This morning, zeng Xuelin, former head coach of the Chinese football team, died at home at the age of 86 due to uremia. On May 19, 1985, the Chinese team lost 1-2 to hong Kong, China, and the Chinese team lost the opportunity to participate in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, which was the pain of Zeng Lao's life, he said "5·19 ruined the second half of my life", and since then he has not coached any team. That game not only changed his fortunes.
An unexpected defeat
Time back to May 19, 1985, before the match between the national football team and Hong Kong, the Chinese team can be described as smooth sailing, the first game away to 0-0 draw with Hong Kong, China, then 4-0 away to Macau, 8-0 to Brunei, then the Chinese team beat Brunei again 4-0, and the Chinese team returning home won Macau 6-0. After five rounds of group matches, both the Chinese team and the Chinese Hong Kong team have 4 wins and 1 draw and 9 points, and the Chinese team ranks first with 22 goal differences.
In fact, in the away match with Hong Kong, the Chinese team has some reservations. In terms of strength, the Chinese team is much higher than the Hong Kong team, which can be seen from the Provincial Hong Kong Cup. In 1984 and 1985, Guangdong won the championship by beating Hong Kong for two consecutive years. Since the provincial team can even gain the upper hand with the Chinese Hong Kong team, the strength of the national team is clear at a glance. A year ago, the Chinese team beat Argentina 1-0, when the Argentine team had 8 main players in the game, only Maradona did not come. In 1986, the Argentine team finally won the World Cup. Before the game, the outside world was generally very optimistic about the outcome of the game. The day before the match, a domestic football professional media believed that the Chinese team would win at least with a 2-0 lead, which also represented the general view of Chinese fans at that time.
From the data of this game, the Chinese team is far ahead, the number of shots on goal of both sides is 28-6, the Chinese team has always bombarded in front of the opponent's goal, but only blossomed and did not bear fruit, the dense defense of the Chinese Hong Kong team hindered the Chinese team's attack, the Chinese team that could not be attacked for a long time was instead attacked by the opponent, in the 18th minute, Zhang Zhide scored a beautiful free kick in front of the goal directly. In the 31st minute, Li Hui pulled back a point with a long-range shot. In the second half, the national football team was unbalanced, and in the 60th minute, The Chinese defense error, Gu Jinhui scored the second goal, which was a fatal blow to the Chinese team, which directly led to the Chinese team out of the group, led to post-match fan riots, led to Zeng Xuelin's dismissal, and led to the dissolution of the national team.
Beat Hong Kong to go to the World Cup?
30 years later, Yang Zhaohui, who participated in that game, was still full of regrets about that game in an interview with the media, he said: "In the last two minutes, Gu Guangming crossed from the bottom, the ball passed very well, it was two or three meters away from the goal, but I did not top it. If I had scored that goal it would have been 2-2... If that goal had been scored, we would have made the World Cup 20 years in advance. I am definitely not here now, no matter how much I am the director of the individual committee or something, life is completely different. Yang Zhaohui is not entirely right, even if the Chinese team beat the Chinese Hong Kong team in that game, it will still be very difficult to enter the Mexico World Cup.
This starts with the Asian qualifiers for that World Cup, when there were only two places in the Asian region, one for each in the East Asian region and one place in the West Asia region. The East Asian and West Asian divisions are divided into four groups, and the first place is qualified and then played in the semi-finals and finals. Only by winning the regional championships will you be able to qualify for the World Cup in Mexico. The Chinese team in Group C failed to qualify, and after the Hong Kong team qualified, it was eliminated after losing 0-3, 1-2 to Japan. The Japanese team lost to South Korea 1-2, 0-1 in the final, and finally the South Korean team successfully entered the World Cup in Mexico.
In the 80s, Japanese football was just starting, and Chinese football was not afraid of the Japanese team, if the Chinese team defeated the Chinese Hong Kong team, in the semi-finals to play the Japanese team, although it is difficult to have absolute certainty, but basically the Chinese team should have a 60% chance of winning. However, it is not so easy to deal with south Korea in the final. At that time, the names of players such as Choi Soon-ho and Heo Ding-mo in the South Korean team are now slightly heard by fans. A year later, at the World Cup in Mexico, South Korea lost 1-3 to Argentina, which later won the championship, drew 1-1 with Bulgaria, and narrowly defeated the 1982 World Cup winner Italy 2-3.
South Korea faced Maradona at the World Cup
Although there was no Korean phobia at that time, in East Asia, there was still a certain gap in strength between the Chinese team and the South Korean team. The Chinese team has little hope of winning, but there is no if, when the national football team loses to Hong Kong in the group stage, it indicates that everything can only stay in the hypothesis.
A fateful defeat
Four days after the Chinese team lost to the Hong Kong team, the Chinese team published in the newspaper "The Reasons why our team was frustrated by the Hong Kong team", analyzing the reasons for the loss of the national football team in the third year, "overestimating their own strength", "tactical monotony, technical imprecision", "on-the-spot command is not effective". On May 31, Zeng Xuelin submitted his resignation report and resigned as the manager of the national football team.
It is difficult to fully blame Zeng Xuelin's arrangement for this game. First of all, in the team at that time, Zeng Xuelin's dominance was limited, and when a player was recruited, Zeng Xuelin also had to report to the above. In fact, for the Chinese team that can qualify in a draw, the defensive counterattack is the best strategy, which Zeng Xuelin is not unaware, but under the above requirements and pressure, Zeng Xuelin had to choose offensive tactics.
After the game, Zeng Xuelin faced the media directly
Although in terms of the strength of the team, the national football team in Asia at that time was all the top teams in Asia, and it could also be ranked in the first group, but if you look at the details of football preparation, intelligence analysis, psychological intervention, etc., Chinese football ranks backward, and losing to the Chinese Hong Kong team is a fateful thing.
Years later, Li Hui, who scored a goal in that game, said: "Since then I really understood that winning with the weak is part of football, but I didn't know it before. Li Hui believes that the Chinese team lost has its own reasons, "the important thing is not the footwork, but our ideological understanding at that time was not good." Although the strength of the Hong Kong team is limited, it has seen a lot, and Teams from Brazil and Europe often come to Hong Kong to participate in competitions. ”
Before preparing for the match against Hong Kong, Zeng Xuelin wanted to watch the Hong Kong team in China to know more about the opponent. But the above rejected his request, on the grounds that it was to save foreign exchange. On May 12, when the Chinese team played at home against Macau, Hong Kong coach Guo Jiaming sat in the stands to spy on the Chinese team, and it is worth mentioning that the starting lineup of the Chinese team in this game is the same as the lineup against the Chinese Hong Kong team five days later. In intelligence work, Chinese football lags behind a lot.
On the morning of the match, the Hong Kong team, which was more stressed than the Chinese team, toured the Temple of Heaven, while the Chinese team had been meeting and issuing tasks, and it was generally believed that a draw would not work, that it would win, and that it would be a big victory. This undoubtedly affects the tactical arrangement of the Chinese team, for the Chinese team that holds a large number of goal difference advantages, the draw in this game can appear, only need to do a good job of defense, wait for the other side to make mistakes, but in the face of pressure, the Chinese team has to actively attack, in the attack is not successful, blindly active pressure, to give the opponent an opportunity.
When talking about that game, Zeng Xuelin once lamented that if it is not arranged in Beijing, perhaps it is not this result, the team pressure was particularly great at that time, in fact, although the national football team made mistakes in the first half, it was not fatal enough, if it can be retained to the final game with a score of 1-1, the Chinese team is still qualified, but the players in the second half are unbalanced, after the Hong Kong team scored another goal, the confidence of the Chinese team has been completely lost, and finally failed to save the defeat.
In the 1980s, although Chinese football could still gain a foothold in the First Group of Asia, Chinese football, and even Chinese sports, were still a long way from modern sports, there was no scientific training, no football intelligence, there was not enough psychological intervention, and even the coach had many constraints. In the 1980s, the world cup was defeated and lost again, was it all caused by external factors? From today's point of view, the lack of a modern sports management system is the root cause, and the old man who was in that position at that time was lonely shouldering this guilt.