Xu Zhu's Successor's Football Journey

Chapter 548 The Battle of Revenge (2) A Wonderful Opening

The game was about to start, and Graham, the commentator of Sky TV, began to introduce the starting lineups of the two teams.

There are no surprises in the England team's lineup, except that the players in the back line and midfield line have changed a bit: the first goalkeeper Thomas Clark is still the starting goalkeeper, and the defenders are Gary Neville, John Terry, Ashley Cole and Hargreaves, midfield captain Beckham, Wang Li, Steven Gerrard, Joe Cole, striker Wayne Rooney and Owen partner.

Due to Ferdinand's injury, Ashley Cole had to move from the wing to the center to act as the team's central defender, while Hargreaves, who had a balanced offense and defense, acted as a full-back. McClaren considered Hargreave He has good offensive power and can also support the team's offensive line on the wing. In England's offense, he is also equivalent to a winger.

In this game, Rooney also became the starting player. The partner of him and Irving has always been talked about by the English media. In the World Cup qualifiers, the offensive ability of this combination is also very good.

Since Wang Li became famous, the England team has had Rooney and Owen as partners, because Wang Li will occupy a forward position.

However, in this game, McLaren still put Wang Li in the middle position. After four World Cup games, McLaren also found that Wang Li's performance in the middle position is the best.Especially when encountering some technical teams, this black-haired kid can play a huge role in the middle of the team, because it is not easy for other players to pass the ball to the frontcourt.

Portugal's starting lineup did not exceed everyone's expectations: the goalkeeper is Ricardo, the defenders are Miguel, Meera, Ricardo Carvalho, Valente, and the midfielders are C. Ronaldo and Maniche's partner, the other two are Petit and Thiago Mendes, and the forwards are Luis Figo and Pauleta.

Unsurprisingly, although the Portuguese press officer has always emphasized that C. Ronaldo's injury recovery is worrying before the game, C. Ronaldo still appeared in the starting lineup. Obviously, before the game, it has always been a smoke bomb for Portugal. They just want to Let the England team let down their guard.

It's a pity that this kind of clumsy strategy has no effect on McLaren. Even the most ordinary fans don't believe what Portugal has said.

"This game is about to start. According to many fans, this game will be a battle of revenge for England, and Portugal also said that they want to regain the shame they suffered 40 years ago. Wonderful, we look forward to exciting games."

Following Graham's words, the referee also blew the whistle to start the game at the right time.

The England team kicked off first, Rooney passed the ball back to Wang Li, and it was an episode towards the Portuguese half, and Owen also ran forward.

After receiving the pass, Wang Li didn't rush to take it, but slowed down a bit, waiting for his teammates to run forward before attacking.At the same time, Portugal's offensive players also ran towards England's half. Since England had the ball, their formation retreated slightly, and Pauleta and Figo all surrounded Wang Li.

Wang Li smiled at Figo. He and Figo had been teammates for half a month, but now they have become opponents on the field.

However, it doesn't matter, Figo and Pauletta wanted to force Wang Li to pass the ball, so they ran directly from both sides to close the goal, while Wang Li passed the ball forward with his toes at the same time. Kun' word footwork, turned and jumped directly from the two of them.

Everything seems easy.

but
"Oh! Beautiful! The game has just started, and Allen dribbled past Figo and Pauleta. It seems that he has regained his confidence in his own strength. He is also in good form today. This is really good news!"

Good news and bad news are irrelevant. After passing the two, Wang Li seemed to turn a blind eye to Figo and Pauleta, and slowly dribbled the ball towards the Portuguese half.

At this time, other England teammates almost ran to their positions.

Seeing Wang Li dribbling the ball slowly, Figo ran back and wanted to counter-attack, but before that, Wang Li kicked the ball to the foot of David Beckham on the wing, blowing the England team's call. The horn of the second attack.

After several kicks, the football was caught by Beckham on the left side of the penalty area. He glanced towards the penalty area, and before the opponent's full-back Valente stepped forward to steal his foot, he arced the ball and passed it in. In the restricted area.

Rooney!

At this time, Rooney was stared by a Portuguese defender. He jumped up to head the ball, but his body was not balanced. After a moment, Rooney headed the ball out of the penalty area, and Wang Li ran up from the outside to get the pass.

"Boom!"

With a muffled sound, Wang Li chose to shoot the moment he caught the ball!
"Long shot! Oh, what a pity."

The speed of this kick is not bad, but because the shot was too hasty, the strength of the foot was not well controlled, and the football flew out of the baseline from the top of the crossbar, but this also shocked the Portuguese players in a cold sweat. You must know that the game has just started. 1 minute!

"Just at the beginning of the game, England played a wave of excellent cooperation. From the center to the wing, after a few passes, Beckham accurately created a chance for Rooney, Rooney passed back to Allen, and Allen had a chance. There was a chance to score, and England just missed the goal, but the ball went over the line."

"Judging from this attack, the English players are in good condition today. The whole attack looks very smooth, and the cooperation between the players is also very good. I think it is really not easy for Portugal to deal with such an attack."

The game is also developing as Graham said. After England's attack, Portugal played two consecutive pushes, but due to the mistakes of the players at the beginning, both attacks ended in midway interception, and the England team took advantage of the opportunity Played two more wonderful cooperation.

One after another, the situation of the Portuguese team is extremely passive. It seems that it is only a matter of time before England scores a goal.

Seeing the situation on the field, the Portuguese coach Scolari outside the field was a little worried. Before the game, he focused on studying the England team. In Scolari's view, the team's tactical play is simply a mess. It should be said that the tactics are too simple, which leads to the need to rely on the personal abilities of the stars when they want to score more goals.

For example, Wang Li, Beckham and others, England's offense mostly relies on the personal performance of these stars, so that this simplified offensive routine can be brought to the extreme.

But simplicity also has a role to play.

For example, when all the players in the England team are in good condition, this simple offensive routine often becomes extremely threatening, because although the Portuguese team knows England's offensive methods, even when the England midfielder takes the ball When they are playing, they all know which direction the football is going to pass, but they know it, but they can't stand the accurate passing and smooth cooperation!

Just because England's offensive routine is simple, when the simple routine is played very smoothly, it will pose a deadly threat!And this threat is very fast.

So fast that the Portuguese team couldn't react at all!
The most important thing is that the England team also has Wang Li, a super shooter inside and outside the penalty area. It is too difficult for Portugal to win against the smooth England team.

Scolari knew this very well, so after seeing the performance of the two teams in the first few minutes, his heart sank directly.

Now how to do?
The Brazilian coach panicked. He thought about this question before the game, but he never came up with an answer, because if England players perform well and Portugal perform poorly, the two will become two levels of football. Team, any tactical changes, in the face of the strength and performance gap, the effect will not be obvious.

At this time, Scolari can only hope that the players can find the game state as soon as possible.

But it didn't take long for the Brazilian coach to worry about what happened.

Taking advantage of Portugal's poor performance in the opening game, the England team's attack became more and more violent. The players wanted to catch Portugal by surprise at the beginning of the game. Of course, scoring goals in advance is the best result.

In the 7th minute of the game, Joe Cole completed a diagonal pass from the left and accurately sent the ball to the feet of the old golden boy Owen outside the penalty area. Owen saw that there was no chance, so he directly chose to pass the ball Push it to Wang Li next to him.

At this time, there were two Portuguese defensive players next to Wang Li, namely Carvalho and Thiago Mendes. These two people were very familiar with Wang Li. Ren planned to close the goal for Wang Li outside the penalty area so as to grab the ball.

Wang Li attaches great importance to the defense of these two people, because they are all former teammates. They are very familiar with Wang Li's skills, and it is impossible for them to steal recklessly.

Wang Li knew this, so when he saw the two people approaching suddenly, he woke up with a start.

Sure enough, Carvalho rushed from the side, blocking the angle from Wang Li's position to the goal, and then Thiago Mendes came from behind. He didn't intend to steal at all, but just followed the position and let Wang Li Li has no room to pass the ball to the right. At this time, as long as Wang Li chooses to pass, his ball is likely to be directly blocked by Thiago or Carvalho.

Although Wang Li has Lingbo Weibu's agility, agility is not a way of dribbling the ball. It is not easy for him to take the ball out of the encirclement.

But Wang Li has already been alerted.

He didn't directly dribble past others, but protected the ball in the first place to ensure that the ball was not directly intercepted. After that, he kicked the bottom of the football, and used the basic "sticky" tactic in the internal martial arts, The football followed Wang Li's right foot in violation of the laws of mechanics, and rushed out of the encirclement. Then Wang Li nimbly pushed the ball forward, and followed with his own strides.

This scene shocked all the fans in the auditorium.

"My God! Allen's dribbling is so beautiful." Even Graham was shocked by this extraordinary performance.

Of course, this is not the point. The point is that after rushing out of the double-teaming of Carvalho and Mendes, Wang Li had room to shoot, but he did not choose to shoot directly.

This angle deviates too much from the goal, and the chances of a direct shot being saved or flying out of the baseline are too high. Wang Li didn't want to take the risk. During the process of dribbling the ball towards the baseline, he glanced in the direction of the penalty area, but kicked the ball with one kick. In the direction of the small restricted area.

The speed of the ball was very fast, and it crossed the sides of two Portuguese defenders almost instantly and appeared on the penalty area line.

There is no doubt that Irving and Rooney couldn't react to such a fast pass. When they turned around and wanted to chase the ball, it was already too late.But Wang Li didn't pass the ball to them, but——
Joe Cole! ! !

Compared with Rooney and Owen, Joe Cole and Wang Li have a much better understanding. During the daily training of the Chelsea team, he often practiced with Wang Li on the pitch. When he saw Wang Li dribbling the ball towards the baseline , Joe Cole's first reaction was to rush into the penalty area from the left, and sure enough, Wang Li's ball came to his feet the next moment.

In the end, Joe Cole pushed the ball into the Portuguese goal with an easy push, and the goalkeeper Ricardo, who was still on the left, could only watch the ball roll close to the goal and was helpless.

"Goooal!!! Joe Cole scored the first goal for England!!! Brilliant!!!"

"Alan's pass is really beautiful. Joe Cole and Allen's cooperation is also quite tacit. Let's watch the replay on the big screen. When Allen was running towards the baseline, Joe Cole also rushed to the bottom line at the same time. In the penalty area, the entire goal process is quite smooth, and the rolling route of the football is as precise as it was originally set."

"England took the lead! Perhaps this goal should be attributed to Chelsea, because Allen and Joe Cole were teammates of Chelsea, and their cooperation was developed that year. McLaren should thank Mourinho. Although the latter has now joined Inter Milan”

In the 8th minute of the game, Joe Cole scored the first Portuguese goal for England, and the score between the two teams became 1:0.

After scoring the goal, Joe Cole looked very excited. Before the World Cup, he felt that if he could score a goal in the World Cup, it would be very good, but now he scored another goal, which made him feel like he was in the World Cup. Like a dream.

You know, the top scorer in the World Cup only scores 5,6 or 4 goals every year. Now Joe Cole has scored [-] goals. This efficiency is too high!
However, considering that Wang Li scored eight goals without participating in one game, Joe Cole has completely lost any extravagant hopes for being the top scorer in the World Cup.

Want to compete with that black-haired kid who is like a scoring machine in the scorer list?That's just looking for abuse.

Moreover, this goal was passed by Wang Li. Even if Joe Cole has this intention, he still has to please Wang Li, otherwise it will be difficult for him to score again in the future.
This goal cheered up the momentum of the England team. After a simple celebration of the goal, the two teams stood on the field again, and when the game restarted, the England team's offense was still very fast.

Portugal seemed helpless.

At this time, the audience really became the world of England fans. The number of England fans was much larger. They shouted and cheered for the England players. When every English player took the ball, they would make a loud cry , shouting the player's name.

And when Wang Li took the ball, he would get the voice of almost the whole audience, and even many, many neutral fans joined the ranks of calling Wang Li's name——
"Alan! Alan! Alan!"

This call filled the entire Schalke Stadium.

With the progress of the game, the players of the two teams gradually entered the game state. In the England team, the most outstanding performances were Joe Cole and Hargreaves. The outstanding performance of these two players The performance allowed the left wing to frequently attack the hinterland of Portugal's defense.

Hargreaves and Joe Cole are players with fast speed and high technical level. They are both good at playing on the left. The left side is much stronger than the right side.

And the right flank appears weak.

In England's right-sided offense, most of them rely on Beckham's pass, but in this game, except for a wonderful pass in front of him, Beckham did not perform too dazzlingly. His state is obviously not good, at least not as good as his performance against Ecuador, and the offensive ability of right back Gary Neville is completely negligible. He played too little role.

In this way, England's offense gradually tended to the left, and when Wang Li cooperated with his teammates, most of them chose the left.

On the other hand, the Portuguese team, as the game progressed, their player status improved. Just like the media commented before the game, C. Ronaldo became the most dazzling player in Portugal.

His frequent dribbling breakthroughs on the left side of Portugal highlighted his superb technique.

However, under the oppression of the England team, C. Ronaldo does not have many opportunities to perform. Most of the time, he is still participating in the defense in the backcourt. Otherwise, Portugal is likely to be easily scored by England again. On the other hand, it is too difficult for Portugal to win the game.

Portuguese players have such worries, but England will not not score because of their worries.

When the game progressed to the 27th minute of the first half, Wang Li received a lob pass from Joe Cole in the penalty area. After squeezing away the Portuguese defensive player, Wang Li made a beautiful upside-down golden hook. The foot poured the ball into the goal guarded by Ricardo from the air.

This goal made all the fans in the audience silent for an instant, but a second later——
"Ula." The audience was noisy.

Then, Graham became excited: "Goooooooooooooooooal!!!"

He yelled at the top of his voice: "Alan!!! Alan, this is a barb shot! Beautiful, so beautiful! Maybe this can only be described as God's masterpiece, I can't find a better one Great vocabulary!"

"Alan scored the second goal for England with a very good barb shot, what a fantastic start!"

"2:0, maybe in this game, the England team will easily win."

(End of this chapter)