Yesterday, the Tokyo Paralympic Blind Football Futsal started the final round of competition in Group A. The Chinese Men’s Blind Football Team defeated the Japanese team 2-0 and won the second place in Group A with a record of 2 wins and 1 loss. The top Brazil team joined hands to advance to the semi-finals.

In the semi-finals, the Chinese team will compete with the top Argentina team in Group B for the final right.

　　China's blind foot is a strong team

　　The top four in the world are the normal level of the Chinese blind football team.

　　Since the establishment of the team in 2006, the Chinese blind football team has achieved a series of good results: 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games runner-up, 2010 Blind Football World Championships third runner-up, 2010 Guangzhou Paralympic Games champion, 2012 London Paralympic Games fifth place, 2013 Asian blind Champion of the Football (Five-a-side) Championship, 2014 Blind Football World Cup 4th, 2016 Rio Paralympic Games 4th, 2017 Blind Football Asian Championships, 2018 Blind Football World Cup 3rd, 2019 Blind Football Asian Cup winner...

　　In this Paralympic Games, the Chinese team lost to Brazil 0-3 and beat France 1-0 in the first two rounds.

In the last round against the host Japanese team, the Chinese team had no retreat. Only by winning the battle can the team qualify.

In the battle, the Chinese team sent out the "Five Tigers" composed of Wu Limin, Liu Meng, Zhang Jiabin, Yu Yurong and Zhu Ruiming.

　　In the 12th minute of the first half, Zhu Ruiming took the lead in breaking the deadlock for the Chinese team, and then in the 18th minute, he scored twice.

So far, Zhu Ruiming has scored 3 goals in this Paralympic Games and arranged all the goals of the Chinese team so far.

In the last game against the French team, he scored the only winning goal for the Chinese team.

In the second half, the two sides attacked and defended each other. The Chinese team stubbornly withstood the opponent's counterattack and maintained their two-goal advantage to the end.

　　In a key game in Group B that ended that afternoon, Argentina defeated Thailand 3-0.

In this way, the Argentine team won the first place in Group B with a record of 3 wins in the group stage.

On September 2, the Chinese and Arab teams will meet in the semi-finals.

　　The Paralympic goal is still a medal

　　After the game, the head coach of the Chinese team Xu Yufei said: "The last round of the match against the French team was a planned game, and winning is a normal category. We played against the Japanese team in this game, and the win is also in our plan. The players are not in a hurry. Don't be irritable, type out what was in training."

　　In the semi-finals, the Chinese team's opponent is the South American powerhouse Argentina.

You know, in the football world of healthy people, it is almost an "impossible task" for the Chinese men's football team to beat the Argentina team.

But in the field of blind feet, the Chinese team is an out-and-out world strong team. The two teams are at the same level in terms of strength. Who can advance to the final depends on the performance.

　　If it can pass this level, the Chinese team is expected to once again play against the world's blind foot overlord and the four-time Paralympic gold medalist Brazil.

Although the Chinese team lost 0 to 3 in the first round of the group stage, the captain Zhang Jiabin said, "We lost our first group match to the hottest Brazil team that won the championship, but the game process was not bad and everyone was holding back. Tone, I hope to meet them again in the finals. Of course, if you want to play against the Brazil team, you must pass the Argentina team first."

　　In fact, the goal of the Chinese blind football team coming to Tokyo this time is to win a medal. Even if they fail to break through in the semi-finals, they are also very competitive in the bronze medal match.

　　Confidence comes from hard training

　　This self-confidence of China's blind feet comes not only from past honors, but also from the hard training of players and coaches day after day.

　　You should know that a healthy person can rely on vision and physical perception to control the running line of football, but if you are blindfolded, even if you have world-class ball control, you can't normally complete basic movements such as passing, controlling, dribbling, and shooting.

The most important thing is that in complete darkness, people will lose their sense of direction. This is the biggest obstacle to players' performance.

　　For blind-footed athletes who want to stand on the green field, the first thing they must overcome is their inner fear. They must learn to run with the ball and shoot hard in the dark.

Captain Zhang Jiabin once described his state during the game like this: "It's dark in front of you, but you have to run. At first, I was really scared and basically couldn't run at full capacity."

　　Solving the inner fear, it is not easy for the players to learn the technique under their feet-every technical movement must be demonstrated by the coach to feel the force position and movement range through touch, and passed hundreds of thousands of times. Repeated exercises to form muscle memory.

　　The team was established in 2006 and won the runner-up in the Beijing Paralympic Games two years later. The high starting point did not make players and coaches any complacent. They still insisted on training hard and gradually grew from an Asian hegemon to a world powerhouse.

　　This is the sport of the brave

　　When preparing for the Rio Paralympic Games five years ago, Zhang Jiabin collided with his teammates during training, causing his eyeballs to rupture and bleeding. In the end, he had to undergo emergency surgery to remove the eyeballs.

In order not to worry the family, Zhang Jiabin did not tell his parents about the injury.

Except for this serious injury, his knees and forehead are not known how many times he has been knocked to pieces. Because of continuous bumps in the same position of his mouth, he can't open his mouth even when he eats.

　　But every time he mentions these injuries, Zhang Jiabin laughs. He said that since the moment he decided to stand on the green field, he took these possible accidents as commonplace. "Some people say that blind football is a sport for the brave. In fierce confrontations, player collisions, injuries, and bleeding are common. Each of our players has injuries. This is a testament to the growth and transformation of the team."

　　Zhu Ruiming, who arranged all three goals for the Chinese team in this Paralympic Games so far, is a "post-00". He has been in contact with football since the age of 11 and has played for the Shandong team many times.

His waist injury, nose injury, and ankle injury did not stop him from kicking the ball.

He sees all this as a gift from football.

　　Substitute Tang Zhihua suffered injuries to his ankles, knees, and elbows. In the worst case, he lay on the hospital bed for 4 consecutive days. Although the goalkeeper can try to avoid the collision between the players' bodies, the blind football has a built-in steel bell, which is better than ordinary football. They are a lot heavier, and they are often bluish and purple from the ball.

　　In order to prepare for the Tokyo Paralympic Games, China has gone through a long period of closed training for blind feet.

When attending the training camp, veteran Yu Yuyang's son had just been born, and when he returned home, the child would have called his father.

　　During the long training period, everyone in the team is working hard for the same goal.

Now they are getting closer and closer to this goal.

　　After the Chinese Blind Men’s Football team was promoted, many Chinese fans were greatly encouraged. They left messages on the Internet to express their support and encouragement to the team, wishing them to make persistent efforts and realize their dreams.

　　Our reporter Wang Yang