Midfielder.

Chapter 491

"Smoke bomb, smoke bomb, smoke bomb." It is estimated that before arriving at Stamford Bridge to see Chelsea's game squad, Pellegrini had been chanting a sentence. He was really afraid of being fooled by his opponent.

When his opponent is a man like Mourinho, he should be more cautious.

There are not a few people with hemiplegia fooled by Mourinho, and the damned number is still accumulating, as long as they are not careful, anyone may be counted by this guy.

Pellegrini is really afraid that Mourinho will play tricks on him, although he also knows that if he fights against the opponent purely based on strength, the final outcome is likely to be that his team will face the end of being eliminated in the Champions League.

It can be said that Stamford Bridge is not a magic spell, but if you want to beat Chelsea here, it is basically impossible, unless a miracle happens, and Pellegrini is not naive enough to think that this miracle will be born when he is injured, let alone Now the Villarreal team is still short of major generals, and at most he is encouraging a battle.

However, at the moment when Chelsea's 16-man roster was announced, the first thought that popped up in Pellegrini's mind was, "Is Senna's flying kick really that hard? That kid really hurt?"

It may not be that Pellegrini has this idea. Many people think so when they see Mourinho's roster, because no matter whether he is in the starting lineup or on the bench, Lin Yi is not seen.

Originally, many reporters also predicted that Lin Yi's injury might be given by Mourinho and the ecstasy.

But now it seems that this is not the case, otherwise it is impossible for Lin Yi not to enter the big list.

Even if this kid has just recovered from his injury, Mourinho will not abandon his midfield core in such an important confrontation as the Champions League semi-finals. Unless he is crazy, otherwise Lin Yi's kid cannot miss this semi-final.

If Mourinho is not crazy, then there is only one possibility, and that is that Lin Yi's injury is indeed serious.

Is it really the same as some media reports?The kid is doomed to miss the rest of Chelsea's season?Would Chelsea have been able to defend their title without this kid's spooky performance on the pitch?

But no one has paid attention to the expressions of Kenyon and Abramovich now, because these two guys are well aware of Mourinho's actions, but because of the original agreement, no one dares to say more now What.

But Kenyon was really a little nervous. After all, he was suitable for the semi-finals of the Champions League. The last game was only a one-to-zero victory. No one can guarantee that there will be no accidents. After all, the opponent has also eliminated Inter Milan.

If at this time because of a risky gambling gutter, it would definitely be worth the loss, but Kenyon can't command Mourinho. He really wants Lin Yi to play, but if Mourinho doesn't give orders, who would dare ?What's more, that kid Lin Yi has already agreed with Mourinho, who can command Lin Yi?

Kenyon knew that if he really intervened in the team's game, then Mourinho would definitely make him overwhelmed. Kenyon had never seen the Portuguese's terrible stubborn temper before.

At the beginning, in order to buy a two superstars, Mourinho directly pushed him back with a blunt sentence, without giving him any face, unless he couldn't think about it, otherwise Kenyon would not consider provoking him. Mourinho, otherwise, the other party will definitely not give him any face.

Not to mention him, even if Abramovich asked about the team's tactical arrangements, Mourinho would not buy it.

This probably won't work for anyone else. Although I know that Lin Yi is really fine now, Mourinho has the final say on how to arrange troops, and Mourinho said that if the horse stumbles, he will be responsible. .

Although Abramovich is eager to successfully defend the Champions League, at this time, he has no other way but to support Mourinho unconditionally, or he can consider praying.

Now that Mourinho has issued a military order, no one can object to his opinion. Kenyon and the Russian tycoon feel a little uneasy, but now they can only wipe off their white hairs and wait for the start of the game.

Lin Yi is not on the field, and I also need to see this situation. The happiest ones are probably the competitors that Chelsea will face next, such as AC Milan or Arsenal, and Manchester United, which has already entered the FA Cup final.

Especially a team like AC Milan that may compete with Chelsea for the final Champions League trophy will pay close attention to this game. The confrontation between them and Arsenal will be held on the second day. Ancelotti is sitting at Stamford Bridge at the moment. In the stands, he did not hide his whereabouts, in order to observe Chelsea's game.

The loss last season made Ancelotti depressed for a whole summer, and now it is very easy to have a chance for revenge.

Even if he is a very quiet and honest person, I'm afraid he will have the urge to kill his opponent. Now it seems that Lin Yi's absence has touched him a lot, otherwise he wouldn't start whispering to him after seeing the list of players. What did the assistants around him communicate with? Maybe he was measuring how much threat Chelsea, without Lin Yi, could be.

It can also be seen from this that what kind of impression Lin Yi left on AC Milan at the beginning, it seems that with him on the field, the entire defense line of the opponent will be under pressure. Ancelotti may really hope that Lin Yi is seriously injured. Heavy.

Chelsea without Lin Yi, although the overall strength is still terrifying, but without such a terrorist who can tear apart the opponent's defense at a critical moment, perhaps the burden on Ancelotti's shoulders will be much easier.

Mourinho doesn't think as much as others. He is the head coach of a team, so he knows what he should do. Although he is taking a risk at the moment, this is the trap he set for others.

As for Ancelotti's current mental activities, he doesn't care, and he doesn't want to speculate too much.

It is only reasonable to play the game in front of you well. Only when you win these nine 10 minutes can you be considered as completing the task.

Brito was not as calm as Mourinho. The day before the game, he raised the idea of ​​recalling Lin Yi several times. In his opinion, everything should be safe, after all, this is the Champions League. In the semi-finals, there is really no tolerance for any mistakes. If they lose, their work will be in vain this season.

With the final close at hand, if something goes wrong, it will definitely ruin the team's efforts.

But Mourinho replied to his old partner, "If we don't take a risk, we may really suffer from dependence. It is impossible for Lin Yi to play 10 minutes in every game, and he is only one person. .”

It's not that Mourinho wants to take Lin Yi out of the picture, but that he knows that a player's career cannot be smooth sailing. Maybe that damn injury will really come to him that day, and Lin Yi can't stay healthy all the time.

Major injuries may not necessarily be the case, but minor injuries after one or two months of rest, everyone has encountered them, not to mention that this kid is still an offensive player, and he will always encounter those who want to bring him down at all costs. inevitable.

Chelsea have played very smoothly in the past two seasons, especially in the kind of games where they are desperate to the end. Lin Yi can always help them find a breakthrough, but such smoothness makes it easy for players to unconsciously rely on others.

This is a very dangerous signal. If these guys have been like this all the time, it is easy to lose the sense of solving the game. Instead of crashing in the future, it is better to take a risk at this time and let these guys try to fight without Lin. When he was winged, would he be able to withstand this pressure and get rid of troublesome opponents?

Without Lin Yi, it does not mean that Chelsea has lost any strength. Compared with the Villarreal team, which is short of major generals, Chelsea is still too rich. This is the reason why Mourinho dared to change. .

There is no Lin Yi, but Mourinho is ready to lock Riquelme. Three midfielders, this formation that was used to deal with Barcelona was once again offered by him, in order to increase the thickness of the midfield defense.

Gerrard, Essien, Makelele, all came on the field, Robben on the wing was replaced by Maniche, Ribery was still on the other side, Anelka was the only striker, and there was nothing in the defense. changes.

Mourinho's request to them is just one, "Defend layer by layer in the midfield, don't worry when advancing, push up little by little, if there is no chance, just keep control in the midfield, don't worry about the harassment of the opponent, try your best Don't let them play penetration easily, we have away goals, so don't worry."

Mourinho doesn't care whether the game is good or not, what he wants is the actual effect, even if the opponent's current offensive ability is not enough to put a lot of pressure on Chelsea like AC Milan, but Mourinho knows Chelsea This game will definitely be studied by others, in this case, he might as well just play tricks.

He just wants others to see that he intends to stick to the end. If Lin Yi continues to be absent, it is very likely that Chelsea will rely on this formation to kill all the way. This is also an arrangement to paralyze the enemy.

As for whether the next opponent is Ancelotti or Wenger, Mourinho doesn't care much anymore. He is playing games anyway. As for who is being fooled, he never cares. Just dig a hole and bury someone. buried?
Without Lin Yi, Pellegrini's strategy of defending first and then counterattack seems really redundant.

But it is not easy to change tactics on the spot now. Unless he changes players at the beginning of the game, otherwise, he can only make peace with his bad habits. As for the offense, he can only rely on Riquelme's flash of inspiration.

However, Pellegrini's wish does not seem to be so easy to realize. Mourinho knows that most of Villarreal's offense depends on Riquelme, so his three midfielders must play a role. Intercepting effect.

As for what method to use, he doesn't care, as long as it can kill the source of the opponent's attack, it is enough.

Stuffy battles, perhaps many people have overlooked how Chelsea started their careers. They didn't realize until the game started that Mourinho led the team to set a record and reduced the number of goals conceded to a team's last season. The lowest point in history, only ten goals conceded, you can imagine how strong Chelsea's defensive ability is.

They were able to lock down Barcelona's fantasy offense last season, a lot of words. Chelsea's defensive ability can be said to be unrivaled in Europe. Strangulation is what they are best at. Now it is just repeating the old tricks.

Even Ferguson said when watching the game, "The Spaniards want to use offense to open the situation. Unless God gives them luck, otherwise they want to tear apart Chelsea's defense. It's like a dream. It's impossible."

It's not that Ferguson looked down on Pellegrini, but that Chelsea's defense is too tough. Their offensive ability has soared this season, making people overlook that their defensive strength is also thicker. When others play defense, even an old fox like Ferguson dare not say that he can break the goal.

The fact is that as Ferguson predicted, Chelsea gave Villarreal three direct free kicks and four corner kicks in the first half, but the direct free kicks were concentrated 30 meters away from the goal.

Even if Riquelme's footwork is superb, he cannot guarantee to break Cech's ten fingers at this distance.

After all, the Czech goalkeeper is not a vegetarian. His several accurate saves made Riquelme's free kicks come back in vain. As for those corner kicks, there are really few teams that can break Chelsea's goal with set kicks.

Villarreal's first-half statistics may look very good, with seven shots, but few of them can form a direct threat. At least half of them are long-range shots from the outside, lacking threat.

Although Amen occupies 50.00% of the ball possession rate, he can pose very little threat, but Chelsea's counterattack can form the most direct deterrent every time. Anelka's three shots almost pierced Balbo Sa's hands, Ribery knocked back after a wipe from the wing, almost let Gerrard break through.

Although the number of such attacks is not many, but each time when the opponent is about to attack aggressively, he slams into the opponent's weak point, which makes Pellegrini remind the players to concentrate more than once on the sidelines.

"High-quality counterattacks. We should be careful about the way the opponent plays the game. If the little guy doesn't play, Chelsea will probably continue this formation. It seems that this kind of game is not easy to play."

While observing the confrontation between the two teams in the stands, Ancelotti began to exchange views on the game with his good assistants. Perhaps the thickness of the defense of the three midfielders also made this good man realize something.

If Chelsea throws this formation to him to solve, maybe AC ​​Milan may not be able to come up with a suitable solution. After all, the three midfielders, and relying on Chelsea's strong defense, this is simply unsolvable!

Ancelotti's melancholy is also Pellegrini's worry. Although during the intermission, he began to arrange for the team to transform into a three-forward tactic to provide support for Riquelme, but after the start of the second half, such The changes did not bring about obvious changes. Chelsea's defensive line was compressed more tightly. Seven or eight people began to fortify near the arc of the center circle. Cassano, who replaced Anelka, continued to move smartly.

And the strangling battle in the midfield began to become more and more cruel. It was impossible for Riquelme to dribble the ball. The three blockades firmly trapped the footsteps of the Argentine midfield genius. He could only rely on set balls to form threaten.

At this time, Riquelme's slowness became his fatal injury. Mourinho did not allow him any chance to think, physical confrontation, collision, and fierce tackles. This is his magic weapon against Riquelme.

Riquelme's foot skills are good, but it is different from Lin Yi's way of combining speed and explosiveness with feints. He is more willing to control the rhythm and then find loopholes in the opponent's defense. , Such a speed does not allow him to tear apart Chelsea's defense, but instead drags down the speed.

Mourinho not only strengthened the defensive strength of the midfield, but also required the players to play more accurately when counterattacking. Robben's appearance in the 10th and [-]th minutes of the second half became the last straw that crushed the opponent.

A precise counterattack from the side, Gerrard's long pass accurately found Robben, and the direct low pass passed without any pause. Cassano's agile running position allowed him to rush to touch Barbosa before Barbosa attacked. When it came to the football, with a standard shovel shot, the football accurately passed through Barbosa's hands and slowly rolled into the net.

When Cassano jumped up from the turf to celebrate the damn goal, Pellegrini lowered his hands that had been clasped around his chest. Maybe he knew at this moment that he could not take away the victory at Stamford Bridge .

One to zero is enough. As for how fierce the opponent's suicide attack was in the remaining 10 minutes, Chelsea defended it perfectly, and Ribery scored again with 1 minute before the end.

The same long pass from the center, but this time it was Essien who saw the opportunity and sent a through ball to Ribery. Scarface, who had an extremely fast assault speed, did not live up to such a pass this time, singled out Balbo Sa succeeded.

Two to zero, the game ended at this moment, the Chelsea players were cheering, they finally broke into the Champions League final again, one step closer to defending their title, and Mourinho also let out a sigh of relief.

As for Kenyon and Abramovich in the stands, after nine or 10 minutes of nervousness, they could finally find something to dry the sweat on their palms. This gamble, that daring lunatic, won again.

Although the whole process made them tremble with fear, it may be even more memorable to have such a dreadful experience after continuous big-score victories. Even Kenyon himself said that this is fucking cheap.

Ancelotti got up and left when Chelsea scored the first goal. In his opinion, the game was set from that moment on. Mourinho was never the type to make mistakes after leading people.

And that little guy who was still in the ward with a gloomy face had already waved his fist when the whistle sounded at the end of the game, and shouted loudly, "Wait for me to kill you in the final!"

A wild beast that is about to be suffocated is definitely more terrifying than a flashing knife. Its claws may tear anyone who tries to stop him. . .

(New book will be uploaded next week...)
(End of this chapter)