It's cheating, but Hazard

Chapter 240 Pre-match mobilization for the warm-up match with the Chinese team
Before each World Cup begins, the football associations of participating countries will invite some football associations that are not participating in the World Cup to play warm-up matches.

The French team's first player in this game is Costa Rica.

Speaking of which, Costa Rica and France have only played against each other once in history, and that was five years ago.

How do you evaluate this opponent?
I can only say it's a bit mysterious.

In 2005, when the two teams met for the first time, France was two goals behind Costa Rica at halftime, but in the second half France scored three goals in a row to complete the reversal.

The game starts soon.

Charles is in midfield.

Everything was too easy, the game seemed to have entered novice mode.

Benzema and Ribery seemed to have the feeling of a top-level boss bravely entering a kindergarten.

As soon as the game started, the French team immediately began to actively put pressure on their opponents, and no Costa Rican player could pass the half court.

In the fifth minute, Charles made a straight pass that penetrated Costa Rica's defense, and Anelka shot, but unfortunately it was blocked by the goalkeeper.

Just one minute later, Charles launched another attack. The ball was like a blade, and wherever it pointed, it was all scorched earth.

Benzema volleyed from outside the penalty area and the Costa Rican goalkeeper jumped in embarrassment.

"boom--"

Everything seemed to be in slow motion, but one second later, Costa Rica's dream was officially shattered.

France 1:0 Costa Rica.

In the 15th minute, Charles also participated in the attack.

The forward is no longer the object he needs to make a pass, but the spear he tears through the defense.

Anelka quickly knocked the ball back and Charles shot directly from the top of the penalty area.

"call out!"

The ball went in.

After opening his own goal account, Charles lost interest in scoring goals and began to focus on passing the ball.

Fortunately, the French players all had good appetites tonight.

In the 22nd minute, Charles made a lob pass and Ribery took the ball and shot confidently from long range. Costa Rican defender Sequeira wanted to defend but accidentally slipped and sat on the ball.

The goalkeeper didn't react for a moment. When he turned around again, he saw Sequeira sitting the ball into the goal like laying an egg.

France 3:0 Costa Rica.

Domenegue smiled confidently.

The Costa Rican coach looked gloomy.

Something is wrong. Why is the French team's offensive strategy so clear today?

Is this the benefit of having an external brain?
Just two minutes later, Mandanda kicked the ball from the backcourt, Charles advanced to the top of the penalty area, shook off the Costa Rican defender with a dribble, and shot directly.

The Costa Rican goalkeeper jumped up, but the ball hit the inside of the goal post and bounced into the net.

Mandanda, who was guarding the goal behind, immediately retracted his foot just before rushing out of the penalty area.

He, the goalkeeper, actually got an assist.

No, don't be too proud.

Seeing that a tragedy was about to happen, Domenegue very tactfully began to make large-scale substitutions.

Except for the second goalkeeper Lori, all the players on the bench were replaced by him one after another.

In the end, France defeated Costa Rica 5:1.

In a good mood, Domenegue made an exception and gave the team half a day off the next day.

The next warm-up match is in four days.

Benzema rode a tricycle and started shopping with Charles and Lori.

Tignes is a ski resort, but it was obvious that the three of them could not engage in such a dangerous sport.

In addition to skiing, there is also a very unique activity: "Descendants of the Ize River."

This is a rafting activity that lasts for 2 hours.

But Lori didn't want to spend his entire half-day vacation rafting.

Although Tignes has a long history, the original village of Tignes has actually been submerged under the lake long ago.

Now, 60 years later, the memory of the people of Tignes is still intact, but their former home has long been buried under the reservoir of the hydroelectric power station.

Their way home through what was once farmland was as deep as the lake.

The original residents also considered opposing the construction of the dam and even threw explosives on it.

But when water began to rise in their cellars, they had to start believing that their homes would eventually be beneath the lake’s waters.

After a long silence, the people of Tigne could only imagine excavators digging up the graves of their families, extracting bits of bones and fragments of clothing from the barren earth.

Everything is difficult, but life must go on.

The residents received compensation, but they are still unwilling to leave.

So they moved their home to a higher mountain.

The new Tignes is now the crown jewel of the platinum industry, but it all started with the courage to rebuild at an altitude of 2100 meters.

The blue lake is sleeping quietly among the gray-white mountains;
Dark green pine trees and yellow-green half-man-high weeds stretch along the path;

The low and simple houses yawned in the empty gaps.

Summer is almost here, but it feels bleak and empty here.

Benzema pedaled the tricycle slowly, from the winding mountain road to the gray-white dam.

The dam located in the middle of the valley is like a pointed crescent moon at the beginning of the lunar month, which is both harmonious and abrupt with the new Tignes.

"what is that?"

Lori pointed curiously to the mural on the back of the dam.

Charles looked back, and even though the distance was very far, he could still see it very clearly.

“It’s The Giant, which was the largest mural in the world when it was created in the 1980s.”

Benzema also stopped pedaling, and all three of them got off their bicycles.

The sunlight is not that dazzling yet, and everything is very quiet.

"It's a painting of Hercules, as if it's a symbol of power."

Benzema explained.

The three began to circle the lake.

The lake was so deep that nothing could be seen except the color of the sky.

In the very middle of the lake, there is a small island with a pointed tip.

The island was surrounded by circles of small stones, and the grass in the middle was overgrown with weeds.

"Want to go have a look?"

Lori suggested.

"Let's take a boat over there. There happens to be an empty boat there."

Charles pulled the two of them together and walked towards the boat station.

The captain of the boat quickly recognized the three people.

After taking the photo, he began to explain the history of the small island in the middle of the lake.

After the dam was built, the water level began to rise gradually.

However, the Church of St. Michel was spared because of its high altitude, which was directly higher than the final water level of the dam.

Although this small church is very simple, it has a very long history.

Originally it was built on a small promontory in the 12th century and belonged to the Monastery of San Michele de la Cruz.

Later, in 1692, the church was destroyed in war.

Then in the late 17th century, local residents began to rebuild the church, and this place became a holy place in the hearts of local residents.

Every year on September 9th, the Feast of St. Michael, they would make a pilgrimage to this church.

The church was scheduled to be destroyed when the dam was built, but an architect later launched a campaign to preserve the ancient building.

In the end, the architect won the lawsuit, and the church remained intact, standing in the middle of the water.

The three did not go to the island because the church was not allowed to be visited.

After the ripples caused by the cruise ship gradually disappeared, the three of them returned to the shore.

Benzema took the initiative to walk to the luxurious driving seat of the tricycle with a 360° panoramic sunroof, and Charles and Lori also returned to the back seat of the tricycle.

"No wonder people in Tigne don't want to leave. If I retire in the future, I will live here too."

Lori exclaimed.

Ciel rudely broke his dream. "Wake up, the internet here is not good."

All three of them laughed.

Four days passed quickly, and France's second warm-up match against Tunisia officially kicked off.

The two sides have met three times in history, but all of them were friendly matches.

In 1978, France won 2-0 at home;

After the 2002 World Cup, Tunisia drew 1-1 with France at home in a warm-up match;

After the 2008 European Cup, the French team won 3-1 at home at the Stade de France.

All in all, this game was very stable.

From here we can roughly see the general idea of ​​the French Football Association in arranging matches.

多梅内格终于放弃了他的4-2-3-1，继续试验他的4-3-3。

Ribery, Govou and Benzema act as the forward line;

Gourcuff and Char are the double attacking midfielders, and Toulalan is the single defensive midfielder;
Sagna, Gallas, Abidal and Evra played as the defence;
Lori sent Mandanda on to start the game.

In fact, in the French goalkeeper position, Domenegue has been wavering between Mandanda and Lori.

As for who is the right one, we can only say that no one is right.

The Tunisian players need no introduction.

All strangers.

The kind that even search engines can't find.

In the end, France defeated Tunisia 2:1.

But the victory could not cover up the media's doubts about Domenegue.

When Toulalan was in Lyon, he played as a single defensive midfielder, but Domenegue did the same and immediately suffered from acclimatization problems.

Due to the lack of training time for the national team, the cooperation between teammates is not yet tacit enough.

Tunisia made a simple defensive midfielder move from the back, followed by a straight pass from the ribs that pierced through France's weak, parallel defense.

Afterwards, Charles realized this problem and began to cooperate in defense.

Why is Charles back on defense?

Because Gourcuff was still watching and dreaming, and didn't realize the problem at all!
This then led to bigger problems.

As Charles became more involved in defense, France's offensive line began to blur.

Ribery cuts off contact with the midfield directly;
Benzema can’t even play happy football;

Where is Ge Wu?
he's lost.

That was the state of the game at the time.

Why did we win the game in the end?
Because Ribery lost his temper, Gourcuff finally reacted and started to help Toulalan defend like Charles did, freeing Charles;

Then, under Charles' command, Benzema retreated and connected with the midfield.

在最后，梳理清楚进攻路线之后，法国队也从原先的一片混乱的4-6-0回归到正常的4-3-3。

So what is Domenegue doing?
He confirmed that the Tunisian Football Association had refuted rumors of hiring him as the national team coach after the game.

People say things like: "Thanks, but by comparison, we think we're pretty good..."

After the game, Ribery secretly patted Charles' hand.

Considering that their opponent four days later would be the Chinese team, which was more than 60 points weaker than Tunisia, the players who had wanted to relax after the game all became serious.

The locker room after the game.

Domenegue went to do the post-match interview and was scolded.

There were only players in the locker room.

Charles and Ribery looked at each other and walked to the center at the same time.

"Lori, you go guard the door."

Upon hearing this, Lowry put down his gloves and leaned against the locker room door.

The other players also realized that something was wrong, stopped what they were doing and shut up.

"We only have one warm-up match left. Tomorrow we will go to Tunisia for training."

"Then on June 6th, it will be the last warm-up match against the Chinese team."

"When we arrived in Tunisia, it was June 6, and there were only 1 days left until the World Cup opened."

"We only have 10 days left to prepare for the World Cup."

Ribery took over Charles' words.

"I don't know how you guys feel about today's game, but I just can't bear to watch it anymore."

"Our forward line was lost and couldn't find the goal, including me."

Charles echoed: "Our midfield is a mess, like a paella in Spain."

"Defense? They're just trying to make ends meet."

“I think we should do something.”

Ribery put his hands on his hips and looked around at everyone. "Then after the game, I found Charles. We all felt that we were not without hope, and we were not hopeless."

Charles nodded. "We don't have much time now. We can't change the formation. We have to use 4-3-3. So for the sake of the World Cup and the dream that comes once every four years, all we can do now is to make our best efforts and hone this formation."

As he spoke, Charles stretched out his hand and Benzema threw a box over.

Charles handed the box to Ribery, "Everyone come here, Lori you come too, let's gather together."

Everyone came over. Charles was no longer standing in the middle. Instead, he stepped out with Ribery and formed a circle with his teammates.

Ribery took out a lighter from the box, took out the yellow candle inside and lit it.

And at the moment the candle was lit, Charles turned off the lights in the locker room.

"Closer, we are close brothers, we are teammates, we are a family."

Charles put his hands on the shoulders of Benzema and Ribery, and everyone else followed suit.

"This candle, the light of one candle is not very bright, but add one more, and then another, and finally add 23, and it will light up the whole room clearly."

While Charles was speaking, Ribery took out one candle after another from the box, slowly lit them up, and then placed them in the middle.

He can't speak, so the task of cheering and encouraging has to be left to Charles.

"Every team in the World Cup is full of stars, but the team that wins the World Cup is never the one with the most stars."

“It’s the brightest one in the whole team.”

"Just like in 1998, our French team was not the most star-studded, Brazil was, but we eventually beat Brazil and won the World Cup."

"Why? Anelka, tell me why?"

Anelka was stunned for a moment, "Is it because we are united?"

Charles raised his voice, "Yes, it is because of our unity. The light of the 23 of us individually may not be as bright as theirs, but when we add up, it is brighter than theirs."

"Look! What is that beneath our feet? Mandanda, what did you say?"

Mandanda was stunned for a moment when his name was called, "Uh, is it a shadow?"

Ciel nodded.

"Yes, it is a shadow. What we are stepping on is not hell, but the reflection of heaven."

"Why is it a reflection of heaven? Because we are heaven!"

"..."

"I don't want to say anything more because Domenegue is coming back."

Everyone laughed.

Charles went on to add, “I want to travel after July, and I also want to buy a new horse because the horse I had before was a short pony, and I want to have a tall one;”

"I also want to go through the Watergate when I return from South Africa. I even want my projection to appear on the Arc de Triomphe."

At this time, Tularan also laughed, "I think so too."

Soon, others began to agree.

"I want, too."

"I want, too."

Charles finally laughed with satisfaction, and at this moment, his voice became hoarse.

"Then, let's work together. Don't complain, don't doubt, don't be confused or afraid, because we only have one goal, and that is—"

"The World Cup!"

(End of this chapter)