[football] walk side by side

As a wealthy team, Barcelona, ​​of course, will not be shaken psychologically because of this goal. In fact, the result of Chelsea scoring the first goal not only did not bring them a blow, but instead aroused the anger of the Barcelona players. !

They can accept any kind of losing method - offensive football duel, fair and aboveboard technical contest, but absolutely not including the current situation, where they didn't move a few steps with the ball, just found the feeling and rhythm under their feet, and were forcibly interrupted A sort of!Can this sneaky style of play be called football?

However, no matter how frustrated and angry the Barcelona players are at the moment, Chelsea have thoroughly implemented their defensive and counterattack tactics. The number of offenses and shots was far more than Chelsea, but it failed to help the game.

This score continued until the end of the first half.

During the intermission, Guardiola walked into the locker room expressionlessly.

In fact, the Barcelona coach is also very angry at the moment, but after all, Guardiola is not the kind of person who will directly expose his emotions. After secretly expelling a lingering Portuguese from his brain, he Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door of the locker room and walked in.

Guardiola didn't criticize any of the players, in fact, at half-time, the first thing he said to his players was -

"You have done a good job." Under the stunned eyes of the players, Guardiola said calmly: "Every request I mentioned to you before the game, you have done a very good job. It is not because of your failure to take the lead. It was a mistake, but our luck was not good enough."

There was a moment of silence in the locker room.

Of course, the players don't just believe what the head coach says, they also use their own brains to think and review the situation on the field.

In fact, what Guardiola said is actually not wrong.

Barcelona failed to score a goal. Chelsea's defensive tenacity is one aspect. Barcelona's bad luck in this game is also one aspect.In the 45 minutes of the first half, Messi, Villa and Iniesta had several shots on target, either blocked by Terry or successfully saved by Petr Cech.As for those who hit the goal post and missed the frame, there are also countless.

But the factor of "bad luck" can only be regarded as one of the reasons for falling behind in the first half. He is as proud as a Barcelona superstar. Of course, he will not completely use this reason to comfort himself. Their eyes gathered on the head coach in unison. Listen to the other party's lecture quietly.

While talking with the players, Guardiola was also thinking about the countermeasures for the second half.

If it is a normal game, he can also consider retaliation. Chelsea restricts Harvey, then Barcelona restricts Slade in turn-but in the current situation where Chelsea is focusing on defensive counterattacks, they want to restrict Slade as a defensive midfielder. It is a difficult and meaningless thing.

The so-called restriction is to hinder the opponent's attack.The problem with Chelsea is that most of the time...they don't attack at all!

But this does not mean that Barcelona has nothing to do with Chelsea's defensive counterattack.

Guardiola thought calmly.

If you want to score goals, you have never just broken through to the goal and then shot.

"In the second half of the game, I hope you can maintain this momentum. Chelsea can't be so lucky throughout the game. If you maintain the state of the first half, the goal will come sooner or later. In terms of tactics, when the game continues, we..."

The Barcelona players listened carefully to Guardiola's words, without showing the slightest surprise on their faces. They waited until Guardiola finished speaking, then nodded: "Understood."

……

Cyril has no way of knowing what happened in the Barcelona locker room.

Throughout the intermission, and even when Cyril returned to the court with his teammates, he was thinking about one question——

If he were Guardiola, facing Chelsea's defensive counterattack, what choice would he make?

Considering that only half of the game time has passed, Chelsea is currently only one goal ahead of Barcelona. The score of 1:0 is the most unsafe score in the world. With Barcelona's ability, they want to get back a game in the second half of the game , is not a difficult matter.

Even after restricting Harvey and scoring a goal before Barcelona, ​​Cyril never had any thoughts of slack, and regardless of whether Guardiola will come up with corresponding measures soon, it is simply a matter of Mei West's superstar flashes are not something Chelsea can afford.

Yes, on the surface, it is true that Messi’s sharpness in the frontcourt has been weakened a lot because of the lack of midfield support, but Cyril, as the opponent, deeply understands that even if the midfielder is cut off, Leo- Messi was always the same Leo Messi.

In a football game, a flash of inspiration from a superstar will always be an unstoppable killer.

"The game continues, and players from both sides are back on the court at this time." Martin Taylor said: "It seems that the tactics and formations of both sides have not changed much. Chelsea's unchanged is understandable. Barcelona's It's a bit puzzling not to change, and they are the ones who are behind now."

"Could it be that Barcelona already has a solution?"

On the court at this time, Barcelona is still focused on offense.

Although their offense has been repeatedly interrupted by Chelsea using various means, or cutting the connection between players, or directly interrupting Barcelona's original smooth rhythm, the players are still making various attempts. Find a way to break the game among passing and running.

Messi is certainly no exception.

Since last season, Barcelona has had an obvious problem: Although the team's tactics are based on all players, the team itself obviously relies too much on the existence of Messi and Harvey. When a certain person is controlled, Barcelona will fall into a passive state.

The move to buy Villa this season has indeed effectively reduced the team's partial dependence on Messi, but Xavi's restriction has made Barcelona helpless.

Seeing that the passes passed by the midfielder were repeatedly interrupted, Messi frowned and simply withdrew from the frontcourt.He is not the kind of striker who likes to stay in the frontcourt and wait for opportunities. If the midfielder can't pass the ball, then he will do it himself!

When Essien saw Messi running back from the frontcourt, the alarm immediately rang in his heart!

He hesitated for a while, and chose to go directly to defend. At this moment, the football is under the control of Alves. For Alves, who is in a late position, he can make a lot of choices at this time: pass directly. Messi, midfielder Iniesta, and Busquets are all good choices. If Xavi can get rid of Lampard a little bit, he also has the opportunity to pass the ball...

Alves glanced at the frontcourt. It was really difficult to find any opportunities to take advantage of in Chelsea's defense. The opponent paid the most attention to the triangle cut in Barcelona's midfield.Although Chelsea can't guarantee that Barcelona will be stuck all the time-defense, like offense, has the possibility of mistakes.

At the beginning of the second half, Barcelona also took advantage of Chelsea's defensive mistakes and seized the opportunity to break forward, but it was often either Barcelona's bad luck, or Chelsea's defensive players or goalkeeper Petr Cech's extraordinary performance. A strike was denied.

After experiencing such a cold sweat shot, Chelsea will naturally do a tighter defense, which has caused Alves to pass the ball at this moment, seemingly without any scruples, but in fact he can pass the ball. The range of the ball is still limited.

At this time, Messi, who was withdrawn from the frontcourt simultaneously, made his eyes shine!

Of course, he also noticed Essien, who was chasing after Messi, but he didn't pay much attention to it-in the past two years, Messi has faced more heavy defenses on the court. It's almost impossible to interfere with Messi!

Thinking of this, Alves, who had made a decision in his heart, no longer hesitated, and he sent the football forward.

Messi receives the ball in Chelsea's frontcourt.

Essien, who was already sticking to him, naturally wouldn't let him go so easily. When Messi was about to pass by him, Essien suddenly accelerated and bumped into him seemingly unintentionally. The original intention is to affect the speed of Messi's progress, or it is also a good choice to directly put people down. Anyway, there are more than 40 meters away from the goal, and the danger caused by free kicks and penalties is very limited.

However, it wasn't until he put this action into action that he suddenly realized that he thought of Messi too simply——

Maybe the wind from behind realized something. At the same moment when Essien rushed over, Messi twisted slightly outward. The two bodies suddenly changed from colliding to passing each other. Essien tried to reach out. Pull the corner of the opponent's clothes or something, but at this moment, Messi really slipped out of his side like a loach!

After Messi threw off Essien, he turned around and ran with the ball all the way. This posture really seemed to have no intention of passing the ball at all.

As we all know, Messi is a very good striker.In all the competitions he participated in, it is very common for several players to score goals and ride thousands of miles alone.

Therefore, the Chelsea players looked at Messi's desperate running posture and felt that something was wrong. As the one who was relatively closest to Messi, Bosingwa immediately gave up Iniesta, who was originally his defensive target. , turned around and chased Messi.

Bosingwa soon came face to face with Messi, who was breaking forward at high speed.

He intends to stand in front of the opponent, so that the opponent's speed has to slow down first, but when he consciously slows down and blocks in front of Messi, the latter is catching him. During the time period, I passed the football to Iniesta, and I continued to run forward!

Bosingwa, who was in danger of being lost, subconsciously tried to reach out to grab Messi's arm, but the opponent dodged and avoided his small movements.

Iniesta, who received a pass from Messi, looked at the Chelsea position in front of him, and precisely put the football between Lampard and Ashley Cole!

Messi, who regained possession of the ball, did not move forward.

He was forced to "stop" only 20 meters away from the goal. Cahill firmly blocked his only way forward. Terry came from the right lateral running position. Messi stopped calmly. The ball made a move to break to the left.

Cahill immediately shifted his weight to the left.

However, at such a moment, Messi, whose center of gravity was originally to the left, suddenly kicked on the football. His body's center of gravity was indeed to the left, but it was not a breakthrough, but a goal on the spot!

Petr Cech did not expect that Messi would choose to hit the goal on the spot. He couldn't react for a while, so he could only extend his arms according to his judgment of the direction of the football, and blocked the football back!

The football hit his arm and quickly fell from mid-air. Villa, who had been ambushing in the penalty area, grabbed the first landing point and quickly followed up with a supplementary shot!

Cech, who took off on the spot to make a save, hadn't had time to stand still because of the last save, so he could only turn at the same time when he landed, and made a second save.But he seemed to be a bit slower in speed, the football passed between his hands and fell steadily into the net!

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! Leo Messi!! Brilliant shot! Messi caught off guard with a long shot from 20 meters outside the Chelsea box, Cech blocked the beautiful long shot but failed to block Villa's A follow-up shot in front of the goal!! Beautiful——" Martin Taylor shouted loudly. For this famous commentator, although he is biased towards the Premier League team, he also has his professionalism.

In all fairness, Barcelona's goal is indeed very exciting.

"In the 50th minute of the game, Barcelona finally scored a goal after insisting on attacking and bombing against Chelsea for 50 minutes! Now the score between the two sides is 1:1, and Barcelona, ​​who insisted on attacking, finally got rewarded-they successfully tied Return the score!"

Cyril couldn't help but frowned, but it wasn't because of Villa's goal.

Strictly speaking, at least half of the credit for this goal is on Messi. What makes Cyril frown is that this goal is an accident that is not easy to replicate. It is achieved through Messi's personal performance, not from Due to Guardiola's tactical change.

So what are the changes in Barcelona?

If it were me, what method would I use to deal with the defensive counterattack?

He thought about Barcelona's tactics, Chelsea's style, and the most common choices made by teams that have been tempted by Chelsea this season. The easiest to achieve and the easiest to think of may soon come to his mind——

Set-piece tactics.

Chelsea's style is doomed that their defense is far tougher and fiercer than ordinary teams, and they are closer to the verge of fouling. Facing Chelsea, which focuses on defensive counterattacks, Mourinho also used Chelsea in the second round of the Champions League semi-final. A foul was scored by a free kick.

However, at this moment, Cyril felt a little helpless in his heart.

Just like Barcelona has nothing to do with Chelsea's rogue tactics, if Barcelona tries to score goals by finding a set kick, it will be difficult for Chelsea to make any countermeasures-because for Chelsea, such a defensive style It has been integrated into their instincts. If they are deliberately asked to be careful when defending and not to set the ball for Barcelona, ​​it will be easier to restrain their hands and lead to defensive failure.

Fortunately, Chelsea is not unfamiliar with this kind of tactics. There is a lesson in the semi-finals before, and now it is in the crucial Champions League final. The opponent is Barcelona, ​​which Chelsea hates so much. Chelsea players are defending. It was also a lot calmer than before. From the start of the first half to the present more than 50 minutes, Chelsea has only received one yellow card.

However, less than 2 minutes after this thought dissipated from Cyril's mind——

"Di-"

In the 54th minute of the game, the referee blew his whistle.

The entire Wembley Stadium fell silent, and everyone's eyes turned to the center of the incident.Busquets propped up his hands and got up from the grass. Cahill, who was also beside him, was so angry that he wanted to beat him, but Lampard, who was still calm, caught him in time: "Let me go! He is obviously I'm flopping! I've never fucked him before!! Dog. Bastard! Fell without touching! Die/mother. Cannon!"

He couldn't finish his words, and Cyril, who rushed over immediately, helped Lampard open the gap between Cahill and Busquets, and the players of both sides confronted each other in the center of the incident.Although the other players were not as excited as Cahill and were still maintaining their composure, the faces of Chelsea players were generally not very good-looking at this time.

In the match between Chelsea and Barcelona, ​​this scene couldn't be more familiar.

What else can these Catalans do besides flopping?

In the eyes of the Chelsea players who seemed to be bursting into flames, the Barcelona players seemed to be more anxious than them. Seeing the referee trotting towards the incident, several Barcelona players headed by Harvey were very anxious. They quickly surrounded the center of the referee, complaining in a hurry, and among their words, there was only one center:

"Penalty kick! Mr. Referee, this should be a penalty kick!"

However, there were no players around Chelsea. For Chelsea, they were not used to surrounding the referee to appeal-after all, strictly speaking, in the past few years, Chelsea have encountered countless prejudices from referees. Helping people lower their heads to find the referee, most players can't swallow this breath.

Besides, if they gossip around the referee like the Barcelona gang, what is the difference between them and the Barcelona gang of sissies?

However, it's not a good feeling. As the captain, after asking about the situation, Terry took the initiative to get close to the referee. They don't need to surround the referee to put pressure, but some appeals are still necessary.

All eyes of the stadium were on the referee.

The referee had a blank face without any expression on his face.He was not too far away from Cahill and Busquets just now, and he saw the whole process when the two collided.

The messy voices of the Barcelona players and Terry's complaints rang in his ears at the same time, densely disturbing. He frowned, recalling the collision between the two players just now.

This is actually a penalty that can be awarded or not.

The collision between Busquets and Cahill was not an accident on the court, because Busquets was deliberately "looking for a penalty", deliberately luring Cahill to come close, and then when Cahill stretched his feet to defend Deliberately throwing the ball out, allowing the opponent to deliberately "kick" one's own feet, which leads to a foul.

"Finding a penalty" and "diving" are not the same thing, but they are both extremely unsportsmanlike behaviors. However, Busquets' "finding a penalty" was not too successful because he As Cahill said aloud, his foot didn't hit Busquets at all, it just passed by.

In other words, this behavior of Busquets belongs to both, but he is more inclined to flop, because he himself took the initiative to meet the opponent with his feet, which caused the opponent to be "fouled".

How will the referee decide?

penalty?Or dive?

The chief referee, surrounded by the crowd, was also thinking about the penalty at this time.

In his opinion, this penalty belongs to the scope of awarding or not awarding. It can be said that 2/3 of the total time of the game has passed. The fluency has had an impact, and at this moment, the sound of "penalty kicks" composed of Barcelona players is still lingering in his ears...

"Penalty kick! The referee awarded a penalty kick!" Martin Taylor said. At the same time, most of the Wembley stadium was booed loudly. On the other hand, he insisted on making a penalty kick.

It is rare for a referee to temporarily change his penalty after making a penalty. Now that the referee has made this action, it means that Barcelona will really get a penalty.

This penalty point is only more than 20 meters away from the goal.

Realizing this, the Chelsea fans in the stands couldn't help sighing, and many fans cursed something in a low voice, but even so, none of this could stop Barcelona from taking advantage of this penalty kick to score another goal. a ball.

Harvey stood in front of the penalty kick and successfully sent the football into the net!

Martin Taylor frowned slightly, and finally continued to explain: "The goal is scored! In the 54th minute of the game, Barcelona won a penalty. Xavi did not waste this precious penalty opportunity. 2-1! Barcelona Make another victory and overtake Chelsea!"

It's not the worst.

A goal behind in the final is difficult to recover, but Chelsea is not a team that will give up easily. After a lot of honing, Chelsea is like a calm killer with hatred at this time. He is angry, dangerous, Horror, but not because of loss of sanity.

With 40 minutes left before the end of the game, Chelsea still have a chance to overtake.

The Chelsea fans in the stands thought so too.

At the beginning, when Chelsea beat Naples with difficulty, everyone thought that Chelsea was a weak team, but when Chelsea defeated Real Madrid on the way to promotion, and even scored first in the final, defending Barcelona When they didn't show any weakness, everyone felt that if it was this Chelsea team, it might be possible to beat Barcelona.

However, what happened next was like a basin of piercing cold water, which was directly poured into the hearts of Chelsea fans——

In the 62nd minute of the game, captain John Terry accidentally knocked Villa down with his knee in a free kick defense. Faced with this unexpected foul, the referee's response was a bright red card.

Di Matteo rushed to the fourth official anxiously, trying to appeal to the other party for the seriousness of the penalty. More fans, like Terry himself, stared blankly at the red card, unable to react for a while. come over.

After showing the red card, the referee waved his hand, indicating that there is no need to talk about this matter.

The score was 2:1, there were still more than 30 minutes before the end of the game, the captain who was the backbone of the defense was lost, and he was forced to play 10 to 11, and, holding the football, Leo May stood in front of the penalty West.

In the stands, the Chelsea fans covered their eyes in despair, almost unable to bear to watch any longer.

Fate always seemed to be playing endless jokes at Chelsea, and every time they thought they were about to get close to the coveted trophy, they waved them away indifferently.

Powell stared blankly at the court, his heart sank completely.

At this moment, all Chelsea fans, even non-Chelsea fans, may have only one thought left in their minds——

It's all... over.

Cyril stands on the edge of the court, waiting for a free throw.He stood there quietly for a while, then slowly raised his head as if he felt something.

Cold raindrops fell from the sky in London, hitting his eyes lightly.

It's raining.