God of Greenery

Alkmaar also used an attack from the side to pass the ball into the penalty area, and his teammate Jiang Xiaolin also grabbed the first point in the penalty area to form a header.

However, the difference between Jiang Xiaolin and Zenit striker Pugerenjek was that Pugerenjek flew the ball over the crossbar, while Jiang Xiaolin headed the ball into the goal.

In the 35th minute of the first half, Jiang Xiaolin scored his first goal of the game with a header from a wide cross to Zenit St. Petersburg. Mal took a 2-0 lead at home.

The moment Jiang Xiaolin's header flew into the goal, the entire AFAS stadium was boiling. Countless fans of Alkmaar and Jiang Xiaolin shouted and cheered loudly, celebrating Jiang Xiaolin's goal.

In the commentary booth, the commentators also shouted passionately:
"Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

"The ball is in!"

"Jiang Xiaolin finally scored a goal!"

"In the 35th minute, Jiang Xiaolin grabbed the first point in a side attack with a cross from the bottom. He scored a successful header and scored his first goal of the game and Alkmaar's second. a ball."

"Alkmaar leads Zenit St. Petersburg 2-0!"

"Jiang Xiaolin has scored 13 goals in the UEFA Cup this season."

"Zenit's claim to freeze Jiang Xiaolin before the game has become a joke!"

Indeed, when Jiang Xiaolin scored this goal, it was indeed a great blow to the players of Zenit St. Petersburg.

If *Jiang Xiaolin's assisted Poconioli's heel pass was a stroke of genius and unexpected, then this time the header in the penalty area from the bottom pass from the wing was an upright attack from the wing. A very common form of attack.

When the routine is clear and they have arranged enough people in the penalty area to defend Jiang Xiaolin, he still grabbed the first point and completed the header in such an offensive routine, which is very shocking. .

"Is Jiang Xiaolin's goal really unstoppable?"

It is inevitable that some people have such a feeling of despair in their hearts.

What makes them even more nervous is that Alkmaar is now leading 2-0.

If they are not very nervous after falling behind by one goal in the away game, falling behind by two goals is considered relatively dangerous.

Even if there is a second round, they are at an absolute disadvantage in terms of the situation.

Even if they return to home in the second round, they are not guaranteed to win.After all, Zenit St. Petersburg played a game against Alkmaar at home last season, and Zenit was tied 1-1 by Alkmaar at that time.

Now that Alkmaar has Jiang Xiaolin, returning to the St. Petersburg Stadium, it is really unknown whether Zenit can win!
The total score of two goals behind is not so easy to reverse!
Therefore, after the game restarts later, Zenit must counterattack more vigorously, strive to score goals, and get away goals while narrowing the total score gap.

Otherwise, the defending champion may really be eliminated in the quarter-finals.

In addition, Jiang Xiaolin's goal further proved Jiang Xiaolin's role in Alkmaar's offensive system.

For Alkmaar's two goals so far, Jiang Xiaolin assisted one with his heel like a genius, and then scored another one in the penalty area, completely directing Alkmaar's two-goal lead. Zenit's player coach said that he did not let Jiang Xiaolin be the core of the attack in this game, and the opponent would not believe it.

Therefore, although the game has not yet restarted, the players of Zenit St. Petersburg have already made up their minds. Kobayashi's marking.

Jiang Xiaolin must not be allowed to score again.

Otherwise, if three goals fall behind, Zenit will really die.

A three-goal reversal is not so easy to happen, otherwise every three-goal reversal will not become a classic history of world football.

Jiang Xiaolin and his teammates naturally couldn't control so much at this time.

They just need to celebrate with all their might.

Before the end of the first half, they had already led 2-0.

Everyone seems to have seen the bright prospect of eliminating the defending champion and advancing to the quarterfinals.

The point is that Jiang Xiaolin's performance in these two goals will definitely make the opponent more paralyzed and unable to see through the tactical arrangements of the head coach Van Gaal.

They will definitely believe that Jiang Xiaolin is still the core of Alkmaar's offense, and do everything possible to prevent Jiang Xiaolin's dribbling, breakthrough, shooting, and passing.

In addition, they are two goals behind and have to take into account the offense, so they will definitely not be able to mark other Alkmaar players.

As long as they give Hamdoy and others a chance, they can also score goals.

Football in Alkmaar is not Jiang Xiaolin's game alone.

Therefore, the Alkmaar players, including Jiang Xiaolin, celebrated very relaxedly.

However, after celebrating for more than half a minute, the referee finally stood up and intervened to stop it, because the players of Zenit St. Petersburg protested that Alkmaar was celebrating and delaying time.

Now that the referee appeared, everyone ended their celebrations and returned to their own half amidst the applause and cheers of the fans, waiting for Zenit St. Petersburg to hit the ball.

After the game restarted, Zenit St. Petersburg, who were behind by two goals, really stepped up their offensive efforts, using their physical fitness and height advantages to continuously play the tactic of crossing from the wing and threatening Alkmaar's goal from the air.

However, their striker's header skills are not as good as Jiang Xiaolin's, and their ability to bounce and grab points is also far behind. Facing Alkmaar's central defenders, they do not have an absolute advantage.

What's more, Sergio Romero, the main goalkeeper of the Argentine Olympic team, is standing in front of Alkmaar's goal!

Since Romero became the main force in Alkmaar, his performance has become more and more stable, and his goalkeeping skills have become better and better.

In the 41st minute, Zenit St. Petersburg played the most threatening attack since the start of the game.

In this attack, Zenit St. Petersburg's full-back Shupatris suddenly made an assist, played a two-for-one cooperation with forward Sentsov and then passed Alkmaar's full-back Poconioli, Then the bottom pass was successful.

And Zenit's striker Deji also showed extraordinary ability this time, grabbing the first point between the penalty spot and the small penalty area line in the penalty area, and successfully defeated Ragnar Krawan for the top. Headed the ball towards Alkmaar's goal.

What's more, Deji's header went out of an angle. Although it wasn't very tricky, it didn't go straight to the middle, but flew to the right goal.

With such a short distance in the penalty area, even if the angle is not so tricky that it goes straight to the dead corner, it is still difficult for ordinary goalkeepers to save.

However, Sergio Romero played a world-class goalkeeper this time.

He actually judged the general direction of the opponent's header from Deji's movements before Deji hit the ball, and moved a step to the right.

Although this kind of prediction is not [-]% accurate, it is clear that Romero's prediction was right and saved the team.

After moving one step to the right, Deji has already hit the ball.

Romero also reacted quickly the moment Deky hit the ball and made a jumping save.

Then, Deji's threatening header was saved from the post by Romero's flying sideways and flew outside the baseline.

Deji, who was still in the air after hitting the ball, showed the ecstasy of about to score, but he didn't expect to see such a high-quality header from him being saved by the opponent's goalkeeper during the landing process. .

Deji, who fell to the ground, clapped his hands on his forehead immediately, and looked at Sergio Romero with an expression of disbelief.

So did the Zenit St. Petersburg fans in the stands.

When everyone saw the ball pushed by Deji, they also thought they were about to score a goal!
Unexpectedly, Alkmaar's goalkeeper threw such a powerful close-range header away.

Everyone sighed in disappointment.

On the contrary, on Alkmaar's side, the players in the penalty area went to pull Romero up one by one in ecstasy, patted him on the shoulder and hugged him, thanking him for saving the team with this save.

More than 1 Alkmaar home fans in the stands also burst into applause, applauding Romero's wonderful save.

Helpless, Zenit St. Petersburg could only take a corner kick.

Because Zenit St. Petersburg's players do have an advantage in height, Jiang Xiaolin also returned to the penalty area to participate in the corner kick defense when defending the corner kick, instead of waiting outside the penalty area for a counterattack.

And this time the corner kick defense Jiang Xiaolin just played a role.

The corner kick from the opponent fell right near him. With his strong physique and jumping power, Jiang Xiaolin overwhelmed the Zenit central defender Vidic Scheer, who was competing with him for the top, and grabbed the first point to push the ball out of the penalty area to clear the siege.

Zenit's attack is over.

In the next few minutes, neither side played any more threatening offenses.

After 1 minute of stoppage time, the referee blew the whistle for the end of the first half. The two sides entered the intermission with a score of 2-0. Alkmaar, who was playing at home, led by two goals.

During the intermission, Van Gaal praised the team's performance in the first half, especially the first backheel pass to Jiang Xiaolin. Van Gaal also praised that this is a classic masterpiece enough to be included in the top ten assists of the season.

Moreover, Jiang Xiaolin's one assist and one goal confuse the players of Zenit St. Petersburg even more.

Judging from the second half of the first half, Zenit St. Petersburg did put more energy into defending Jiang Xiaolin in addition to being distracted and aggressively counterattacking, so that even with Jiang Xiaolin's strength, the last few Minutes did not get any decent chance to counterattack.

But that's exactly what Van Gaal is happy about.

The opponent hadn't seen through Van Gaal's tactics, and had been building a line of defense around Jiang Xiaolin to prevent Jiang Xiaolin from counterattacking.

In fact, Alkmaar's offensive points are scattered, but in the first half, except for Poconioli's goal, they didn't get any good opportunities to show it. The players and coaches of Zenit St. Petersburg have been not found.

Van Gaal ordered everyone to continue playing like this in the second half, let Jiang Xiaolin act as a tactical center to attract firepower, and other players waited for opportunities to run open and wait for Jiang Xiaolin or others to pass the ball to get a chance to shoot.

Although Jiang Xiaolin is not the main point of attack, Jiang Xiaolin can still score if his teammates' shots create opportunities for supplementary shots, or opportunities for corner kicks or free kicks.

This is exactly why Van Gaal's tactic is so confusing that Zenit St. Petersburg has not reacted to it after half the game.

Because Van Gaal did not completely restrict Jiang Xiaolin, let him be a green leaf, and he was not even allowed to shoot.

Such a tactic really hurt Zenit St. Petersburg. Even after a 15-minute intermission adjustment, Zenit's coach did not discover Alkmaar's conspiracy. The focus was on Jiang Xiaolin.

As a result, less than 5 minutes into the second half, Alkmaar scored again in the 49th minute.

And this time the goal was neither Jiang Xiaolin's shot nor his assist, Jiang Xiaolin didn't even touch the ball.

It is the embodiment of Van Gaal's tactics.

In this counterattack, Jiang Xiaolin alone attracted the full defense of a midfielder and two central defenders in the middle.

It is Alkmaar's counterattack itself, and Zenit St. Petersburg has a small number of defenders.

In addition, they focused on Jiang Xiaolin. As a result, Moussa Dembele, who dribbled the ball back from the side, did not pass the ball to Jiang Xiaolin at all, but passed it to the unguarded man in the back row. Marten Martens.

Martens received a pass from Moussa Dembele when no one was guarding the top of the penalty area. At this time, Danisov, who was running with Jiang Xiaolin, wanted to give up Jiang Xiaolin and intercept it. By the time of Marten Martens, it was too late.

Martens didn't stop the ball at all. Facing the ball crossed by Moussa Dembele, he made a ground-breaking long shot from outside the penalty area without stopping the ball, and kicked the ball hard.

The ball soared into the air and flew past the toes of Danisov, who stretched his legs late to destroy the ball but failed to touch the ball, and then hit the goal of Zenit St. Petersburg like a cannonball, and flew into the right post. goal.

Goalkeeper Malafef has always been concerned about Jiang Xiaolin's threat, and he is still preventing Martens from passing the ball to Jiang Xiaolin after receiving a pass from Dembele before completing the shot. How could he expect Martens to be outside the penalty area? He didn't stop the ball and shot directly.

Malafev was caught off guard, and his response to the save was slow, which made it impossible to save Marten Martens' long shot from outside the penalty area.

Alkmaar took a big 3-0 lead with Moussa Dembele's assist for Marten Martens.