Grass roots glory

Chapter 157 Liverpool: Cage Lockdown

The UEFA Champions League quarter-finals draw has attracted the attention of the mainstream media in Europe. The British media is the most active. One reason is that the Premier League teams account for half of the quarter-finals. Every game is closely related to the future of the Premier League team. There is another reason The British media industry is extremely developed, and many newspapers with world influence are based in the UK. Therefore, the views of the British media are often cited as the mainstream.

Generally speaking, the British media are quite satisfied with the results of the draw. "The Guardian" and "The Sun" have similar views. The red-blue collision between Manchester United and Chelsea has ensured the enthusiasm of British fans to watch the game. At the same time, Liverpool and Arsenal also have the opportunity to go further.They believe that this signing is undoubtedly a guarantee for defending the Premier League champions!

With such an obvious group advantage, the Premier League, as the world's No. [-] league, is indeed well-deserved in terms of competition and commercialization.

As soon as the lottery results came out, the German media immediately contacted the two coaches Klinsmann and Slomka, hoping that they would express some opinions on the lottery results.

The attitudes of the two coaches are quite different, and Klinsmann is very cautious: "Barcelona is one of the most powerful teams on the planet. They are the favorites to win the championship. If I were to choose, I would be very reluctant to touch it now. To them. But since it is already a fact, we will go all out, and Bayern's determination to win will not waver at any time."

Klinsmann's stance is relatively low, but no one is critical of them. The German media thinks that by maintaining this low-key stance, Bayern may continue to perform amazingly, after all, the strength of the card is still there.

And the same question, when the German media asked Slomka how to face Liverpool, the answer he received was full of confidence. Slomka said: "Against Liverpool, we have experience in the group stage to follow. It's all under our control and we are very confident that we can go further than last year!"

In private, Slomka also emphasized to the players during training: "It is our luck to draw Liverpool. I need you to relax and play like in the league. It is definitely not a luxury to advance to the semi-finals."

……

Although Schalke 04 has gradually put the season's focus on the Champions League, but at the league level, they also maintained the momentum of triumphant progress and continued to attack the championship.

In the fifth round of No.20 of the Bundesliga, Schalke 04 reversed Hamburg 2:1 at home and won [-] consecutive victories at home in all competitions. Zhou Tiancheng scored a goal to seal the victory for the team with his iconic world wave.

Germany's largest newspaper "Bild" joked after the game that Schalke is now completely racing against the record-the record for the fastest Bundesliga title was created by Cologne in the 1963-64 season. Winning the championship in five rounds, this record has been broken by no one in the past 40 years. Even Bayern, the earliest previous championships were three rounds ahead of schedule.Many German media are standing on tiptoe and expecting Schalke to go all the way to the end. Records are meant to be broken.

Of course, Schalke never thought of such a painless record. The belief that Slomka instilled in everyone is only one word: win!Schalke players maintain a steady stream of desire to win at all times.

The time came to the end of March, and the Bundesliga will be on a truce for a week next weekend due to the FIFA national team match day. The German team will concentrate on preparing for the South Africa World Cup qualifier away game against Wales.However, the Chinese team has no competition tasks on this international match day, so Zhou Tiancheng got another week of rest.

After returning to the league after a gap of one week, Schalke 04 was not affected by the FIFA virus-at least on the surface, the away game beat Bielefeld 2:0, the scene was as strong as ever, and the statistics comprehensively overwhelmed the opponent.

After the end of these two rounds, it finally came to the much-anticipated Champions League match day. Slomka continued to rotate Westerman, Zhou Tiancheng and Kuranyi and other absolute main players in these two games. The game is getting ready.

According to the previous draw for the quarter-finals, Liverpool drew the away lottery, so compared to the order of home and away games in the group stage, the quarter-finals are just the opposite. Schalke played at home first, and Liverpool played away first.

In the dressing room before the game, Benitez encouraged the Liverpool players: "Forget everything about the group stage! This is the knockout round. You are players who have won the Champions League. The experience is not comparable to that of the rookies. Do a good job The most critical point is to block Zhou Tiancheng, and then use our powerful offensive firepower to crush them!"

On the other hand, although Slomka despises the opponent strategically, he attaches great importance to it tactically.He gestured on the tactical board and said: "When Zhou takes the ball, there must be at least two people within two meters to respond immediately. Liverpool is not a vegetarian. After learning the lesson, they will definitely go crazy Press for the week."

An hour before the game, all the commentators got the starting list of both sides. Liverpool's formation has changed. Benitez gave up 4-4-2 and changed to 3-5-2 this time.Gerrard returned from the offensive midfielder and played with Xavi Alonso and Mascherano in the third midfielder. Obviously, Benitez made a big determination, even if he sacrificed the fluency of the midfield attack, Nor can Zhou Tiancheng play comfortably in midfield.

A few minutes into the game, when Zhou Tiancheng touched the ball for the first time, Gerrard immediately put pressure on his body from the side, squeezing Zhou Tiancheng's space to protect the ball with all his strength. His confrontation intensity was very strong.Although he is famous in world football for his offense, his physical fitness still has the characteristics of a traditional classical British midfielder who is good at confrontation.Although Zhou Tiancheng has a lot of strength in his upper body, Gerrard kept trying to stretch out his foot to poke the ball while fighting, which interfered with Zhou Tiancheng's rhythm of protecting the ball. Zhou Tiancheng could only turn around and dribble to deal with his opponent.

But going on like this is not an option. Zhou Tiancheng looked up and saw that Xavi Alonso and Mascherano had formed a circular midfield barrier around him, which largely hindered his passing route. And the encirclement is getting smaller and smaller.

Liverpool's midfield defense was like a cage, enclosing Zhou Tiancheng inside, and Mascherano got stuck in a favorable position, and Rakitic's response route was also blocked.

Marcel Leff frowned: "The situation is not good. Zhou has encountered a big problem, but it is very difficult for other teammates to support him now."

CCTV commentator He Wei looked at this scene and felt distressed: "I really don't know whether to praise Zhou Tiancheng for his excellent ball protection and dribbling ability, or criticize Schalke for relying too much on Zhou Tiancheng. Such a strong defense, I guess the ball has been lost long ago? Hey, it’s really hard for him.”

PS: I’m going back to the city today, and I’m still in the car at the moment. I will update a chapter with [-] words first, and then post another chapter at [-] pm to ensure that [-] words will be updated.

Today is Xiaoli's birthday, friends and family gathering, the update time is a little later, sorry.

(End of this chapter)