Chapter 910: A world wave that breaks the deadlock
Beep!!!
With the long whistle of the Dutch referee Bjorn Kuipers, the entire Stade Louis II immediately became boiling.
Barcelona took the lead and Messi kicked the ball to Villa. The Spanish striker made a long pass to the back line and passed it to Pique.
Led by Sudon, with Di Maria and Sanchez on the two wings, Manchester City's front trident quickly rushed towards Barcelona's half the moment the whistle sounded, first chasing into the center circle and then going straight to the back line.
After receiving the return pass, Pique quickly passed it to Mascherano.
This midfielder transferred from Bayern Munich was arranged by Mourinho to the back line during Puyol's absence due to injury, filling in the gap left by Puyol. As soon as he received the ball, he found that his former teammate Su Dong was approaching.
After the Argentine midfielder stopped the ball, he quickly passed it to the right to Alves.
When Su Dong saw this, he grinned at Mascherano, and the Argentine smiled back, but Su Dong immediately turned around, always adjusting his position between Mascherano and Yaya Toure.
Whether it was the fans in the stands or the audience looking down at the camera, they could all clearly see that Su Dong's movement was stuck in a position that made Alves very uncomfortable.
Barcelona's right back couldn't pass the ball back at all.
He knew how fast and explosive Su Dong was, but he had no idea.
When Su Dong was always stuck in this position, Alves was very nervous and unstable whether he passed the ball to Mascherano or Yaya Toure in the midfield.
But if he dribbled the ball forward, Di Maria had already entangled him and there was nothing he could do.
Fortunately, at this time, Xavi ran over to respond, and after getting the ball, he quickly passed it back to Alves who was retreating and creating an open space, solving the problem of Barcelona's right back, but the ball returned to Barcelona's half.
…
Mourinho scratched his head on the sidelines, then turned his head and looked at Guardiola in the coaching seat on the other side with some surprise. He was a little surprised because he found that Manchester City actually took the initiative to attack and press high.
This is indeed very surprising.
Is this kid crazy? Mourinho looked back at the coaching bench and happened to meet the eyes of assistant coach Vilanova. He turned his head back calmly because he didn't know how to respond.
Did Vilanova really guess right? Did Guardiola plan to grab a wave of points at the beginning? Or did he really plan to play a head-on game with Barcelona? For the time being, Mourinho has no idea.
Vilanova, who was sitting in the coaching seat, noticed Mourinho's expression and sighed in his heart.
In fact, he really wanted to tell Mourinho that Alves' pass just now was actually very simple to break. Yaya Toure only needed to move closer to Alves and avoid Sudong's defensive area.
Yaya Toure moved over and after stopping the ball he went straight to Xavi who was in an open space. Alves and Yaya Toure then ran into the open space. Xavi suddenly had several directions to pass the ball and it passed the centre line without the need to pass it back.
But why was he forced to pass back in the end? Because Yaya Toure did not move over, Xavi was forced to leave the space he had created to meet Alves.
Passing and controlling the ball are closely linked together. When there is a problem in a certain link in the entire passing and controlling chain, especially in the crucial node of the midfield, the entire passing and controlling system will be posed with huge hidden dangers.
It's like a bicycle chain. When one link is loose, it may not be a problem when you are riding easily, but when you are climbing a slope with a load, it may break at any time.
Yaya Toure is a world-class midfielder, but he's just not the right fit.
He was too sticky to the ball, lacked a sense of position, and had limited movement and support, which made him a hidden mine in the position of Barcelona's midfield. The previous incident was just a mild symptom.
Thinking of this, Vilanova stood up, walked to Mourinho's side, and reminded him softly: "Manchester City will adopt an offensive tactic. I guess the most likely way is to let Su Dong grab Yaya Toure's point. We have to prepare in advance."
Mourinho frowned, and a complicated look flashed across his eyes.
Yaya Toure and Busquets, these are the biggest criticisms of Mourinho by many Barcelona media and celebrities, especially after Busquets played at a high level in Manchester City and was selected for the Spanish national team.
Mourinho chose Yaya Toure and Guardiola chose Busquets. How to judge who is better?
At this moment, Vilanova mentioned Yaya Toure, which made Mourinho think of a lot of things.
To some extent, Yaya Toure represents Mourinho's coaching authority at Barcelona.
"I understand." Mourinho said lightly.
Vilanova knew that Mourinho was very sensitive, which was why he was reluctant to speak yesterday.
But at this moment, Su Dong suddenly came back and intercepted the ball that Alves passed to Yaya Toure in the middle and quickly passed it to Toni Kroos.
Toni Kroos transferred the ball to the right side, Sanchez dribbled straight into the penalty area, faced Abidal one-on-one, pressed step by step, and after a series of feints, he suddenly started, shook off the French defender, and shot a low shot directly into the goal.
The ball slipped out of the goal.
Su Dong was just chasing to the back point at this time. Seeing Sanchez kicking the ball himself, he raised his hands helplessly.
The Chilean winger quickly raised his hands to apologize.
If this ball had been passed, Su Dong would have scored the winning goal!
Although they failed to create a killing intent, Manchester City's counterattack was very fast. From intercepting the ball to transferring it, everything was done with one pass. Only Sanchez's breakthrough against Abidal was slightly delayed, but it was only a matter of one or two seconds.
This attack can be regarded as a wake-up call to Barcelona, especially Mourinho.
…
The game continues.
After the opening, Manchester City did not adopt a tactic of steady defense and counterattack, but instead, contrary to its usual practice, maintained an offensive situation.
Especially the high-pressure defense at the beginning made Barcelona play very awkwardly.
It's not like they haven't experienced high-pressure pressing from their opponents. For example, in the Champions League final against Manchester United, Ferguson also wanted to make a breakthrough and adopted this style of play. But although both were high-pressure pressing, Manchester City and Manchester United were clearly different.
Manchester City is more organized and more targeted.
The pressure this puts on Barcelona is incomparable to the kind of pressing by Manchester United.
Su Dong's activity area is also different from before.
When his team was defending, he always placed himself in the area between the two central defenders and midfielder Yaya Toure, with the aim of being able to press the central defenders and midfielder at any time.
This is also the tactical task Guardiola gave him.
Yaya Toure is tall and strong, agile on his feet and has a strong ability to dribble the ball, which often allows him to break the situation once he rushes forward, but his weakness is also very obvious, that is, he is not active in running and often leaves his defensive position.
Guardiola also targeted this point, so he asked Su Dong to focus on this area.
Once the situation changes from defense to offense, Su Dong will change his position as soon as possible.
During the period when Manchester City was pressing high, Barcelona also launched a counterattack and passed the ball into Manchester City's penalty area for the first time.
That was after Iniesta dribbled forward and cooperated with Messi. The Argentine superstar made a direct pass behind the defense line. Pedro cut into the penalty area diagonally, stopped the ball with his chest and lobbed it, but the ball went too high.
In just over three minutes, the two teams exchanged blows several times, especially the back and forth change of ball possession.
This makes the game look very exciting and smooth.
Despite being counterattacked by Barcelona, Manchester City still did not retreat. They continued to press high and suppress Alves' side, making it clear that they wanted to destroy Barcelona's right attack.
This also made Mourinho quite nervous on the sidelines. He frequently signaled to the players on the field to pay more attention to supporting Alves, especially Yaya Toure and Mascherano, who were closer to Alves.
But even so, in the fifth minute, Manchester City seized the opportunity and successfully intercepted the ball on the left.
After Marcelo intercepted Alves' pass, he completed a two-on-one combination with David Silva. After he stopped the ball on the left side outside the penalty area, he was pressed by Alves and was blocked on the left side.
Seeing that there was no chance of a forced breakthrough, Di Maria suddenly cut into the bottom line, but Marcelo suddenly dribbled the ball back and quickly passed it to the left corner of the penalty area before Alves could react.
Su Dong pulled to the left corner, facing the direction of attack. Facing Marcelo's pass, he immediately blocked Mascherano with his body, stopped the ball, turned around, and cut inside with the ball sideways.
Pique behind Mascherano was shocked and rushed to Su Dong to assist in defense.
Facing the aggressive Pique, Su Dong suddenly stopped and pretended to dunk the ball into the penalty area, which scared Pique so much that he quickly blocked him. However, Su Dong suddenly moved the ball sideways and started moving quickly.
The sudden stop and start made it impossible for Pique to keep up with the sudden change of speed, and Su Dong broke through a gap in his defense. Su Dong seized the opportunity and shot directly from a long distance to the left side of the top of the arc.
The shooting angle was not big, but the ball went straight to the lower left corner of the goal at an extremely fast speed.
Valdes was mentally prepared and reacted in time. He dived sideways and tried to block the ball with one hand.
He was confident that he could save Su Dong's shot! But what he never expected was that Su Dong kicked the ball very quickly, but when it entered the small penalty area, it bounced off the ground. The speed of the ball after the bounce was obviously faster, and Valdez couldn't catch the ball at all.
The Barcelona goalkeeper dived forward and fell to the grass.
The ball hit the side net of the goal behind him.
"GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!"
"Just five minutes into the game, Manchester City scored the first goal!!!"
"Su Dong used a wonderful world wave to break the deadlock for Manchester City!"
“One to zero!!”
"Barcelona were at a disadvantage in the offensive battle after the opening and were defeated by Manchester City."
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
