Chapter 424: Winning Streak and Advancing
England's lead was an expected result. In addition to Nigeria's luxurious offensive line, Ndidi is also well-known on the defensive end. Although popularity cannot be linked to strength, England's internationals are the main players of major Premier League giants, and their overall strength is definitely higher than that of Nigerian defensive players who are mixed in low-level competitions.
In addition, with top-level monster shooters like Li Qing, how can Nigerian players with no fame and strength defend?
If the defense cannot defend against England's offense, how can the offense put pressure on England's defense?
This is also the fundamental reason why Southgate arranged a diamond position in the midfield, because Li Qing's forward movement and passing can bring huge threats to Nigeria's defense, so that they have no time to take care of the offense.
"aoaooaaooooooooo——"
The sky above the Rostov Arena was filled with continuous and huge cheers from English and Chinese fans. The number of Nigerian fans is small, so their presence is very low.
The players on the field can't even feel the supporters, and their combat effectiveness will definitely be greatly damaged.
Ighalo and Iheanacho are both players who need strong support from their teammates. When Mikel, Ndidi and Moses put most of their attention on defense, there is no way to participate in the process of switching from defense to offense in time, which means that the backcourt players can only take the long pass.
Stones and Iheanacho are club teammates and know where the younger brother's weaknesses are. Ighalo's ability to fight has declined significantly after he went to Yatai to make money. Facing Maguire who weighs up to 100 kilograms, he has no ability to resist.
However, Nigeria's defense was good after losing the ball. Before the end of the first half, Li Qing seized the opportunity and sent a surgical pass in the midfield. Harry Kane shot the ball and the football rolled to the lower right corner of the goal along the ground. The score on the scoreboard became 2:0.
In the second half, Nigeria changed sides and fought again. After falling behind for two periods, they had no choice. The last round against Argentina must be a life-and-death battle. In order to reduce the pressure of the last round, it is particularly important to draw with England in the second round.
Nigeria tried to strengthen the attack, but the control of the ball was firmly controlled by England. The Nigerian players who wanted to score to narrow the score were very depressed.
Li Qing, who played as a front midfielder, did not have a strong desire to score. He rarely tried to pass the ball continuously and shoot from a distance. He created opportunities by passing the ball to his teammates. However, the happy boys Sterling and Rashford frequently wasted opportunities.
The fanatical atmosphere of the Rostov Arena did not decline due to the lack of goals. On the contrary, it became more and more fanatical as time went by, and the deafening cheers resounded throughout the stadium.
Of course, these voices were brought by English fans, Chinese fans and neutral fans.
As Harry Kane also missed the opportunity, Li Qing decided to make the final shot by himself.
In the 62nd minute, Li Qing suddenly accelerated in the middle and played a wonderful two-on-one match with Henderson, Harry Kane and Rashford to break into the penalty area.
Facing goalkeeper Juanfran, he chose to push the ball into the far corner very calmly, and the score on the scoreboard became 3:0.
Nigeria, which was already three goals behind, had no choice. It finally got two goals in the first round, but it became a negative number after this game. Not to mention the results of tomorrow's game between Argentina and Iceland, in order to qualify from the group, the goal difference must at least become 0, which means a maximum loss of two goals.
But England's defense was very good, and the score did not change until the end of the game.
This means that England defeated Nigeria 3:0 in the group match at the Rostov Arena with two shots and one assist from Li Qing, and qualified in advance with two consecutive wins in the group.
With seven goals, no matter what the result of the game between Iceland and Argentina tomorrow afternoon, England almost means locking in the first place in the group in advance!
Nigeria, which has one group match left, has 3 points and a goal difference of -1, while England has 6 points and 7 goals.
Assuming that Argentina wins the match tomorrow afternoon and the last round, the points are only six points. Argentina, which lost by a large margin in the first round, may not be able to turn the -4 goal difference into a +5 goal difference after two consecutive wins. And Argentina's two consecutive wins must be Nigeria's loss. Therefore, as long as England does not lose by a large margin in the last round, it can still beat Argentina with the goal difference advantage to get the first place in the group.
The second assumption is that Iceland beats Argentina. 3 points and 3 points, then Argentina, which lost two consecutive games, means that it will be eliminated in advance, making the situation of qualifying in Group D more stalemate. Iceland and Nigeria both have 3 points. Iceland, which plays England in the last round, will not be able to beat England to qualify unless it wins by a large margin, unless... Nigeria loses points in the last round.
The last assumption is that Argentina and Iceland draw in the match tomorrow afternoon. If the two teams get one point each, England's first place in the group is basically a foregone conclusion, because the possibility of England losing to Iceland by a large margin and Nigeria defeating Argentina by a large margin at the same time is almost zero.
Besides, England was humiliatingly eliminated by Iceland in the quarter-finals of the European Championship in France two years ago. They met again in the World Cup group stage two years later. They must avenge the defeat two years ago, and eliminating Iceland is the best revenge!
The second round of the World Cup Group D match between England and Nigeria ended. Sports media and fans around the world remained highly excited and gave all the praise to Li Qing.
Six goals in two rounds of the World Cup group stage. According to the winners of the Golden Boot Award in recent World Cups, this number of goals is basically enough to win the Golden Boot Award.
Of course, no one doubts that Li Qing will win the Golden Boot Award in the Russian World Cup, because his goal efficiency is there. There is no Golden Boot Award in the world's top ten bookmakers. It can be seen that Li Qing was infinitely optimistic about winning the Golden Boot Award of this World Cup before the start of the World Cup.
Therefore, there is only one way for the major bookmakers in the world to play Li Qing's goals, that is, how many goals he can score in the end.
According to the real-time data provided by the bookmakers, there are almost no lottery players who buy Li Qing to score less than 6 goals. Most of them buy between 10 and 15 goals. Therefore, many fans believe that Li Qing can completely break the record of 13 goals in a single World Cup created by French legend Fontaine in 1958.
Li Qing was too lazy to read the overwhelming reports. When the whole team took a flight to Kaliningrad, the second round of the group match between Argentina and Iceland at the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium also kicked off.
Argentina, which is obviously stronger overall, was obviously affected by the defeat in the first round. The state has not been played for a long time. Messi even missed a penalty kick, ruining Argentina's chance of winning. In the end, the game ended in a 1:1 draw.
So, after two rounds in Group D, England ranked first with 6 points, Nigeria ranked second with 3 points, and Iceland, with 1 point, ranked third with Argentina's goal difference advantage.
No one expected that Argentina, the favorite to win the championship, only had 1 point in two rounds.
However, since Argentina played Nigeria, which had the highest chance of qualifying, in the last round, the domestic media and fans of Argentina did not feel completely desperate, because Argentina could basically ensure qualification as long as it won in the last round.
Unless England would eliminate them.