TV'00 at Columbus, Ohio, The Semifinalist

The veterans from left to right (click picture to see the full size one):

 

Front: Li Hui, Zhang Jun, Wang Feng, Wang Guoqing, Zhou Lisong, Song Lei, Zhang Liang

Rear:Di Yong, Liang Wei, Hu Bo, Chen Chen, Chen Wei, He Biao, Jia Feng, Xing Yukun, Chang Wei, Meng Zhaohui

Note: Zhao Wei, Li Wei not in picture

 

 

5th Chinese National Soccer tournament (semi-finalist among 12 teams)

 

       Columbus, Ohio, 9/3-4, 2000

 

       The squad: (19)

            Di Yong, Wang Feng, Chen Wei, Chang Wei, Song Lei, Jia Feng,

            He Biao, Chen Chen, Hu Bo, Zhang Liang, Zhou Lisong,

            Wang Guoqing, Liang Wei, Li Wei, Li Hui, Zhao Wei, Meng Zhaohui,

            Zhang Jun, Xing Yukun

 

       Game Results:

 

       Day 1 (9/3) Group Matches

       

        first match

        vs. Michigan United  3:2

                first half:

                        1:0 (Song Lei)

                        2:0 (Xing Yukun)

                second half:

                        3:0 (Wang Feng, penalty)

                        3:1

                        3:2

 

 

        second match

        vs. KeDa            1:1

                first half

                        1:0 (Jia Feng)

                second half

                        1:1

 

        Rank #1 in the group (KeDa beat Michigan 1:0)

 

         Day 2 (9/4) Playoff

 

        quarterfinal

        vs. Cleveland      3:2

                first half

                        1:0 (Chen Wei, penalty)

                        2:0 (Chen Wei)

                second half

                        3:0 (He Biao)

                        3:1

                        3:2

 

        semifinal

        vs. Silicon Valley Tigers  1:3

                first half

                        1:0 (Song Lei)

                second half

                        1:1

                        1:2

                        1:3

 

       Win 2,  Tie 1,  Lose 1, Goals scored 8, Goals allowed 8.

       Tournament scorers: Song Lei (2), Chen Wei (2), Wang Feng,

                              Jia Feng, Xing Yukun, He Biao.

 

 

Team Report

 

By Chen, Wei

 

Friday, 9/1, two days before the game.

 

         Good news and bad news came together. The good news was Li Hui

         bid through priceline.com and cut down more than half of our

         hotel cost. The bad news was we lost two players at the last

         minute --- Kang Yong, who injured his knee again in a practice

         game, and Cai Qijiang, whoses wife got sick.

 

Saturday, 9/2, the arrival day.

 

         19 players arrived in Columbus from all over the place, with

         Jia Feng setting a new record: flying from England for the

         tournament. Arrivals are not all that smooth: Delta cancelled

         flight from Atlanta to Columbus and re-routed Disco and Zhao

         Wei separately because they figured out it's just too

         dangerous to put these two on the same plane; Zhou Lisong got

         his first speeding ticket just because he's trying to catch up

         with the even faster Wang Guoqing. Anyway, finally we got most

         of our players arrived by 6pm, and with our beloved B-man Wei

         Ge's direction, we went to a nearby park to have our warmup

         session.  Right in the middle of the warmup practice, I felt

         that a young, energetic, and talented TV team was going to

         emerge in this tournament.

 

         The evening team meeting was very effective as well. We

         exchanged many ideas and consented on the basic schemes we

         were going to use, that is, transition through the midfield,

         ground and middle- distance passes, control the paces, connect

         three lines, and attack through the wings.

 

Sunday, 9/3, the group match day.

 

   First Game vs. Michigan United, 3:2

 

         Our first opponent was Michigan United. Though missing some of

         the key players, Michigan is still a good team with organized

         defense and good physical strength. Having just lost to KeDa

         in the first group match 0:1, they were desparate to get back

         some points. But right from the beginning, we took the control

         of the game. We executed our plan very well, controlling good

         pace, passing beautifully in the midfield, and finding empty

         holes in their defense line.

 

         The first goal came at about 20 minutes, when Disco created a

         good chance by a straight pass to Song Lei, who ran through

         the defense line and took the ball right towards their goalie.

         The goalie took Song Lei down inside the box, but amazingly

         Song Lei got up right away and sent the ball into the net.  No

         penalty is necessary. 1:0.

 

         Shortly after the first goal, He Biao got the ball at the left

         wing, faked away a defender and crossed the ball towards the

         goal.  The ball slipped through Michigan goalie's hand and

         fell right in front of our forward Xing Yukun, who easily

         headed the ball into the net.

 

         The third goal came in the second half, when I seized a

         mistake by their defender, intercepted the ball and dribbled

         into the box and was taken down by another defender. A penalty

         kick, called right away by the Ref. Wang Feng took the shot

         and made the third goal.

 

         After 3:0, we slowed down a little and subed more to preserve

         energy, when Michigan pushed forward to try to get some goal

         back.  They did grabed two chances and turn the board to 3:2,

         but two late for them to do anything more.

 

   Second Game vs. KeDa Kings   1:1

 

         KeDa is a suprisely good team, with well organized and skilled

         players in the back and the midfield. At the beginning of the

         game, KeDa seemed to be controling the midfield, and we are

         more on the defending side. But they didn't have very

         effective way to break our defense, other than sending high

         balls to the top of our box, which were all successfully

         intercepted by our stopper Zhang Liang and sweeper Wang Feng.

 

         After a while, our attacking force got into action, and

         started created good chances in their half. In a fast break,

         Song Lei took the ball from the left side into their box,

         dribbled through a defender and brought the ball all the way

         to just a few yards outside the goalpost. Their goalie tried

         to come up to shut the angle, but Song Lei cleverly passed the

         ball to Jia Feng, who came in at the right time and toughed

         the ball into the goal.

 

         In the second half, Zhao Wei dislocated his elbow, and the

         police and the embulance was called to sent him to ER. Zhaohui

         voluntarily accompanied Zhao Wei all the time in ER till

         around the midnight.

 

         The game was interrupted for about 20 minutes, and after it

         resumed, KeDa seemed to be not that desparate to win back the

         game to avoid playing NYWW the second day, and kept passing

         the ball back and forth in their own half. However, they did

         get a chance by breaking in from the right wing, and a pass is

         stopped by Disco, but the ref called a handball and a penalty

         kick! From where I stood, it's clear that it's unintentional,

         rather I can clearly see that Disco was intentionally taking

         the arm backward to avoid the ball. But Arguing with ref was

         futile. KeDa's goalie went all the way across the field to

         take this precious penalty, but it was stopped by our

         fast-reacted goalie Zhang Jun!

 

         Still KeDa grabbed another chance, with an arguably offside,

         they got back a goal. Final score 1:1. Since we have more

         goals in the group matches, we claimed the first rank in the

         group.

 

   Other matches in the first day.

 

         Nothing dramatic, except our old rival Wisconsin lost bitterly

         this time. Lao Ye was probably the only old star left in the

         team, and they lost 2:4 in their first match against a new

         team U. of Maryland team. UM team's captain Wang Xueli, who is

         also a tsinghua graduate and was contacted by Xie Yuan but

         just too late to be recruited to our team this time, scored

         all four goals in the game.

 

         Wei Ge's host team OSU played pretty hard against NYWW and

         Cleveland, but without Cai Shan, they were just a little short

         to get to the playoff.

 

         After the first day matches, Group A's Hunter and NY United,

         Group B's Silicon Valley Tigers and U. Maryland, Group C's

         Tsinghua Veterans and KeDa, and Group D's NYWW and Cleveland

         advanced to the second day playoff.

 

  Jacuzzi, BBQ, "Jiang1 Qing1 Yu4 Ci4", etc.

 

        The night time programs after the group matches are the

         typical TVish ones --- Jacuzzi, followed by a long dinner

         table (this time at Mogolian BBQ) with fun talks over soured

         bodies. But with all those big "Kan3 Ye2" like Lao Ruo, Yang

         Gong, Da Runzi and Da Niao missing in TV2000, who could take

         the lead in Jacuzzi and on the dinner table? Don't Worry. TVs

         are not short of star in this category either. Chang Wei

         stepped up and entertained our TV2000 with a series of

         hilarious, and some X-rated jokes, like "a patient in the

         hospital", "Xiao Ping and Li Peng's trip to England", and

         "Jiang Qing Yu Ci", ... Sorry, I can't repeat them here. I was

         just wondering what it would be like if all you big "Kan3

         Xing1" are here. That must be "qun2 xing1 hui4 cui4".

 

Monday, 9/4, the playoff

 

   Quarterfinal vs. Cleveland

 

         The day started with rain, perhaps hinting something

         unfortunate on the way. With Zhao Wei injured and Li Wei left

         early to fly back to Texas, we only have 17 players left for

         the day, with Jia Feng had a left foot injury too.

 

         Our quarterfinal is against Cleveland, a team without much of

         characteristic. We carried out the same game plan, and

         controlled the game right from the start. First Chang Wei used

         his marvelous dribbling skill to get into their box and was

         surrounded and taken down by three defenders. I took the

         penalty and scored the first goal. Then a beautiful pass by

         disco made me easily get rid of a defender and score the

         second goal right inside the box. Chang Wei had another

         beautiful header which hit the crossbar. In the second half,

         Jia Feng and He Biao carried out a great setup play in a free

         kick, just as we practiced in saturday's warmup session: He

         Biao faked the kick and run through the ball, and Jia Feng

         faked the kick again and passed the ball back to He Biao, who

         took the shot right away before any defender got close to him,

         and the ball went in the upper left corner of the goal. Very

         clean execution!

 

         As seems to be our TV2000 feature, we always gave our

         opponents some chances when we were ahead. In the last 20

         minutes, Cleveland suddenly came back with 2 goals, but we

         managed to hold on and clinch a semifinal spot the 5th time.

 

   Semifinal, vs. Silicon Valley Tigers

 

        TV2000 got really tired at this point. Even just moving our

         belongs and bottles of drinks across the field to the

         semifinal field seems to be an endless journey to us. Chang

         Wei, not only knew how to tell jokes to relax us, but also

         gave us a good suggestion of taking some tylenols before the

         game. So each player taking two pills, putting on a heavy coat

         of bengay, and we are back onto the field.

 

         SVT, with their questionable behavior in the quarterfinal,

         advanced to the semifinal. They are tired too, but they had

         much more players than us. Right from the start, they just

         sent long balls to our center defense, trying to seek some

         chances, but our defense line hold up pretty well in the first

         half. Our midfield and forwards still connected well, and

         created several chances. In the middle of the first half, I

         created a free kick about 10 meters outside their box. I took

         a strong and low shot on the free kick, and the ball passed

         the side of their human fence and flew right towards the

         goal. Their goalie positioned himself well, but just couldn't

         hold the ball fast, the ball bounced back, and Song Lei came

         up at the right time and picked up the rebound and scored! We

         are ahead again.

 

         SVT tried hard to attack but couldn't break our goal in the

         first half. In the second half, they are desparate and just

         sent long balls from all over the place to our center

         defense. Meanwhile, our players got really tired and we are

         short of subs, so we cannot create an effective defense in the

         midfield to reduce their long passes and to keep pressure on

         their defense. Finally our defense got just a little loose and

         they seized two chances and scored.  Our offsence tried to

         come up again and we did created a couple of good chances, but

         could not cash in. In the urge to come back, we left our

         defense more open and they scored another goal. So, 1:3, the

         end of TV2000's journey.

        

Overall

 

         I feel TV2000 is a very strong and talented team. If we just

         play one game, i am confident that we can beat any other team

         in this grand tournament. We have so many young and talented

         players joining TV this time. They will be the future of our

         team. Meanwhile, old TVs still contribute tremendously to the

         team as well. Disco played so well in the midfield. I can't

         see any reason that he cannot play in 2001, 2002, .... Da

         Fengzi amazingly played every single minute of the four games

         on the field without a sub!!! Can you guys believe that?

         That's certainly another TV record.

 

         Wish all our TVs to keep fit, and keep playing soccer, and see

         you in the future tournaments.

 

         Oh, forgot an important word from Disco:"No Chrismas baby

         anymore, please! Go out, do something fun, don't stay at home

         to give you chance to produce next generations that always

         come out around the labor day and stop his/her daddy to join

         TV2xxx."