World's No.1 Football Manager

Chapter 448 Missing Leader
Conceding the ball towards the end of the first half, such a scene is familiar.

Just two weeks earlier, at another stadium in the city, Maritimo had faced the same situation.

However, under closer inspection, the two are very different.

In the previous game, when Maritimo had a great advantage, he accidentally lost concentration in the set-piece defense and was scored an own goal.After conceding the goal, morale was not affected. They sang all the way in the second half and finally scored three goals in a row.

In this game, facing a stronger opponent, the scene is not dominant.Before losing the ball, it barely reached [-]-[-].

Just when Maritimo thought he had restrained Vinicius and choked Benfica's throat, Pizzi, the real core of the opponent, suddenly showed his power!

The goal lost was a sports goal, which was both reasonable and unexpected.

It is reasonable because the opponent has this strength, but it is unexpected because the end of halftime is approaching, and everyone thinks that the tie can be maintained until the intermission.

The unexpected loss of the ball was a great blow to Maritimo's morale.

Some of you felt reconciled and wanted to equalize the score; some were hit hard and wanted to rush to the halftime break to calm down; some were full of regrets, and all they could think about was how the ball was lost;

With 11 players on the field, with 5 or 6 mentalities, this ball will not be easy to play!
Gao Yuan watched it clearly from the sidelines. He yelled at the players on the field, wanting to make everyone fall back and get through the last few minutes of the first half.

But his voice is difficult to reach the ears of everyone on the field.The Stadium of Light, which can accommodate 65000 spectators, was very noisy because of the goal just now.

In addition, the players were restless and physically exhausted, so Gao Yuan's shouting had little effect.

At this time, the disadvantages of Antonio's departure emerged.There is a lack of a backbone player who responds to everyone on the field.

As the soul of the team, Antonio's ability may not be the strongest.But his spiritual power and leadership are indispensable to the team. Everyone feels at ease with him in their hearts. Even if he scolds a few words at critical moments, everyone will be happy, because everyone knows that there is a big brother on the court who can rely on.

However, now that Antonio is gone, the team is full of young people plus new players like Dzeko. No one has enough prestige to become the mainstay of the team.

After Antonio left the field, the captain's armband was on Vukovic's arm, but the Croatian, who had just gotten rid of his demons, was able to take care of himself, but he was far from taking care of the whole team.

Leadership is a natural thing. It doesn't mean that you can be a team leader if you play well.Keane, Kahn, Puyol, Terry, these iron-blooded captains may not be the most skilled players in the team, or they may not even be good people, but no one can deny that they are the pinnacle of the sea at critical moments!
Seeing that the team's morale was unstable and they were like rootless duckweed on the court, Gao Yuan frowned and fell into deep thought: I have to train a successor to Antonio!The team must have a spiritual leader on the field!
But when he was thinking about the problem, the situation on the field changed again.

Because of the inconsistency of thinking, the formation of the Maritimo team was also a bit scattered. The ball was tossed and turned, but there was no effective contact point, and it was quickly thrown back to the backcourt.

The ball reached Wen Jun's feet. Wen Jun, who played amazingly in the first half, was in a state of confusion at the moment. He was still struggling with the missed goal just now.

I should have stuck it tighter, and I shouldn't have given the big black guy room to pass the ball!Damn, how did that guy pass the ball suddenly?Obviously he always challenged me one-on-one before...

All kinds of messy thoughts came and went in Wen Jun's mind.

Gao Yuan increased Wen Jun's defensive ability, but did not strengthen his psychology.

But at the moment when he couldn't concentrate, his eyes blurred, and a big black man rushed in front of him at high speed.

Wen Jun was startled, and hurriedly kicked to make a clearance, but the ball was stuck on Vinicius's body and bounced behind him.

The clearance hits the opponent and becomes an offensive opportunity for the opponent. Such mistakes rarely occur in professional players.On the one hand, it is because Wen Jun himself is a young player who does not have many opportunities to play, and he is not experienced enough; on the other hand, it shows that Wen Jun's mentality has been messed up, and such a mistake actually occurred.

Although bored by the ball for a while, Vinicius did not stop. He grinned and continued to rush forward, grabbed the ball before Wen Jun returned to the defense, and then without hesitation, immediately handed the ball to Pizzi who inserted behind him.

This is the quick dash that Pizzi is best at.

Pizzi took the ball and rushed towards the goal.

Zhou Yong made a shovel in a diagonal stab, but the ball was already prepared. He slammed the ball, and at the same time jumped up, avoided the flying shovel, and continued to move forward.

Joao rushed over to help defend, but was lightly dunked by Pizzi, who swayed away from the defense.

Pizzi has entered the penalty area and is within shooting range!

Pizzi rounded his stance and was about to shoot. Qusay fell to the ground to block the goal, but Pizzi's raised right foot fell gently, which was a fake move!
Pizzi's coherent movements were very fast. Before the goalkeeper Niu Gensheng rushed out to block, he had already completed a stab shot with his left foot. The ball was so fast that even Niu Gensheng couldn't react in time!

The ball rolled into the net.

Another victory for Benfica!
At this time, the pointer of the game clock had just pointed to 45 minutes.

Pizzi gave Maritimo a black 3 minutes with a wonderful performance of three people in a row!

The Stadium of Light is boiling again!
Applause, cheers, and cheers merged into a sea of ​​joy.

Your uncle will always be your uncle!
What is a wealthy family?What is the background?This is not comparable to an upstart like Maritimo!Not to mention the city rivals Sporting Lisbon!
Those guys couldn't even beat an opponent like Maritimo!City rivals?You deserve it too!
Maritimo, who was in the black for 3 minutes, was full of grief. Everyone was gloomy, and Gao Yuan had nothing to do for the time being.

He knew that his players did not lose in terms of skills and tactics, but their mentality collapsed.

Although Pizzi is the MVP of the Portuguese Super League, he is not so good that he can beat three players in a row before scoring a goal!If it were normal times, Zhou Yong, Joao, and Qu Sai, any one of them could entangle the opponent, and even if they couldn't break the ball, they wouldn't be easily shaken off.

The reason why he was easily passed was because the movement range was too large, flying shovels, pounces, flying to block the holes of the guns, the movements all made him too old!
It seems that during the intermission, you still have to make a fuss about your mentality!Antonio has been replaced, who can stand up and stabilize the morale of the army?

At this time, the referee blew the whistle for the end of the first half.

With the core player Pizzi scored twice, Benfica leads Maritimo 2:0.

(End of this chapter)