are not many examples in football history of one person changing the outcome of a game, but there are definitely many.
Ronaldo, Pele and other legendary stars back then, as well as Messi and Ronaldo now, all had strong personal abilities to change the outcome of the game when they were young.
And Mo Yang gave Modric the feeling that he was a super player with this kind of super power, so he was really worried about his teammates' mentality of underestimating the enemy.
Once a mistake occurs in the game, Modric has no doubts about Mo Yang's ability to seize the opportunity. He has learned this from Real Madrid.
As for the tactics Dalic arranged for them to use the strength of the team to restrict Mo Yang, Modric agreed, but he didn't take it too seriously.
Tactical planning is one thing, but actually executing it is another.
Are the tactical abilities of world-famous coaches such as Guardiola, Conte and Mourinho in the Premier League worse than Dalic? Not at all, even better than Dalic.
But even they couldn't limit Mo Yang's phenomenal performance.
Although it was in the giant Liverpool, Mo Yang had the help of world-class players such as Henderson, Van Dijk, Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Wijnaldum and others, but this is not an excuse for their failure to limit Mo Yang.
So Modric was very speechless when he heard the media compare the Chinese team to a herd of sheep headed by the wolf king.
When he was a child, he used to herd sheep. If the sheep were cornered, they would kill people!
While the two were chatting, Lovren came to visit.
Seeing Lovren, Modric's eyes lit up. Apart from him, he is the person who knows Mo Yang best in the Croatian team.
"Deyang! Tell Yin Wan how to keep an eye on Yang!"
"Hey!!" Rakitic didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "You guys talk, I'm going to take a rest."
Rakitic raised his hands and ran away. In fact, he pretended not to care, but he still listened to Modric's words.
"Okay!" Lovren sat down, looked at Modric and smiled: "After studying Yang for so many days, are you confident in defeating him?"
"Not bad!" Modric smiled pretending to be relaxed, "Yin Wan and I should be able to restrain Yang to a great extent!"
"I hope you can do it!"
Lovren heard Modric's lack of confidence. In fact, Lovren was also very worried.
He knew Mo Yang very well, but Mo Yang also knew him.
Another thing that made him happy when he thought about it was that Mo Yang could find his weaknesses, but he couldn't find Mo Yang's weaknesses.
As a midfielder, his body is no worse than that of a central defender, and his speed is no slower than that of some wingers. Not to mention breakthroughs, he is simply a nightmare for all defensive players.
When he thought of Mo Yang's various passes that exceeded his imagination, Lovren felt that his back was a little wet.
If he had a choice, he would never want to face Mo Yang.
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Happy 61st, everyone! Keep your innocence! Good for your physical and mental health!
