Chapter 330: Su Dong! Su Dong!
When was the last time Camp Nou hosted a Champions League match?
It has been seventeen months, five hundred and fifty-six days!
That was the quarter-finals of the Champions League in the 2002-2003 season. Barcelona played against Juventus at home, but lost to the Old Lady 1-2. They were eliminated with a total score of 2-3 and failed to advance to the semi-finals.
It can be said that that season, Juventus entered the Champions League final by stepping on the corpse of Barcelona.
Last season, Barcelona missed the Champions League, but after a season away, it returned to the Champions League. Barcelona drew Juventus in the group stage, which made Barcelona fans both happy and nervous.
They were happy because they saw hope for revenge, but they were nervous precisely because they were unsure whether they could get revenge.
Don’t try to take revenge but end up being killed by your opponent, that would be such a huge loss of face.
After an absence of seventeen months, Barcelona's opponent in their first home game back in the Champions League is Shakhtar Donetsk.
This Ukrainian powerhouse led by the famous coach Lucescu has won all eight games in the Ukrainian Super League this season, performing quite impressively. The 0-1 loss to Juventus in the first round was only a minor loss, which showed the strength of this team.
After the 6-1 away win over Real Mallorca, all the fans are full of expectations for Barcelona.
The first Champions League home game in two years packed the Camp Nou with 93,000 fans attending.
They were all looking forward to it, but also feeling anxious.
In the past few years, Barcelona's performance in the Champions League has not been very ideal, which makes fans very worried. Can the current Barcelona team go further in the Champions League?
…
Barcelona's lineup is actually very thin.
As early as the beginning of the season, some media accused the club management of spending 80 million euros to bring in Su Dong, but had to sell a group of rotation and substitute players in their prime, resulting in a very thin first-team lineup.
The regular lineup of the first team has only 20 players, and it is barely enough to include young players such as Messi. This is the least among the 20 La Liga teams. With a small number of players, the tolerance rate is low.
What’s worse is that after the start of the new season, Barcelona has been hit by a wave of injuries.
Now, Motta, Gabri, Sylvinho, Marcos and Gerard are all out due to injuries, which makes the first-team's lineup even more stretched, and often they can only play with one lineup to the end.
In this case, it is not difficult to guess the game strategy formulated by Rijkaard and Ten Cate, which is to seize the initiative as much as possible and play the best football when they are in the best physical condition and their personal abilities can be best utilized.
In fact, in the second half against Mallorca, the impact of the team's physical decline cannot be ruled out.
Shakhtar Donetsk has plenty of physical strength and great speed, which is their advantage. At the same time, they are a team with strong technical and tactical qualities, so Barcelona cannot take it lightly.
…
The game began amid the cheers of more than 90,000 fans.
Barca took the initiative first, with Ronaldinho passing the ball to Belletti in the fourth minute.
The right back's long shot near the baseline went wide.
This was the first shot of the game.
After Barcelona's first shot, Shakhtar Donetsk realized Barcelona's intention and decisively took the strategy of shrinking their defense, even resorting to foul tactics when necessary.
Afterwards, Barcelona could only create threats through long-range shots, but they failed to score.
It was not until the eleventh minute that Ronaldinho got the ball on the left side outside the penalty area and saw Su Dong moving towards him. The two of them exchanged glances and understood each other.
The Brazilian player took the ball and cut inside, attracting the attention of the defender, and then kicked the ball behind him.
Su Dong quickly shook off Romanian center back Bagn and got ahead of Polish center back Mariusz Lewandowski. He dribbled the ball into the penalty area with his left foot, used his body to force Lewandowski away, and made a low shot with his left foot before right back Srna could block it.
This sudden shot was very unexpected and the angle was very tricky.
Shakhtar Donetsk goalkeeper Lastuvka made a sideways save but still failed to prevent the ball from entering the net.
One to zero!
In an instant, more than 90,000 fans in the stands burst into earth-shaking cheers.
Su Dong rushed out of the court excitedly and ran all the way.
"Sudong! Sudong!! Sudong!!!"
The fans in the stadium were shouting his name excitedly, and his teammates behind him rushed up one after another.
In the end, Puyol grabbed Su Dong and knocked him down by the waist on the sidelines, and they both fell to the grass.
"In the eleventh minute, Barcelona scored the first goal!"
“It’s still a goal from Su Dong!”
"We simply can't believe it. This 20-year-old genius is the best and most surprising player in Barcelona this season. He has shown us the performance of Ronaldo back then, no, even better than Ronaldo back then!"
"One to zero, Barcelona temporarily takes the lead thanks to Su Dong's goal!"
…
One goal can often change the entire trend.
There was also some confusion at Shakhtar Donetsk.
Four minutes later, Ronaldinho passed the ball to the unmanned area on the right side, Deco stopped the ball and shot low to score another goal for Barcelona.
2-0! Before the end of the first half, Xavi quickly took a corner kick.
The two central defenders of Shakhtar Donetsk are not tall, only about 1.84 meters, which gives Su Dong room to use his height. He grabbed the first point and headed the ball to the back point.
Ronaldinho followed up and shot directly, breaking through Shakhtar Donetsk's goal again.
Three to zero! Afterwards, the game temporarily fell into a stalemate, especially after the start of the second half, Donetsk launched a counterattack, but in the end Barcelona still firmly controlled the situation and did not give the Ukrainian team a chance to counterattack.
Until the end of the game, in the 89th minute, Iniesta, who had just replaced Deco for six minutes, got the ball on the left and made a very beautiful continuous wall-pass cooperation with Su Dong.
The two of them seemed to be playing indoor football in the corridor of the sports city. They passed the ball continuously and broke into the opponent's penalty area as if they were in an empty space in the tight defense of Shakhtar Donetsk.
Finally, Su Dong stopped the ball, made a feint, deceived the opponent's goalkeeper and defender, and passed the ball back to Iniesta.
The latter easily pushed the ball into the empty goal, 4-0! Iniesta, who scored the goal, was so excited that he threw himself towards Su Dong and celebrated wildly.
This is his first Champions League goal in his career! …
The game ended with Barcelona defeating Shakhtar Donetsk 4-0.
The visiting team players left and the fans also dispersed one after another.
Iniesta went back to the locker room to change his clothes, then quietly returned to the stadium, still holding the football that had just scored the goal in his hand, standing in front of the goal, as if he was savoring the goal.
The cheers of 90,000 fans seemed to still be floating in his ears.
That feeling was really great! Suddenly, a hand grabbed his head and rubbed it hard.
That familiar touch, that sophisticated technique, I knew without looking back, it must be Su Dong.
"It's just a goal. Is there any need to dwell on it like this?" Su Dong asked with a smile.
Iniesta turned his head and looked at him, then smiled faintly and said, "You don't understand."
"That's right." Su Dong nodded. If he were like him, reminiscing for a long time after scoring a goal, he would be very busy.
I don’t have to do anything every day, just stand in front of the goal and reminisce.
"Thank you, Su!" Iniesta said suddenly.
"What is there to thank me for?" Su Dong smiled without comment.
Iniesta was silent and didn't say anything else.
At the beginning of the season, his situation was not good. He even thought that in the worst case scenario, he would be loaned out or transferred, but Su Dong's arrival brought him opportunities.
Especially during the period when Ronaldinho was absent, Iniesta performed well and won the recognition of the head coach, which was inseparable from Su Dong's support.
Without Su Dong, he was not sure if he could do it, but it would definitely be much more difficult.
Now, he even has his first Champions League goal in his career.
What a wonderful thing! Every time he sees Su Dong, Iniesta feels a sense of warmth and security from the bottom of his heart, as if nothing in the world can stump him.
Iniesta is not a good talker, and saying thank you is still very difficult for him, but he will choose to keep it in his heart and always remember it.
"Let's go!" Su Dong stretched out his hand again, touched his head hard, turned and left.
Iniesta nodded obediently and followed Su Dong.
One tall and one short, one in front and one behind, two figures slowly walked into the player tunnel.
…………
…………
Su Dong's crazy streak of goals since the new season came to a temporary end in the sixth round of La Liga.
Coming on as a substitute, he assisted Ronaldinho to score the only goal of the game.
After playing the entire game against Shakhtar Donetsk, Sudong had to take a rest in the La Liga. This was not only the advice of the team doctor, but also the advice of the personal coaching staff. They were also worried that if Sudong continued to play like this, the risk of injury would increase greatly.
Although the goal was interrupted, the assist still showed Su Dong's strength.
One to zero, Barcelona won a narrow victory over Numancia at home.
…
Two hours later than Barcelona, Real Madrid faced Deportivo La Coruna at home.
In the middle of the week, in the Champions League, Real Madrid reversed Roma 4-2 with Raul's double and goals from Figo and Carlos, which made many people think that Real Madrid was rebounding.
But in the end, the Galacticos were humiliated 0-1 by Super Laco at home.
This immediately pushed Real Madrid into a deeper abyss.
After six rounds of matches, Barcelona continued to top the La Liga table with 18 points and six wins. In addition, Valencia drew in this round and lagged behind Barcelona by four points.
Real Madrid has three wins and three losses, ranking tenth.
This can almost be said to be a replica of Barcelona last season, except that Real Madrid's current situation is worse than Barcelona last season.
At least Rijkaard was not sacked at that time, while Camacho had left early.
After the sixth round of La Liga, there were two weeks of national team match days and the La Liga was temporarily suspended.
But two weeks later, Barcelona will face a series of tough battles.
Taking advantage of these two weeks, Su Dong decided to do something big that had been planned for a long time.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
