Chapter 264 He was really angry!
On the evening of March 24th, at the Mestalla Stadium.
In the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, Valencia faced Chelsea at home.
This was the first time Ranieri returned to the Mestalla Stadium after leaving Valencia. Valencia fans specially welcomed the Tinker before the game, but when the game really started, both teams did not hold back at all.
Before the game, Chelsea management offered a huge championship bonus of up to 600,000 pounds, which greatly stimulated the morale and fighting spirit of Chelsea players. After all, this is already a huge reward.
The absence of Duff and Gallas still had a certain impact on Chelsea.
Ranieri lined up a 4-4-2 formation in this game, with Ambrosio as the goalkeeper, Bridge, Terry, Desailly and Melchiot as the defenders from left to right, Gronkjaer, Makelele, Lampard and Parker as the midfielders, and Gudjohnson and Crespo as the two forwards.
In addition, sitting on the Blues' bench are European stars such as Veron, Geremi, Joe Cole, Hasselbaink, Mutu and others. This team is quite outstanding both in terms of lineup strength and bench depth.
Valencia was also affected by injuries, with Aimar missing.
Benítez deployed a 4-3-3 formation with three defensive midfielders in the midfield.
The goalkeeper is Cañizares, the defense is Carboni, Pellegrino, Ayala and Curro Torres, the three midfielders are Baraja, Mohamed Sissoko and Albelda, and the frontcourt is a combination of Vicente, Sudong and Rufete.
Whether it is Ranieri's 4-4-2 or Benítez's 4-3-3, the tactical intentions of the two coaches can be seen.
Ranieri played with two defensive midfielders and was obviously cautious in away games, trying to play it safe.
Although Valencia was playing at home, Aimar's absence meant the team was unable to find a suitable replacement, so Benítez simply played with three defensive midfielders, obviously wanting to stabilize the defense first.
In a home game in the Champions League knockout stage, the first priority is to defend the goal and not concede away goals.
After the game started, the intentions of the two head coaches were basically continued.
Valencia did not attack at the start of the game, nor did they adopt a high defense. Instead, they tried to penetrate through the midfield with short passes to control the ball and the tempo of the game.
Chelsea is well aware of this, and Ranieri is very familiar with the technical capabilities of the La Liga team. They do not intend to compete with Valencia for midfield control, but instead adopt an active pressing and oppression tactic in the midline area, making it difficult for Valencia's passes to penetrate through the midline, making it difficult to create an offensive threat in the frontcourt.
But even so, Valencia still managed to create space from the wing.
…………
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Su Dong turned his back to the goal and carefully observed the situation around him.
Desailly and Terry both lagged behind and never left his side, especially Desailly.
The Chelsea captain and French national team's champion centre-back may be 35 years old, but he's still got plenty of power.
Su Dong did not dare to be careless with him.
When he saw Albelda finally find an opening after passing the ball back and forth in the midfield, Su Dong suddenly turned around and sprinted forward quickly. Even if he didn't look back, he could feel Albelda's long pass flying in the air.
But at this moment, the referee suddenly blew the whistle.
Su Dong was forced to stop just as he was speeding up. He turned around and saw the referee signaling offside. He then looked at the linesman and saw that the flag was raised. This made Su Dong very puzzled.
When I started just now, I didn't surpass Desailly and Terry.
Or maybe, when they started, both of them moved forward at the same time, creating an offside trap.
Walking back with his head down, Su Dong noticed Desailly's teasing look.
Soon, you won’t be able to laugh anymore!
Su Dong felt secretly resentful.
…
A minute later, Valencia created another attack.
This time the ball was transferred to the left through a pulling pass from the midfield.
Vicente dribbled the ball along the left side and broke through Melchiot, running straight to the baseline and suddenly making a reverse triangle pass back to the penalty area.
Su Dong deliberately lagged behind Vincent a little, and when the time was right, he suddenly sped up and rushed forward.
The slow and fast moves caught Desailly off guard and he intercepted the ball immediately.
Vicente's pass came in front of Su Dong, but Su Dong didn't stop the ball and volleyed it directly with his left foot.
After Su Dong's shot was made, Desailly's foot reached Su Dong.
The ball went straight to the left side of Chelsea's goal like a cannonball, forcing goalkeeper Ambrosio to fly out to save the shot.
There was a burst of warm applause at the Mestania Stadium!
Although the ball didn't go in, it created a threat.
Desailly got up from the ground, stared fiercely at Su Dong who turned around and walked back, and gritted his teeth secretly.
This kid is so damn fast!
Even though he was very careful, he was still left half a body length behind him. Then, after receiving Vincent's inverted triangle pass, he didn't even hesitate or stop the ball, and volleyed the ball with his left foot, which showed that he was very confident in himself!
Right foot, left foot is also so troublesome, not easy to deal with! Desailly frowned and looked at Melchiot beside him, signaling him to control Vicente's cross from the side.
Su Dong is a very difficult player to deal with. If he is allowed to continue passing the ball like this on the wing, Desailly is not sure he can completely defend it.
This kid really lives up to his reputation! …
Valencia's next attack still wanted to break through the left side.
Vicente's performance this season has been very eye-catching. He can be said to be the best performing player in Valencia after Sudong.
This also makes Benítez place high hopes on him on the offensive end.
With Aimar absent, Vincent is the only one in the team who can cooperate with Su Dong.
But after Chelsea noticed it, when Vincent tried to break through on the left, Melchiot made a fierce tackle, but he missed the ball and knocked Vincent to the ground. He fell out of the field, hugging his legs and wailing.
The referee blew the whistle and gave Melchiot a yellow card.
Such a penalty did not satisfy Valencia. Everyone knew that this was a test from Chelsea.
The actions of the Premier League teams are always particularly aggressive, and this time they were testing the referee's standards.
But the referee still maintained the original decision.
This really fueled the actions of Chelsea players.
Afterwards, the two teams made endless small moves on the court.
First, when Valencia was defending a corner kick, Ayala pulled Desailly's jersey from behind, which made the French captain very dissatisfied and he protested to the referee.
But soon, he changed to color.
Valencia got a chance for a throw-in in the frontcourt and quickly threw it to Vicente, who dribbled the ball diagonally into the penalty area.
When everyone's attention was on Vincent, Desailly in the penalty area first put his hand on Su Dong's shoulder. When he saw Vincent breaking through with the ball, he suddenly grabbed Su Dong's neck and almost pushed Su Dong to the ground.
Su Dong was caught off guard at first and was ambushed by Desailly, but he reacted quickly and tried to pry Desailly away. Unexpectedly, after breaking free, the French center back bent his elbow back and hit Su Dong directly on the nose, knocking him backwards and falling on the grass.
Su Dong's nose was suddenly attacked, and he almost cried in pain. He slapped the grass with both hands. Then he saw Desailly raising his hands innocently as if nothing had happened. Su Dong immediately got furious. He rushed up from the grass and punched Desailly, wanting to kill this dirty guy.
At the critical moment, Vincent reacted quickly, rushed over, hugged Su Dong and stopped him.
"Calm down! Calm down, Sue!"
Desailly also heard the noise and turned around, but did not dodge. Instead, he looked at Su Dong provocatively, as if to say, come on, come and fuck me!
"F*****!" Su Dong pointed at Desailly and cursed.
Chelsea players also realized the problem, and Terry immediately stood between Desailly and Sudong to separate the two.
He saw the whole process of what happened just now. Desailly's action was indeed excessive and too dirty, but he was his teammate, and Su Dong was his opponent.
The referee also ran over and quickly raised a yellow card towards Su Dong as a warning.
Su Dong was like an angry lion. He pointed at his red nose and roared at the referee, "Why did he put his hands around my neck and hit my nose with his elbow? He's fine. I want a yellow card?"
He was really angry!
It's not like he hasn't encountered dirty tricks and little moves before, but Desailly's two consecutive tricks, especially the subsequent elbow strike, were too damn excessive!
The referee said that he did not see Desailly's action, but saw Su Dong almost rushing over to hit someone.
"Calm down, Su!" Captain Albelda also ran over to persuade him. At the same time, he was also protesting to the referee, believing that Chelsea played too dirty tonight, mainly because the referee's enforcement standards were too low.
"Many of their actions are worthy of a card, or even a red card!" Albelda was also furious.
The referee said that he would pay attention to controlling the scale of law enforcement, but Su Dong must calm down.
Gradually, Su Dong woke up, took a deep breath, and felt a burning pain in his nasal cavity.
When he looked at Desailly again, there was no longer the respect he had before the game in Su Dong's eyes, only deep contempt.
He didn't expect that Desailly would be such a player! "You will pay the price tonight! I will kill you!" Su Dong said with gritted teeth.
When honest people get angry, they are often more powerful.
After listening to Su Dong's words, Desailly did not make any more provocations. He even began to wonder in his heart whether it was a wise choice to provoke him.
…
The subsequent game went on basically smoothly.
Neither side took any risk easily. Both were waiting for the opponent to make a mistake, but neither side made a mistake easily.
Just as the first half was about to end, during a midfield pass from Valencia, Mohamed Sissoko became entangled with Makelele, who was fighting for the ball, and the ball went out of bounds.
When they separated, Makelele took the initiative and patted Mohamed Sissoko's face provocatively, resulting in an angry Mohamed Sissoko slapping him on the back of the head.
The slap didn't actually hit Makelele, but after being stunned for two seconds, he fell to the ground decisively, rolling over and wailing.
(End of this chapter)
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