princely elegance

Chapter 373 Confederations Cup ends
After the South African team lined up the wall under the command of the goalkeeper, the referee signaled Gago to start.

Taking a deep breath, Gago trotted two steps and then came to the ball, with the instep of his left foot facing the ball that he personally placed on the lawn and rubbed it vigorously.When kicking the ball out again, the arch of the foot subconsciously pulled sideways.

"The inner instep of the left foot is curved, hitting the upper left corner of the goal..."

The official game ball of the Confederations Cup in South Africa, Adidas' Kopanya carried the wishes of countless Argentine fans around the world and spun around the double wall to the left goal.

The goalkeeper of the South African team, Kehune, originally thought that the ball should be hit to the right of the goal. After all, although Gago is known as both left and right, he used his right foot when he debuted. In the past, most of the free kicks were taken. When using the right foot, there are only a handful of times when using the left foot.

But this time he miscalculated. Gago saw his shoulder shaking during the run-up, knew what he was thinking, and immediately adjusted his pace to let his left foot kick this free kick.

The sound of "bang" made everyone's hearts tighten. The ball bypassed Kehune's palm, hit the inside of the post, and then bounced into the net!

"gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

"A direct free kick, the ball is scored, Fernando Gago, perfect arc, accurate to the limit, and it will bounce back if it misses a point."

"God favors Argentina. After 14 years, another Maradona came to the Pampas. Fernando Gago, this goal will make all Argentines madly obsessed with him and fall in love with him!"

After seeing the ball into the net, Gago went directly to the corner flagpole and kicked it up. After kicking three times in a row, Messi threw him down.

Then, all the Argentine players ran over to celebrate the goal. The time was 89 minutes. This was the final lore.Off the court, Basile also hugged Maradona very excitedly, and the two attracted even more shots than on the court.

"I know what that kid can do. He is the most like me. Don't tell me he is 'the descendant of Redondo'. From today on, you will call him 'Maradona II'!"

Lao Ma excitedly waved and booed to the fans in the stands. After Gago moved forward, he praised Gago more than once to be like him.

"Extremely strong!"

Basile reacted at this time, curled his lips at Maradona, and then quickly gestured to the players on the field to retreat across the board.

There is less than 1 minute before the end of the game. Even with two or 3 minutes of stoppage time, as long as Argentina maintains the advantage of this goal for 5 minutes, they will be able to enter the final and win the championship.The U.S. team, who had been mistreated by them in the group stage, had no way of stopping them.

Seeing that Argentina, which was in sight of victory, blocked the South African team, which launched a desperate counterattack, outside the penalty area, Gago directly retreated his position to the midfielder.Coupled with Samuel's command in the backcourt, it was finally until the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game.

"Congratulations to Argentina. They eliminated the host South African team. Three days later, at the same stadium, the two teams qualifying for Group B will face off again. Will the result change this time?"

"The upset did not reappear after all. Argentina was not overthrown like Spain. Relying on Gago's valuable direct free kick, Pampas reached the finals of the Confederations Cup for two consecutive years. It's just that the last Confederations Cup in 05 In the Confederations Cup, Argentina was defeated by arch-rival Brazil 4:1, which made Adriano famous. And this time, will Argentina miss the championship again? Do they have any hope of winning their second Confederations Cup?"

"Currently France and Brazil have won the Confederations Cup the most times, both of them twice, while Argentina has only won it once, the first in 92, when the Pampas team led by Maradona After that, Argentina entered the finals twice, but failed to win the championship. Will Gago help the team win the championship again after 16 years this time? "

After the game, the reporters ignored the rules and all rushed into the stadium to interview the Argentine players who entered the final.If they follow the usual rules, they will definitely not get any news. They have a deep understanding of the rudimentary stadium facilities in South Africa.

Gago, who scored the only goal in the game, was naturally surrounded by the most people. Fortunately, Maradona saw his plight and came to make a rescue.With the old horse as a target, Gago can finally enter the passage and go back to the locker room.

"Diego, can you tell us about your vision for the final?"

"The champion belongs to Pampas. I predict the score is 3:0. Just like the group stage, the US team is definitely not our opponent. To deal with them, even Phil can easily defeat them with only half of his skills..."

Before Gago stepped into the channel, Maradona's big mouth began to blow without drafting at all.Let Jiago slip on the soles of his feet when he heard it, and almost slipped.

"Fair, are you okay?"

Messi, who was walking with him, asked with concern.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's just that the ground is a little wet!"

Gago smiled and waved to Messi, and walked to the locker room first!

In the locker room, all the players celebrated again, even Basile joined in.

But on the second day, everyone started to enter the closed training again, and now there is only the final match left, if they win, they are heroes, if they lose, they are sinners.

Fortunately, many players in Argentina participated in the last Confederations Cup, and there are still three players who played in the final.Zanetti, Cambiasso, and Heinze were the absolute main players at the time, but the result of that final was not so pleasant.Facing the combination of Kaka, Ronaldinho and Adriano at the peak, Pekerman's blue and white army was blown away.

Before the start of the final, Zanetti, as the captain and the last representative, made a summary and encouragement to Gago and the others.

"The last final was the most painful experience for me. It was the only time in the past 14 years that the national team entered the final of a major international competition. I thought I could end the embarrassing years without a championship, but I was humiliated by Brazil 4:1 I really don't want to think about it if I can."

When Zanetti said this, the expression on his face was very ashamed. Indeed, if Gago and his group of young people had not ended Argentina's championship-free years in the America's Cup, he and Ayala would still have to bear the "failure" generation" shame.

"Don't be afraid of anything in the final, just treat him as an ordinary game. Our strength is more than one step higher than the US team. You must always remember that they were killed by us with three goals in the group stage. Hold on Play with absolute confidence and show your strength, the championship is ours!"

……

After Zanetti finished speaking, Basile, as the head coach, got up and began to arrange the final tactics.This time he did not make any changes, a 4-3-3 full main offensive lineup.After the change of formation against South Africa in the last game almost put him in a trap, Basile understood that Argentina, which had just completed a blood change, had better play a set of fixed tactics.If you really want to change the lineup, you still have to wait until the team's lineup is almost ready.

Although the strength of the US team is not as good as that of Argentina, but this time all the players are not underestimated.The performance of the South African team in the last game humbled the Argentine stars who were proud of their unbeaten victory in the group stage. They knew that they were far from invincible.Even Spain has capsized in the gutter, and it is not impossible for the US team to beat them if they are not careful.

Three days of rest and adjustment time. None of the Argentine players went out to play. After waking up every day, they went to the loan base to start training and strengthen cooperation.

Of course, the most important thing is that the poor environment in South Africa makes the Argentine players have no mood to play.

It was this serious and hard-working attitude that prevented Argentina from being caught off guard by the opponent's outburst in the final.

At 28 pm local time on June [-]th, at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, Argentina failed to make any contribution in the first half, and was even scored a goal through a counterattack.

The U.S. team in the finals had at least a 50.00% increase in strength compared to the group stage.Not only was the ubiquitous running and scrambling in the audience, but also luck, Dempsey's volley from the penalty area hit Demichelis and reflected into the net.

Relying on this goal, the US team began to retreat across the board, maintaining the one-goal lead until the intermission.At the beginning of the second half, Basile replaced Demichelis who made a mistake with Aguero.Messi, Higuain, Carlos Tevez and Sergio Aguero all appeared in the frontcourt, followed by Gago's continuous delivery of shells.

And Aguero's luck was also good. He received a diagonal pass from Gago in the first minute of the game and pushed from a small angle to the far corner to help the team equalize the score.Then Gago kicked the ball into the goal with a strange arc like passing and shooting outside the penalty area, helping the team to overtake the score.

Then the US team began to counterattack, but it was too late. In the No.804 minute, Cambiasso received a corner kick from Gago and scored with a header, sealing the victory for the team.

When the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game, all the Argentine fans began to jump up excitedly. They raised their hands high to the sky and cheered for this time the champion.

When Zanetti took over the trophy from Blatter, the cheers of the audience reached a peak, and Gago was named the "Golden Globe" winner of this cup, and won the "Golden Ball" with five goals. Boot Awards", the cheers once again broke through a limit.

Seeing the reorganization of Argentina with Gago as the core, all the blue and white fans believe that the World Cup in South Africa is no longer a dream, and they have the strength to compete.

Taking this champion as an announcement, the new Pampas announces to the world to set sail again!

(End of this chapter)