Football career: From winning the championship to becoming a legend

Sevilla was lucky enough to take advantage of the visiting team's mistakes and scored the first goal, leading the score 1-0.

Maresca, who scored the goal, became more confident and cooperated more skillfully with Li Qi, because he believed that Li Qi would always find a way to magically send the ball to him. He just had to rush to the open space. Isn't that easy?

Li Qi also knew that the last goal was a misunderstanding and an accident, but the result was good after all, so he didn't worry about it.

With the goal scored, Maresca was no longer obsessed with shooting, but tried the set of side passes and bottom crosses, which made Sevilla's attack more vigorous.

Although Kanoute still seemed to be asleep, Sevilla was not the only striker.

In the 41st minute of the game, another striker of Sevilla seized the opportunity and easily extended the score to 2-0.

It was still Li Qi who instigated the offensive. Li Qi first teamed up with Marty in the middle to block the visiting team's counterattack, and then directly launched a counterattack.

Li Qi first played a one-two combination with Maresca in the middle, and then sent a perfect straight pass diagonally from the flank of Braga's defense... Xiao Ma succeeded in making an offside move after passing the ball, and rushed towards the baseline directly after receiving the ball. Before the defender could make up for the defense and block it, he sent a low cross pass from the inside of the penalty area.

Brazilian striker Fabiano, who was lurking at the far end, followed up quickly, and faced a half-empty goal at the back post. He calmly shot a low shot into the near corner!

The goalkeeper didn't have time to touch the ball, but hit the goal post with a bang...

At the end of the first half, Sevilla's advantage was actually much more obvious than the 2-0 score.

So at the beginning of the second half, Juan Ramos began to deploy his troops. First, he replaced Kanoute, who was in poor form, with the young new beast Kepa; and 15 minutes later, he made another substitution, with Marti replacing Renato, obviously starting to prepare for the weekend league.

As soon as Marty came on the court, he created a threat, but the initiator of this attack was Maresca, who had already scored a goal and given an assist.

Maresca, who was too excited in the first half, obviously returned to normal in the second half. After all, he scored a goal and made an assist. He was likely to be the best player of the game, so he began to play rationally and started to cover for his teammates. In particular, he wanted to return the favor by giving Li Qi an assist, so that Sevilla's Italian duo could officially debut!

So Maresca first switched positions with Li Qi and went to the wing to get the ball, then made a dazzling short pass cooperation with Duda on the wing, and then after Duda took away a defender, Maresca cut inside at high speed with the ball... Encountering an obstruction from the defender, Maresca passed the ball directly to Copa who came out of the penalty area to receive the ball, and the latter passed it back to Maresca.

Then Maresca kept pretending to shoot, but he kept pausing and accelerating to bring the ball from the left sideline to the right edge of the penalty area. It was a really long diagonal run... Then Maresca made a last fake shot and passed the ball, using an inverted triangle to send the ball back to the front of the penalty area, where Li Qi had already arrived to receive the ball!

Li Qi was a little excited when facing the wonderful pass from Maresca. The route was in the penalty area, about 22 yards away from the goal, with a clear shooting range and a wide range of angles to choose from...but there were three defenders in front of him, and two of them were obviously going to pounce on him. One made a tackle to block his shooting angle, and the other was ready to stick close to him and use his body to interfere with Li Qi's stop shot.

So Li Qi made a decision in a flash, pretending to swing his thigh to shoot the ball, but when the ball came in front of him, he missed the ball and gave it to the player following behind him...

It was Marty who had just come on as a substitute, and there was no one marking him, and no defensive player in front of him to stand between him and the goal.

However, it was obvious that Matti had not fully warmed up when he came on the court, and he even made a reckless offensive choice. Instead of stopping the ball and dribbling into the penalty area or passing the ball to the empty space on the other side of the penalty area to Kepa, he just raised his foot and shot!

It was a good shot, but when Marty raised his foot to shoot, Li Qi, who had triggered the explosive moment, observed that Marty's shot was very powerful and the ball touched the ball very well. The ball would definitely stick to the ground and go straight to the goal like a hawk; but the angle was too straight...

So at the moment when Marty shot, Li Qi also rushed towards the goal, ready to make a follow-up shot: with such a powerful shot, and it was a low ball, the goalkeeper would most likely not be able to catch it in the first place!

As expected, the goalkeeper leaned over and tried to catch the ball, but was hit on the chin by the ball after it bounced off the ground and bounced back to the front of the small penalty area... So Li Qi accepted the gift with a smile, and before the goalkeeper pounced on it for the second time, he easily sent the ball into the goal from the goalkeeper's feet.

The score came to 3-0...

Sevilla secured the victory, so Juan Ramos made the final substitution, replacing Fabiano with Salas and putting Li Qi on the front line to organize the game and control the tempo of the game.

The reason why Li Qi was not replaced was because this was Li Qi's first start after returning from injury, and Juan Ramos wanted to see if Li Qi's physical strength could support playing the full 90 minutes; another reason was that Maresca obviously cooperated very well with Li Qi in this game, the two had a tacit understanding, and played very happily in this game. It would be good to let Li Qi accompany him on the court to continue venting, have fun, and not to torment his teammates after the game.

However, in the final period of the game, Li Qi obviously wanted to conserve his energy. There was no need to continue to attack the visiting team that had already retreated, so he kept pulling back to the midfield to organize the pass. On the contrary, Maresca still failed to achieve his wish and kept rushing into the penalty area, determined to give Li Qi an assist.

However, at the end of the game, Maresca, who scored a goal, had an assist and was named the best player of the game, still failed to achieve his wish. He could only hug Li Qi and excitedly swear that he must assist Li Qi in the next game; Li Qi was left in tears and laughter, but he could only quickly agree.

Regardless, Sevilla's Italian duo officially debuted, and received unanimous praise from the head coach and the media after the game. When Juan Ramos was asked why Maresca, who had been fighting with his teammates a few days ago, had changed so much, he made up a story prepared by Ricardo against his will: "Maresca was standing up for Ricardo, because they are both from Italy, Maresca has always taken good care of his fellow countryman in the team, and they often perform wonderful cooperation in training, so today their Italian duo started together on the left and launched a tidal wave of attack, completely defeating the opponent..."

Sevilla defeated their opponent 3-0 at home. After this game, Sevilla's points in Group C of the UEFA Cup became 4 points. As long as they win one more game, they can basically secure the top three in the group and ensure their promotion.

The night of the game was Thanksgiving, but it was almost midnight after the game. Ricciardo only had time to send blessing text messages to his parents, brother Sarafina, Julian Chiara and other family and friends before midnight...

However, when he returned to the apartment building in the early hours of the morning, Ricardo was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from Eva, who had not yet gone to bed. After watching the game broadcast, she had been waiting for the scumbag Li to come back. So Ricardo went directly to Eva's house for supper and stayed overnight: It was nice to have someone waiting for him...

For a moment, the tenderness of the ex-wife and young woman almost touched the restless and wild heart of the scumbag Li...

However, Eva's love did not keep the scumbag Li for long. Just two nights later, Ricardo pulled up his pants and took his unrestrained and freedom-loving heart to Bilbao, Biscay Province, Basque Autonomous Region in northern Spain - to travel with the team to play against Athletic Bilbao.

Bilbao is very close to Santander, which was mentioned in the previous chapters. Both are in the northernmost part of Spain and not far from France. The expedition to Seville means crossing almost the entire north-south axis of Spain; so Ricardo and the team set off on Saturday morning to avoid missing the flight, but they were preparing for the game on Sunday night.

2006年11月26日晚上17时，06/07赛季西班牙足球甲级联赛第12轮展开7场争夺，而在此之前，巴萨与皇马都已经收获了本轮联赛的胜利，不过瓦伦西亚却是遭遇了两连败，正是以1比0的比分输给了本轮做客的皇家马德里。

Considering that Sevilla had just finished the UEFA Cup match three days ago, Juan Ramos continued to make major rotations in the lineup in this away game. Fortunately, half of the main players were given a rest in the UEFA Cup match in the middle of the week.

It was still a 4-4-2 formation, with the unshakable No. 1 Palop as goalkeeper;

The back line from left to right is No. 3 David, No. 14 Escud, No. 20 Osio and No. 4 Alves;

From left to right in the center line are No. 6 Adriano, No. 8 Paulson, No. 11 Renato and No. 18 Marti who performed well after coming on as a substitute in the last game;

The forward duo is No. 10 Fabiano and No. 12 Kanoute;

Li Qi and Maresca, who played the whole game in the middle of the week, sat on the bench with Puerta, Copa and others on standby.

After the start of the game, Sevilla, in excellent form, took the initiative and broke the deadlock in the 4th minute of the game.

After the center forward Canuta went to the right to receive Alves' through ball, he used his height and long legs to dribble past the opposing left back, and then made a cross from the right. Meanwhile, another center forward of Sevilla, Brazilian Fabiano, rushed to the goal from 7 yards in front of the goal, overpowering center back Urses and heading the ball into the upper right corner of the goal.

Sevilla got off to a perfect start with a 1-0 lead.

However, Athletic Bilbao, which was behind, was obviously unwilling to surrender, so they launched a fierce counterattack and almost equalized the score 2 minutes after conceding the goal.

Yester took a corner kick, and goalkeeper Palop had no way to deal with the header from the far post by veteran Ursez. But the ball was blocked by Alves at the far post before it crossed the goal line.

Sevilla, which survived the disaster, was lucky enough to expand its lead three minutes later.

In the 10th minute of the game, Sevilla won a free kick on the left side of the front court. Marti, who was responsible for the long-distance free kick, lifted the free kick into the penalty area. The ball was high and floating, and in Ricardo's opinion, the ball was obviously a little too close to the goal...

However, the home team's goalkeeper Lafuente made a serious misjudgment due to the setting sun and actually misjudged the landing point. He rushed out of the small penalty area and could only watch the ball go straight into the far corner!

Martí's first league goal of the season helped Sevilla take a two-goal lead over Athletic Bilbao ten minutes into the game.

However, after taking the lead, Sevilla seemed to have lost their way in playing, and Athletic Bilbao took advantage of their home court to continuously attack the visiting team's defense, trying to close the gap and equalize the score.

For a while, Sevilla had no way to score goals through counterattacks and could only rely on the heroic performance of veteran goalkeeper Palop to save the goal many times.

But if you defend for too long, you will lose. In the 68th minute of the second half, Bilbao finally scored a goal. It was Yester who created a threat with a free kick on the right.

First, Prieto headed the ball after receiving a cross from Yester 6 yards in front of the goal. The ball hit the left post and bounced back in front of the goal. Arturis, who had scored for two consecutive rounds, made a supplementary shot into the empty goal and scored his third goal of the season, helping the home team to catch up to 2-3.

This is the characteristic of this Sevilla team. There is no shortage of strikers who can destroy the city and capture the castle - Fabiano and Kanoute are all-around strong centers with excellent height, speed and skills. There is also no shortage of offensive players - not counting Navas who is recovering from injury, there are also Alves and Adriano, two wingers who can pass and break through. There are also strong barriers in the midfield with good offense and defense - such as Paulsen and Renato. There are also experienced defensive players in the back line...

However, in the past two seasons, Sevilla lacked a midfield controlling player who could adjust the tempo of the game and a stable organizer in the middle of the frontcourt. This made Sevilla play more blindly in the stalemate stage of the game or when they were leading in the score, always thinking about going straight up and down in a one-shot deal; this made it easy for teams of the same level or teams with great resilience to seize the opportunity.

Therefore, Juan Ramos brought in Ricardo Liqui on loan this season to solve Sevilla's problems in organizing and controlling the rhythm in the middle. Seeing that the home team was close to the score and their morale was boosted, Juan Ramos quickly replaced Liqui with Marty, who scored a lucky goal, and let Liqui go along the right midfield to organize a counterattack.

Li Qi quickly helped Sevilla stabilize the situation after coming on the pitch. Instead of blindly counterattacking, he targeted the home team's eagerness to increase the rhythm of the game's offense and defense to create more scoring opportunities. He controlled the ball in the midfield, forcing the home team to retreat to half the court after each offense and defense transition, thus lengthening Bilbao's attack distance.

In addition, Li Qi's precise ball control and passing also improved Sevilla's offensive organization efficiency, striving to complete shots within the home team's defensive third zone in every attack, making it difficult for Athletic Bilbao to get quick counterattack opportunities from the midfield.

Juan Ramos then replaced Kanoute with Kepa, letting Kepa serve as Li Qi's frontcourt cover and support fulcrum, cooperating with Li Qi's back passes and quick counterattacks in the midfield.

As time went on, the head coach and players of Athletic Bilbao became more and more anxious. When switching between offense and defense, they no longer cared about the distance between the three lines, or even the integrity of the formation. They just wanted to grab the ball as quickly as possible and send it into Sevilla's penalty area...

But the more anxious he was, the more mistakes he made. When the game entered the last 5 minutes of regular time, Li Qi found a good opportunity to secure the victory.

After another unsuccessful long pass attack by Athletic Bilbao, the ball came to Li Qi's feet again. However, when Li Qi just received the long pass from the defender on the right side, two midfielders from the home team rushed over to grab Li Qi.

Li Qi, who had observed the situation well, calmly made a long pass before the defense closed in, and sent the ball accurately and quickly to Fabiano who was on the left side. Almost at the same time, two more defensive players from the home team rushed towards Fabiano...

Relying on his physical advantage, Fabiano wanted to make a strong breakthrough, but he was almost squeezed out and lost possession of the ball. After stumbling, he could only pass the ball to Copa in the middle.

Before receiving the ball, Copa saw Li Qi's gesture, leaned against the defender, half turned around and sent a straight pass behind the home team's left defense line... That side was empty, only Li Qi was rushing in at high speed, and several defensive players followed behind Li Qi...