The offensive and defensive rhythm of both sides is still heart-poundingly fast.
The battles between strong teams, even if they seem ordinary, are actually deadly.
In the 11th minute, Real Madrid made a mistake and Liverpool got a chance in the midfield. Coutinho got the ball in the chaos and immediately rushed to the left side of Real Madrid. Real Madrid's defense line quickly contracted and double-teamed him. This time, Coutinho knocked the ball to the middle in time before Essien made a flying tackle.
Modric rushed forward to intercept, but Gu Ran simply used his body to push Modric away and perfectly stopped Coutinho's cross.
Real Madrid's defense immediately strangled Gu Ran, and even the attacking midfielder Ozil actively ran back to assist in defense.
Gu Ran fights 1 against 5!
Gu Ran was not at all flustered. He controlled the ball flexibly and protected the ball with his body firmly. Under the double-team of five Real Madrid players, he dribbled the ball horizontally repeatedly in front of the Real Madrid penalty area!
Real Madrid's originally solid defense was instantly torn into pieces! While knocking Ozil away, Gu Ran seized the gap in Real Madrid's defense and made a strange rainbow pass!
Suarez ghostly inserted from the back row! This ball is not offside! The cooperation between Gu Ran and Suarez perfectly penetrated Real Madrid's world-class defense! Suarez rushed to the front of the goal, without even stopping the ball, and directly raised his foot to sweep across -
Casillas' holy light flashed! He quickly turned sideways and saved the ball from going out of bounds!
The ball came too suddenly. Even Casillas couldn't catch it. He could only save the ball through a neural-level conditioned reflex, giving Liverpool a corner kick opportunity.
Real Madrid fans at the Bernabeu Stadium breathed a sigh of relief.
The Liverpool Red Army fans who came from afar held their heads and lamented.
Gu Ran's firepower involvement and rainbow pass were really beautiful. Suarez's forward run was also very beautiful, and his shot without stopping the ball was also very beautiful. The problem was that Casillas was really too difficult to break.
Gerrard ran up and took the corner kick.
As a center forward, Gu Ran was naturally the focus of defense by Real Madrid's defensive players. Gu Ran also kept moving back and forth in the penalty area in order to pull Real Madrid's defense line.
Gerrard kicked the ball to the front point and Lallana shot in the chaos - the ball hit the post.
Lallana's face was also full of regret.
If he had paused for a moment and changed the rhythm of this ball, the effect might have been different.
Real Madrid's defense, especially Casillas standing in front of the goal line, did put a lot of pressure on Liverpool's forwards.
The game continues.
In the 17th minute, under the pressure of Real Madrid's full-court high-pressure, the left back Enrique made a mistake in stopping the ball. Kaka, who was originally strolling on the field, suddenly broke out and caught up with the ownerless football with the speed of the son of the wind. Then he made an abrupt stop and changed his line, passing Enrique who came up to steal the ball. Then, Kaka broke out again and accelerated, and went straight to the right side of Liverpool's penalty area from the ribs! Liverpool's positional defense was broken in an instant! No one expected Kaka's cut-in would be so sudden. Carragher and Agger desperately chased Kaka. Agger reached out to pull Kaka's jersey, and Carragher fell to the ground and slid!
However, neither of them could catch up with Kaka who had a knee injury!
Even though he had surgery for a serious knee injury, Kaka's sudden outburst is still world-class!
Kaka had a small one-on-one opportunity in Liverpool's penalty area!
Goalkeeper Reina made a desperate move to intercept the ball. Kaka faced Reina and easily pushed the ball through Reina's armpit and into the net! The ball went in! Kaka scored! The Bernabeu was boiling!
The score on the big screen at the Bernabeu Stadium was immediately changed to Real Madrid 1:0 Liverpool! This was the first goal of the game. From the difficulty of this goal, it didn't seem that difficult, but in fact, being able to immediately capture a small mistake in the Liverpool defense and then rush forward and score with an instant burst of speed, this may not seem very exciting, but it is really something that only world-class players can do.
Kaka is worthy of the fans' love for him.
Even Liverpool fans cannot hate Kaka.
Liverpool coach Mourinho also shook his head helplessly, his face full of complicated emotions.
Before Mourinho left Real Madrid, many Spanish media had reported that Mourinho and Kaka were not getting along. Although the two did not have a conflict or quarrel, they had been in a cold war for four months.
In fact, in the second half of Mourinho's time at Real Madrid, Kaka did sit on the bench for a very long time.
This is not to say that Mourinho doesn't like Kaka. In fact, it's quite the opposite. From a technical perspective, Kaka is exactly the type of player that Mourinho likes the most - in other words, from a technical perspective alone, a head coach would only dislike a player like Kaka if he is blind.
As a midfielder, Kaka has a very large running range. Although he runs very slowly when he doesn't have the ball, when he is normally running, he doesn't even stop. He can not only effectively connect the midfield and frontcourt, but also has a strong ability to finish and shoot, especially he is good at using explosive speed to insert and shoot.
Players with such characteristics have always been the most favored under Mourinho, such as Deco in Porto, Sneijder in Inter Milan, Lampard in Chelsea, and Gu Ran in Liverpool now.
Let’s not talk about the comparison between Kaka and Gu Ran, let’s just talk about the comparison between Kaka and Deco, Sneijder, Lampard and others. Kaka’s running range is much larger than theirs, and Kaka also has the ability to run long distances.
It can be said that at the very beginning, Kaka was the most core tactical candidate in Mourinho's early coaching of Real Madrid.
But the problem is...the two met at the wrong time.
It was Mourinho's first season in charge of Real Madrid and he was eager to achieve results. In his inaugural speech, Mourinho also promised to let Kaka play a bigger role in his team. It can be seen that Mourinho still wanted to reuse Kaka.
However, in order to realize his World Cup dream, Kaka refused to be examined by the Real Madrid team doctor even though he knew he had a knee injury. He chose to hide his injury from Real Madrid and participated in the World Cup with the injury. After the Brazil team was eliminated from the World Cup, Kaka still chose to take a vacation to rest instead of actively undergoing surgery to recover. He did not have the surgery until he returned to Madrid at the start of the season.
Such a seemingly arbitrary decision basically ruined the future of a world-class star who could have suppressed Messi and Ronaldo for an entire era.
Because Kaka needed rest after surgery, the new season tactics Mourinho had formulated for Real Madrid were completely scrapped. Mourinho could only activate Ozil and Di Maria, who were originally Kaka's substitutes.
When Kaka finally returned, Mourinho's tactics had been finalized and Kaka's back-to-back forward-running style was no longer needed. Ozil's frontcourt connecting and organizing passing style also worked very well with Real Madrid. At the same time, Ronaldo also benefited positively from the new tactics and his own space was greatly expanded.
In this situation, Mourinho naturally cannot overturn and restart his stable and mature style of play just for Kaka, who has just recovered from injury - other coaches may do so for a star of Kaka's level, but Mourinho will never do so.
When Kaka finally got the chance to play, his instantaneous explosive power was no longer what it used to be due to sitting on the bench for a long time and his physical fitness had declined significantly after a serious injury. Kaka's performance in Mourinho's lineup was even worse than Ozil.
So, it’s not that Mourinho doesn’t like Kaka, it’s just that Mourinho is like this. No matter how big a player is, he will not be reused if he does not meet Mourinho’s requirements.
As the head coach, Mourinho always has trouble handling the relationship with the big names in the locker room. That's because Mourinho never gets used to the bad habits of the big names. Simply put, Mourinho's football IQ is world-class, but his emotional intelligence is not high. Mourinho always does things that offend people and says things that offend people, but Mourinho never thinks this is a problem because he only cares about one thing in his heart, and that is winning.
On the contrary, Ancelotti does a good job in terms of emotional intelligence.
As soon as Ancelotti took over Real Madrid, he handled the relationship between Real Madrid's Portuguese, Spanish and South American factions very well, and Kaka also got the opportunity to start again - but in fact, Kaka's role has been marginalized.
Although Ancelotti's core tactical concept is for the wingers to cut inside, Kaka is placed on the right winger, which seems to make Kaka the core of the offense, but in fact, Real Madrid's real wing attack is concentrated on the left side of Marcelo-C Ronaldo.
Kaka was almost in a deadlocked situation on the right, and could only move forward and touch the ball by very rare chance.
In his peak period, he stood in the middle and was the player with the most touches on the ball in the team. But now, the position where he is most comfortable is still guarded by Ozil, who was retained by Mourinho.
Kaka originally hated Mourinho in his heart, but as time went by, Kaka finally realized that his hatred towards Mourinho was really too superficial. He thought Mourinho was deliberately targeting him, but in fact it was not the case. It was just that he was really not good enough.
So, although Kaka was very active in the anti-Mourinho movement, in a later interview, Kaka also said sincerely that there were no personal problems between him and Mourinho.
Kaka's highlight moment was gone when he injured his knee, but Kaka and the fans just don't want to admit it.
In any case, Kaka scored the first goal for Real Madrid with his world-class forward performance.
Playing at home and scoring the first goal also greatly boosted the confidence of Real Madrid players and fans.
Although this is not a knockout match, in the super death group, no one dares to relax until the last minute and everyone has to strive for 3 points.
The game continues.
After conceding a goal, Liverpool strengthened their defense in the backcourt.
As a world-class club that has experienced countless big occasions, Liverpool has never been afraid of disadvantages against the wind.
Captain Gerrard also stepped up in time and stabilized Liverpool's position with active defensive interceptions.
The offensive and defensive rhythms of both sides changed very quickly, and the fight in the midfield was also fierce.
Gu Ran often retreated to his own backcourt, especially when Ozil was about to take the ball, Gu Ran would suddenly come up and roughly push Ozil away.
Ozil could hardly get the ball, and even if he did, he could only kick it hastily.
Under Liverpool's positional defense and Gu Ran's retreating pressure, Real Madrid's offense could never get into the rhythm and could only break through with long shots outside the penalty area.
In the 29th minute of the game, Liverpool took the ball and advanced, and Coutinho was again pressed high by Modric.
Coutinho still wanted to use his personal ability to get past Modric, but at this time the monk Pepe suddenly rushed over from the back line, and Ramos instantly filled in for Pepe.
Coutinho was being entangled by Modric and couldn't find a chance to pass the ball. When Coutinho realized that Pepe was rushing towards him, it was too late for him to protect the ball.
With the assistance of Modric, Pepe rushed and bumped into the ball, domineeringly stealing it from Coutinho's feet.
Coutinho fell to the ground, holding his ankle and raising his hands to signal to the referee, but the referee ignored him.
Ozil ran out of the gap, ready to receive Pepe's pass, but Gu Ran came up to him like a ghost, pressing his body so hard that Ozil could not get rid of it.
Pepe dribbled forward at high speed and knocked the ball to Marcelo's feet before being intercepted by Lampard.
Marcelo immediately accelerated along the relatively empty left side.
Lallana intercepted from the side, and Van Dijk also came up to double-team. Their main concern was Marcelo passing the ball to Ronaldo who was already running diagonally to the ribs.
Once Marcelo passes the ball to Ronaldo, it will be difficult for anyone to defend Ronaldo alone as Liverpool's defense has not yet taken shape.
Facing the double-team of Lallana and Van Dijk, Marcelo suddenly performed a Marseille turn while running with the ball - no, to be precise, it was a Marcelo turn!
Because Marcelo was running too fast, and the Marseille turn is a technique that requires extremely strong ball control, Marcelo actually tripped himself while doing the Marseille turn!
The Real Madrid fans at the scene were all stunned! Lallana and Van Dijk saw that Marcelo was going to do a Marseille turn and were ready to intercept it, but they never expected that Marcelo didn't turn back. Instead, the ball rolled to the empty area in the middle because of Marcelo's mistake.
Modric happened to run towards the unmanned area in the middle and easily received this unexpected pass which was obviously a very embarrassing mistake but was made by accident.
Modric then made a pass to the ribs! Ronaldo was in position, stopped the ball with his back to the goal, and then in the penalty area, with his back to the goal and under the defense of Carragher and Agger, he jumped into the air and shot with a hook!
Reina hit the target! The ball went in! Ronaldo scored!
The Bernabeu Stadium is going crazy!
This goal is so beautiful!
Just now, all the attention of Liverpool's defense was on the left side and on the funny Marcelo. No one expected that in the next second, Modric made a precise half-altitude pass to Ronaldo, and Ronaldo directly performed a volley!
The score on the big screen at the Bernabeu was changed to Real Madrid 2:0 Liverpool! Liverpool's pressure increased suddenly!
The big screen repeatedly played Ronaldo's extremely beautiful overhead kick goal, and also gave Gu Ran a few close-up shots of his face.
...(End of this chapter)