Chapter 393: Man on man, Messi is about to shut himself up!
After seeing Messi dribbling past De Bruyne, Lin Quan next to him didn't say a word and directly hit Messi with his body, knocking the latter off balance.
Just when Messi temporarily lost his balance due to the collision with Lin Quan, Kante, who was watching closely from the side, stretched out his foot without hesitation and snatched the ball from Messi's feet.
It's Manchester City's turn to attack!
Kante decisively passed the ball to De Bruyne, who dribbled along the flank towards Barcelona's half, while Lin Quan on the wing moved at a faster speed.
Barcelona's left-back Alba was unable to defend two players alone, so he could only rush towards De Bruyne who had the ball.
He deliberately blocked De Bruyne's passing route to the wing, preventing the opponent from passing the ball to Lin Quan.
As long as the ball is not passed to Lin Quan, Lin Quan will not pose a threat on the wing.
Mourinho once said that the best strategy to defend Messi is to prevent his teammates from passing the ball to him.
The same principle applies to Lin Quan. For players like him and Messi, the threats they pose are completely different when they have the ball at their feet and when they don't.
However, De Bruyne is not an ordinary person. Alba blocked his passing route to the wing, so why not just pass it forward? Seeing De Bruyne's passing choice, Alba was relieved.
As long as the ball is not passed to the wing, if it is passed to other Manchester City players, it will certainly pose a threat to Barcelona's goal, but it is completely incomparable to the threat passed to Lin Quan.
Therefore, Alba is not very worried. His teammate Busquets and central defender Mascherano will definitely block the opening in the middle and will not give Manchester City's forwards any chance.
However, after seeing De Bruyne's pass choice, Busquets felt a pang in his heart and felt that something was wrong.
This ball was definitely not passed to Aguero. With Aguero's running position and Mascherano's close marking on him, he couldn't receive the ball at all.
Since it wasn't passed to Aguero, who was the ball passed to? Was it a mistake? No, it wasn't a mistake. De Bruyne can secure a starting position in Manchester City and is valued by his mentor Guardiola. He is definitely not an ordinary player!
Since Aguero is ruled out, there is only one person who can receive the ball now, and that is Lin Quan! Therefore, the ball is passed to Lin Quan.
Thinking of this, Busquets was shocked and immediately gave up the plan to double-team De Bruyne with Alba, and rushed towards Lin Quan on the wing as soon as possible.
Lin Quan and De Bruyne have been playing together for almost three years and have a very good understanding of each other.
Seeing Alba's defensive choice against De Bruyne, Lin Quan guessed how De Bruyne would handle the ball.
De Bruyne also guessed that Lin Quan was able to guess his thoughts, so there was no need for communication between the two of them, and they completed a wonderful pass and cut cooperation tacitly.
Lin Quan cut in from the wing and received the pass from De Bruyne.
However, at the moment of receiving the ball, he caught a glimpse of a figure with the corner of his eye - Barcelona's No. 5 defensive midfielder Busquets! As expected of Professor Busquets, he had a high football IQ and predicted his choice.
But unfortunately, Busquets was still a step too late.
Lin Quan got into the penalty area before him, and Mascherano immediately abandoned Aguero and rushed towards Lin Quan.
However, before Xiao Ma Ge got into position to defend, Lin Quan had already completed the shot.
Ter Stegen tried very hard to save the shot, but Lin Quan's shooting angle was too tricky, and the football almost brushed his fingers and flew into the goal along the goal post and the inside of the side net.
1:1!
Manchester City only took less than ten minutes to quickly equalize the score! The Berlin Olympic Stadium was instantly boiling, and the more than 20,000 Manchester City fans present were jubilant and excited, almost jumping up.
The score was equalized so quickly that all their worries disappeared completely.
Sure enough, with Lin here, there are no accidents!
On the other hand, Barcelona fans couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.
The lead that was hard-won, and was achieved through luck and the referee's misjudgment, was easily equalized by the opponent.
Moreover, the opponent's defensive counterattack on the wing made them feel a little nervous. Manchester City's counterattack was very fast. Except for a few people on the Barcelona side, most of the remaining players only had time to retreat to the half court before the goal was lost.
If the opponent can launch such high-quality counterattacks in the next game, Barcelona will be in great danger.
On the sidelines, Guardiola clenched his fists excitedly after seeing Lin Quan score.
Sure enough, Enrique's decision to let Messi and Lin Quan exchange players was a very stupid one.
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but look towards Barcelona's coaching bench.
Guardiola really wants to know whether Enrique can realize this problem and make adjustments quickly? Enrique obviously also found that his choice seemed a bit unwise. He originally wanted Messi to play on the right side, and wanted him, Neymar and Alba to play a role of one plus one greater than two, but from the actual situation, it seems that it did not meet his expectations.
The opponents left Neymar and Alba alone and focused on Messi who had the ball at his feet, and often two or three people double-teamed him.
In a place like the wing, three people pressing is almost equivalent to six people surrounding and catching the ball. Even a strong player like Messi can hardly withstand it.
So, should we put Messi back to the right?
Enrique hesitated and did not make a decision immediately.
After Manchester City scored, the game returned to a balance.
However, under the balance of power, the initiative on the field is still in the hands of Barcelona.
In the 16th minute, Messi and Alves passed the ball left and right. When the ball came to Messi's feet, Manchester City repeated the same trick and double-teamed Messi again.
But this time, Messi learned his lesson. When facing two players' close pressure, he accurately found Alba on the left side through the gap between people.
Alba passed the ball to Neymar, who performed his own show, using a very gorgeous dribbling skill to shake the defender's center of gravity and pass the ball to Iniesta who was advancing from the back.
Iniesta made a direct cross, the ball was aimed at Suarez.
But Van Dijk had already predicted Iniesta's passing route. He stretched out his long legs in advance and blocked Iniesta's pass out of the baseline, which was a corner kick for Barcelona.
Although this attack failed to result in a goal, Messi's role on the wing was still achieved.
He successfully tied down a large number of the opponent's defensive players, creating favorable conditions for Alba, Neymar and others.
Moreover, after attracting Kante away, no one could stop the Barcelona midfielders from advancing, which greatly increased the offensive threat of Xiaobai, Rakitic and others.
Enrique feels that if Barcelona continues to play like this, they will score a goal sooner or later.
Indeed, when top stars like Messi and Neymar are playing on one wing, any team will be overwhelmed when defending these two.
Both of them are the kind of people with extremely strong personal abilities, and it is difficult to defend against them one-on-one.
The best way to limit them is to double-team them.
But to double-team two people at the same time, one wing is definitely not enough, the midfield players must also get involved.
But by doing so, they fell into Barcelona's trap.
This is exactly the effect Enrique wanted. In this game, he gave more firing rights to players like Ibrahimovic and Rakitic, allowing them to shoot whenever they had the chance and making Manchester City's defense unable to focus on one thing while neglecting another.
"Humph, let me see which side you, Guardiola, are on."
Guardiola remained unmoved as he knew how threatening Enrique's offensive system was.
But just as Alba blocked De Bruyne's choice to pass the ball to Lin Quan, the threat posed by the ball at the feet of players like Messi and Lin Quan is far greater than that posed by other players.
Enrique's arrangement is equivalent to sacrificing Messi's offensive power for the sake of team tactics.
Guardiola, on the contrary, used tactics to bring out the advantages of the entire system and tried every possible way to give the ball to Lin Quan to complete the finishing touch.
Whether the two people's choices were wise can only be judged after the game is over.
Now, it all depends on whose players perform better on the field.
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The game time passed by minute by minute, and soon 30 minutes had passed, and the score on the field remained at 1:1 without any change.
During these 30 minutes, both sides tried every means to launch fierce attacks on the opponent's goal and even created some good opportunities, but these attacks ultimately failed to turn into goals.
At this time, the game had reached the 40th minute, and judging from the score and the situation on the field, the game was in a stalemate.
The defensive combination of De Bruyne, Lin Quan and Kante may seem insignificant, but in fact the effect is very good.
The three players have clear division of labor. De Bruyne is responsible for being cannon fodder, the first to rush up to intercept and force Messi to change the rhythm.
Lin Quan was the second to come on, responsible for using physical confrontation to disrupt Messi's dribbling rhythm and prevent him from dribbling the ball so comfortably.
Kante was responsible for finishing the game, and when Messi's rhythm was disturbed, he seized the opportunity to steal the ball! Among the three, De Bruyne's job was the easiest, while Lin Quan and Kante's jobs were more difficult.
Especially Lin Quan, although it seems that he is just using his body to collide with Messi, but even to achieve this level is not easy.
Messi's feet move very fast and he is very good at changing directions. Most people cannot keep up with his pace and will be left behind by him in the blink of an eye. There is no chance of physical confrontation at all.
But Lin Quan is different. His footwork is as fast as Messi's. So in the entire Manchester City, he is the only one who can keep up with Messi's rhythm and not fall behind.
So Messi is like a piece of taffy that he can't get rid of.
What’s even more infuriating is that this piece of sticky candy is taller than him, stronger than him, and has better physical confrontation ability than him.
Therefore, once Messi is entangled by Lin Quan, it is difficult for him to get rid of him.
In this situation, when facing Kante, who has abnormal intercepting ability, it will be difficult for Messi to keep the ball at his feet.
Of course, this tactic doesn't always work, only about five or six times out of ten.
But you have to know that the person they are facing is Messi. When defending Messi, their success rate is more than half, which is already exaggerated.
Inside the Olympic Stadium, the audience was amazed when they saw the Manchester City team's small defensive midfielder perform very well and steal the ball from Messi's feet many times.
"Who is this guy? How can he be so good at stealing? Including this time, Messi has been robbed by him 6 times, right?"
"It's a bit exaggerated. I don't think I've ever seen anyone beat Messi so badly in a game!"
"This guy seems to be bought by Manchester City from Ligue 1. His name seems to be Kante."
"A French player, just over 1.70 meters tall, plays as a defensive midfielder, and is black. How come he looks so much like Makelele?"
"Hearing what you said, he does look a bit like Makelele, but he is probably still a lot worse than Makelele in his prime!"
It has been a long time since a defensive midfielder of Makelele's level appeared in the football world.
Kante's current performance is indeed outstanding, but outsiders will not compare him with Makelele for the time being.
In the Barcelona coaching booth, Enrique took a look at the game time and couldn't help frowning.
Messi's performance on the right side is becoming increasingly restricted, and the opponent's defensive system greatly restricts Messi.
Even if the black player did not steal the ball from Messi, their double-teaming and pressing were enough to slow down Barcelona's pace and give their teammates more opportunities to defend.
In this way, it is difficult for Messi to create opportunities through his personal dribbling and breakthroughs.
As a head coach, Enrique obviously sees more than ordinary fans.
He admitted that Kante is indeed strong and has strong intercepting and tackling abilities.
But the reason why he was able to steal the ball from Messi many times was not because of his personal strength, but because of teamwork.
As long as Messi changes his position and doesn't give the opponent the opportunity to double-team him, Kante, without the assistance of his teammates, will definitely not be Messi's opponent in a one-on-one contest.
Thinking of this, Enrique made a decision in his heart. He stood up and gestured to the players on the field, wanting to change Messi's position and the team's tactical play.
Manchester City used at least four players to defend Messi and Neymar.
Therefore, their open space on the left side was clearly visible. After Barcelona suddenly changed its tactics, Messi returned to the right side and faced this large open space, and immediately shed tears of excitement.
The three brothers on the left side were like a sandwich, stacking men on top of men, leaving him no room to maneuver.
Even though he had a lot of skills, he couldn't use them when facing those three noble brothers.
But now, after he came to the right side, he suddenly had a lot of freedom without any constraints.
So, Messi was like a wild horse that had broken free from its reins, fully displaying his talent and making things difficult for Manchester City's players on the left.
In order to prevent Messi from breaking through, Kroos even received a yellow card for pulling someone while defending.
For this purpose, Kante specifically exchanged positions with Kroos and let him come to the left to defend Messi.
But without the assistance of the other two, Kante's defensive success rate dropped significantly when facing Messi one-on-one.
(End of this chapter)
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