The Zagreb Invitational Tournament is an emerging event that began in 1995, and it has only been held for six years. Unlike the Gothenburg Invitational Tournament, which has been held for more than ten years, the Zagreb Invitational Tournament emphasizes the non-competitive identity of the participating players. Players must be full-time students under the age of 15 with academic qualifications, and youth training players from professional echelons are not allowed to participate.

Croatians have good athletic talents and a good foundation in mass sports, which allows these players to achieve excellent results after they become adults.

In order to dig deep into the excellent talents of young students in our country and at the same time enhance their global popularity, the Croatian Football Association decided to hold an invitational tournament in the capital Zagreb, post hero posts, and invite outstanding teams from all over the world to participate.

There were not many teams invited in the previous sessions, and last year it was even suspended due to political influence. It was also closed for professional youth training players because it was an amateur student event, which also led to the inability to pay attention to major clubs, making this event not well-known worldwide.

Since the beginning of the new millennium, with the sharp increase in attention to Croatian football, and due to the influence of the World Cup, the competition methods of the 32 teams have been widely promoted. The invitational tournament has more than doubled this year, and has issued invitation letters to 32 influential countries or regions around the world. China has also received an invitation from the event organizing committee for the first time.

But things went against my wishes. Due to the temporary breakup of the four countries including Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Côte d'Ivoire, Honduras, etc., the 32 teams lost one group, becoming a 7-group and 28-group game.

In order to fill the gap, the organizing committee also tried to temporarily invite the team to participate. However, since the start of the game was about to start, the invited countries were not catching a cold and did not respond. In the end, they could only helplessly maintain the unprecedented competition system of Team 28.

The difference between the two competition systems of Team 28 and Team 32 is that the former has 6 less group matches, and the knockout stage is also 4 rounds. Affected by this, the way of qualifying has also changed. In addition to the top two in each group, the third in the two best-scoring groups can also qualify to make up for the top 16 teams.

For the weak team, this is undoubtedly good news. Even if you can't beat the top two strong players, as long as you achieve good results with the other opponent's genius, you will also have hope of advancing.

For the Chinese team that participated in the competition for the first time, there is no reference for any results, but based on the position of Chinese football in the world, the realistic idea is to treat it as the last. For this fantasy oriental power, it is also a good thing to have enough self-knowledge.

Regarding the qualifications of players, the organizing committee only stipulates that they are students in ordinary full-time schools and trust the supporting materials provided by the invited countries. Because in the eyes of Europeans, such an amateur competition is originally a stage for students to release their nature. There is no high bonus, nor is it related to national honors, and there is no actual need for fraud.

Therefore, they did not invite North Korea, but they invited China with the same social system, and subjectively chose to believe in the simple and sincere Oriental powers.

There are two main supporting materials provided by the Chinese education department for players. One is the player's academic qualifications related information, including academic status, student number, semester scores, and school information; the other is the player's score description of the players' participation in last year's Qihang Cup and the introduction of this junior high school football event.

The organizing committee expressed high recognition of the materials provided by China in both aspects, and quickly passed the review and completed their registration procedures as soon as possible.

In fact, China has not violated the rules. All these players are still students. They are qualified to be ordinary junior high school students and will naturally participate in this invitational tournament. However, some of them will only be converted to a club echelon player after the day study this year or next year.

In addition, the Croatians obviously misunderstood the Chinese's understanding of the concept of honor. Foreigners are unable to understand these Chinese people's simple patriotic concepts without any additional conditions.

On the 19th, just as the Chinese team was still in the apartment, the grouping situation of the invitational tournament also came out.

a: Croatia        Tunisia                                                  �

b:Argentina       Poland      Ghana       Canada

c: Germany       Colombia       Austria     I    India

d:England    i   United States      Australia       China

e: Spain       Costa Rica       South Africa     UAE

f:Brazil    i   France       Japan              Senegal

g: Mexico         Portugal         Bulgaria         Egypt

The schedule and knockout matches are also released simultaneously. The game will last from August 23 to September 11, and 58 games will be played in these 20 days. In terms of the scale of the event, this is second only to the 64 games of the World Cup, far ahead of the 31 games of the 16 teams in the European Cup that just ended at the beginning of last month.

After dinner, the coaching team organized the players to watch TV to prevent some of them from being sleepy and going to bed early, resulting in a failure of jet lag. It was the most difficult at 7 or 8 o'clock, because it happened to be one or two in the morning in Beijing time, which happened to be sleeping soundly.

No matter how sleepy you are, you can't sleep. You have to last for these three or four hours, otherwise all your previous efforts will be wasted and you will not be able to achieve the effect of jet lag.

The players were also yawning, but the young men were full of energy and were sleepy again. Some people kept talking to each other, maintaining their activity, and they could survive after they could hold on. By nine o'clock in the evening, they began to resurrect themselves with full blood and were very energetic.

Zhao Dayu is a middle-aged man who is almost forty years old. With his fat body, he can't resist the sleepiness. He started to doze off several times. Fortunately, he tried hard to survive with his thoughts and did not really fall asleep.

It was not until the assistant coach handed him a few sheets of paper with the latest grouping situation and schedule that he woke up completely and began to think about it with relish.

China was assigned to Group D. The three teams in the same group were England, the United States and Australia. From general experience, the three teams are tall and strong impact-type play, which is somewhat similar to the domestic Northeast team.

As a team that combines the characteristics of the north and south, China has both tall impact players and delicate technical, fast and flexible short-legged tigers. If it can play its own characteristics, play to its strengths and avoid its weaknesses, it can still do something.

On the 24th, I played England, faced the strongest opponent in the group, and tried to tie the game. Even if I lost, I had to minimize the number of goals conceded;

When fighting the United States on the 27th, we must try our best to win them. If it really doesn’t work, we must ensure that we can get at least 1 point in the first two games;

When playing Australia on the 30th, we must take advantage of the rapid pass and control and get 3 points on the kangaroo with rough skills, so that we can ensure that we have 4 points in hand and strive to hit the third place with the best score.

This situation is estimated based on a general understanding of the Three Kingdoms football. At present, there is no way to learn about their real situation. We can only make a rough response. The real situation still needs to be observed in the past few days and performed on the spot.

No matter how the opponent's strength changes, you must be good at yourself, actively play your own characteristics, fight at your own pace, and not be led by your opponent.

In short, this signing is not too bad for the Chinese team. Zhao Dayu narrowed his eyes. He was in a good mood and was planning the team's next plan deep in his heart.
Chapter completed!