After a ten-hour flight, the Chinese team arrived in Doha the next morning and was warmly welcomed by hundreds of Chinese reporters, fans, and local Chinese who had arrived earlier.
Among them, the loudest cheers came from Lu Wenbin.
Countless people are looking forward to Lu Wenbin, the world's top superstar, leading the Chinese team to achieve a historic breakthrough in Chinese football!
Of course, Lu Wenbin’s current fame is not only loved and admired by Chinese football fans, but also among Qatar, his group stage opponent, where many people are his fans.
Although they were opponents during the game, Lu Wenbin had just arrived in Doha and was welcomed by many local Qatari fans.
The Qatar Football Association officials who welcomed the Chinese team were also very enthusiastic and were full of smiles at Lu Wenbin's arrival.
Qataris have a very high passion for football.
The Qatari consortium, which has no shortage of money, is acquiring Paris Saint-Germain and is preparing to make football a national business card, as a means of introducing itself to the world and increasing its global influence.
Qatar's continuous efforts to win the right to host the Asian Cup and the World Cup are also based on this consideration.
The 2011 Asian Cup is a preview of the 2022 World Cup and a chance to test Qatar’s ability to host the tournament.
Therefore, as the host country, the arrival of Lu Wenbin, the world's top superstar, can increase the attention of the Qatar Asian Cup around the world, and the Qataris naturally warmly welcome it.
After resting in the hotel for a morning and adjusting to the jet lag, I started my first training session in the afternoon, which was a light recovery training.
The next day was New Year’s Day, and the year 2011 began.
On January 2, the Chinese team played a warm-up match with the previous Asian Cup champion Iraq, and the Chinese team won 5-2.
Although the back line was like a sieve and Iraq scored two goals, the front attack line with Lu Wenbin as the spearhead still scored 5 goals against the defending champions.
Lu Wenbin scored a hat trick and assisted Zheng Zhi and Wang Song, who is also from Guizhou, to score a goal respectively.
Lu Wenbin scored all five goals for the Chinese team, which made the Chinese reporters covering the game and the fans watching the game very excited.
The defending champions were beaten so badly, the Chinese team can really dream of winning the Asian Cup for the first time!
With the arrival of the participating teams, the atmosphere of the Asian Cup became more and more intense, and many Asian stars appeared.
In addition to Lu Wenbin, the world's No. 1 superstar who has booked the FIFA Ballon d'Or, there are also Australia's top star Cahill, South Korean star Park Ji-sung who is known as the three-lung star, Japan's Shinji Kagawa, Keisuke Nakata and many more.
Of course, in terms of worldwide fame and reputation, all the players from all the Asian teams put together cannot compare to Lu Wenbin alone.
When many teams are training, there is not a single reporter from outside Asia outside the field, but when the Chinese team is training, the sidelines are crowded with European and American reporters and fans visiting the team.
In the eyes of European and American media and fans, previous Asian Cups were not worth paying attention to, and for this Asian Cup, we only need to pay attention to Lu Wenbin.
On January 6, the Asian Cup had not yet begun, but the second half of the Serie A season started after the winter break.
Juventus lost 1-4 to Parma at home, which was the biggest upset in this round of Serie A.
Then, Inter Milan without Lu Wenbin beat Udinese 3-1 at home and continued to lead the standings.
…
Turning our attention back to the Asian Cup, at 18:00 on the evening of January 7, the opening ceremony of the 15th Qatar Asian Cup 2011 kicked off at the Khalifa Stadium in Doha, which can accommodate 50,000 people.
The Emir of Qatar attended the opening ceremony together with FIFA President Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini.
After the Qatar national anthem was played, the Emir gave a speech, extending greetings to the other 15 teams that came to Doha and hoping that everyone would leave with good memories here.
Of course, these are just clichés. There is only one champion and it is impossible for every team to leave good memories.
After the Emir finished his speech, the national flags of the 16 participating teams entered the venue, followed by singing, dancing and fireworks performances.
After about half an hour of the opening ceremony, the Emir announced the official start of the 15th Qatar Asian Cup in 2011.
Then, start cleaning the court in preparation for the opening game.
At 19:15 on the evening of January 7th local time, with the whistle of the referee Yuichi Nishimura from Japan, the opening match of the 2011 Qatar Asian Cup between Qatar and Uzbekistan officially kicked off.
Perhaps the status of the host country put too much pressure on the Qatari players. Qatar made frequent mistakes in the first half. Although the score was kept at 0-0 until the halftime break, it was far behind Uzbekistan in the number of shots.
If the situation continues to develop in this way, they will be in danger.
Sure enough, in the 58th minute of the second half, Uzbekistan's No. 9 Ahmedov scored the first goal.
Ahmedov became the first player to score a goal in this Asian Cup.
After falling behind in the score, the host Qatar was even more at a loss.
In the 77th minute, Qatar's No. 14 Ibrahim, who came on as a substitute, made a mistake in passing the ball from the backcourt. Uzbekistan's No. 8 Jeparov intercepted the ball in the frontcourt and counterattacked directly, shooting low and scoring before the opponent's defender could react.
Uzbekistan leads Qatar 2-0 to secure the victory.
In the remaining ten minutes, although Qatar tried its best to equalize the score, it failed to score a goal.
After 3 minutes of stoppage time, Yuichi Nishimura blew the whistle to end the game. Host Qatar lost 0-2 to Uzbekistan in the opening match. The unfavorable start cast a shadow on Qatar's qualifying situation and also made Qatar's next opponents, China and Kuwait, nervous.
Including the 13th Asian Cup held in China in 2004, the hosts of every Asian Cup have received many extra conveniences and care, and the referee favoritism received by the hosts is much greater than that of the World Cup and the European Cup.
On the one hand, Asian football is relatively backward and there are more shady tactics; on the other hand, ticket revenue is a consideration.
If the host team can’t even qualify, who will they sell tickets for the subsequent games
After all, there are only a few foreign fans who have the money to travel thousands of miles to watch the game in person, and the Asian Cup cannot compare with competitions like the World Cup, and its appeal to fans is inherently insufficient.
The ticket revenue of the Asian Cup still depends on the support of local fans of the host country.
If the host country is eliminated prematurely, it will be extremely detrimental to the ticket sales for the knockout rounds. The AFC and even FIFA are well aware of this and are turning a blind eye.
As long as you don't go too far and there is no evidence, no one will care.
Besides, what if it’s excessive
The Koreans dared to act so blatantly in front of the whole world at the Korea-Japan World Cup, so what if the host country of the Asian Cup enjoys the convenience of being a host country
What is most worrying is that the current AFC president is Hamman from Qatar.
Qatar lost the first group match, and there is no doubt that its next opponents, China and Kuwait, will receive a lot of "extra" treatment.
This is the unspoken rule of the Asian Cup and an open secret.
It is no wonder that the coaches and managers of these two teams became very nervous after watching the opening game. (Seeking monthly votes)