Chapter 337: Tenacity and Perseverance

The home ground of Portsmouth Football Club, Farnton Park Stadium in the Hampshire port city of Portsmouth was very popular today. The stands, which can only accommodate 20,000 fans, were extremely crowded. Spectators wearing colorful jerseys cheering for the team kept shouting in the stands.

Half of these fans are local fans of Portsmouth. They wore the same blue home jersey as the home team and kept shouting at the Chelsea players who were doing pre-match adaptation training on the field. They wanted to use this method to hit Chelsea's momentum, prevent them from showing their strength, and thus give the team they support a greater chance of winning.

Many of the other half of the audience in the stands were fans of the Blues who followed the team to Portsmouth. They all wore black jerseys and white winter sportswear. At this time, they all sat there quietly, looking very neat and tidy, like well-trained soldiers. But don't think that they will let the home team fans steal the show in the away game. Every once in a while, when the fan organizer sitting in the middle waved his hand, they collectively shouted a slogan---

"Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea"

"Your blue is not pure, you rednecks"

"Victory can only belong to Chelsea 3:0, 5:0 or 10:0?"

…

At the Farnham Park Stadium, the unified shouts of more than 4,000 Chelsea fans were very terrifying. This kind of orderly shouting was by no means comparable to the chaotic sounds of more than 10,000 Portsmouth fans. As long as the Chelsea fans shouted, the momentum would instantly overwhelm the Portsmouth fans' stands, which made the latter extremely sad. They even shouted at the top of their lungs to fight back, but it was of no use. After all, they did not organize anything specifically for this.

…….

This was two days after the match between Chelsea and Aston Villa, on the afternoon of December 28th, the 28th round of the Premier League, when Portsmouth played against Chelsea at home.

This season, Chelsea has played against all 18 other Premier League teams, with Portsmouth being the last one. Although Chelsea has achieved 19 consecutive victories, two of them were against Aston Villa, so it cannot be completely regarded as a half-time victory, but as long as Chelsea wins this game, they will truly have a complete winning record in this schedule.

Last season, many people thought that Portsmouth would not be relegated in the Premier League, but Portsmouth coach Liener successfully signed a number of generals for the club, including veterans Shelingham, Todorov, Pericard and Yakuba, allowing them to integrate into the Championship team composed of former players Matthew Taylor and Gary O'Neill. The team's record at home is very impressive, even comparable to the top three in the Premier League. Unfortunately, the away record is terrible, with only two wins in a season, and finally ranked 13th in the Premier League.

Portsmouth's situation this year is not optimistic. It is not because of their poor performance, but the conflict between the team's chairman Mandaric and head coach Lehner has gradually escalated, which led to the resignation of this iron coach who has made great contributions to Portsmouth on November 23.

And now, Zajec has taken over Lena's job as the team's interim head coach, and his partner, Zu.Jordon, has become his deputy.

However, since both of them are rookies in the position of head coach of Premier League teams, Portsmouth's record can be imagined. The biggest problem facing the team now is probably that it needs to find a successor head coach as soon as possible to stabilize the team's status. Otherwise, the quagmire of relegation may very likely befall Portsmouth again at the end of the season, which is definitely not a pleasant thing.

Due to Portsmouth's recent poor results, the home and away games are definitely not very exciting, so in normal games, it is difficult to fill the Ferton Park Stadium, which can only accommodate 20,000 fans. But today is different, only because Portsmouth's opponent is Chelsea.

Chelsea

Now for many English fans, Chelsea is a miracle this season. They have accomplished too many impossible tasks. Therefore, there are many local fans who come to watch this game. Of course, there will be many Blues fans who follow them, but a large part of them come for the name of Chelsea---

Who wouldn’t want to come and see the team that is at the top of the English League table with an undefeated record more than halfway through the season?

………

Finally, under the anticipation of all the fans in the stadium, the game officially began with the referee's whistle.

In this game, Mourinho let Paulo Ferreira and Glen Johnson play at the same time, which surprised many people, but the Portuguese was helpless. Chelsea's defense is now facing a dilemma. Wayne Bridge's physical strength is difficult to cope with the intensive schedule of two games in three days, while John Terry is suspended due to accumulated yellow cards and Ricardo Carvalho's foot injury has not recovered. In this case, he can only let the still slightly immature William Gallas appear in the central defender position, and the two options for the two wingers are only these two right backs.

But Mourinho still has a change of tactics, and that is Paulo Ferreira. Mourinho put him on the left side. It has to be said that this decision is indeed surprising. In Chelsea, the left-back has always been the two-way player Wayne Bridge and William Gallas, while Paulo Ferreira has always played as the right-back when he was on the court. Is it really appropriate to put him on the left side rashly?

However, as the game progressed, those who were surprised by the decision put their minds at ease. The Portuguese's performance was satisfactory, at least the opponent's attack could not find any flaws. Portsmouth's right back was the experienced Stone. This bald ** once shone in the game where the team defeated Manchester United, but he had few chances facing Ferreira in this game. In the 3rd minute of the game, Paulo Ferreira took a step forward and pushed the former directly out of the sideline, and just intercepted the ball. This is also a portrayal of the victory or defeat of the two people in this game.

Although Paulo Ferreira's performance is very good and his position in Chelsea is much more stable than at the beginning of the season, in fact, he and Thiago Mendes were hyped by the media as Chelsea's two biggest duds this season. After a few games at the beginning of the season, many media interviewed Mourinho and asked him about the reason for introducing Paulo Ferreira for 20 million pounds.

"Maybe his performance is unstable now, but I am not dissatisfied. He performed very well in Porto. I believe in him. It is wisest to see whether he is worth the price at the end of the season." Mourinho told reporters when he was interviewed.

Now, Mourinho was not surprised by Paulo Ferreira's performance on the field. In fact, at the beginning of last season in Porto, Ferreira had served as a left-back and performed very well, and could be regarded as another versatile player on the defensive line. In the past half season at Chelsea, Ferreira may hardly have any brilliance in offense, but he has done a flawless job on defense. He has also used this performance to become one of the most stable pieces in Chelsea's defense. At least now, Mourinho's statement of "seeing whether he is worth the price at the end of the season" has been fully justified.

Of course, Paulo Ferreira was not the only bright spot in this game. In fact, center forward Eidur Gudjohnsen performed even better than Wang Li.

In the 40th minute of the first half, Eidur Gudjohnsen, who had retreated to get the ball, received a pass from Joe Cole, cut into the penalty area, and scored Chelsea's third goal with a long shot, which was also his second goal in this game.

"Edur... Gudjansen Gooooooooooooooal"

"The Icelander performed so well in this game that I can't describe my feelings. I originally thought that after Christmas, as Chelsea's personnel shortages in various fronts might have a great impact on their results, but now I know I was wrong. Just looking at Gudjohnsen's performance, I know that he is not worse than Drogba at all."

"Look at Alan, our dancing prince, who also performed well in this game. In the first 19 rounds of the league, he even won the man of the match 18 times. Is he really an ordinary English football player? I even feel that it is God who is playing football. Perhaps with his physical fitness, he can win many gold medals for England in the Olympics. In short, he is really outstanding. Thinking about this result, there is really nothing to say. Maybe he should be more worried about the man of the match in this game. His teammates stole his limelight. Oh, by the way, he just scored a goal."

In fact, Portsmouth's interim coach Zajec didn't even think about winning in this game.

Not only him, but no one in the entire Portsmouth team thought about fighting for victory. Facing Chelsea, a super team that had won 19 consecutive league games and played all 6 full games in the Champions League group stage, they were experiencing a team crisis and never thought they could beat Chelsea.

Zayec also had a goal in this game - to score two goals against Chelsea, yes, that was his goal.

In the match between Chelsea and Wolverhampton a few days ago, since Wolverhampton scored two goals against Chelsea, even though they conceded five goals to the opponent, they did not encounter any criticism from the media. Instead, the media praised their extraordinary offensive capabilities and almost praised them to the sky.

Zajec also wanted to get that kind of treatment. He was very smart and knew that it was impossible to beat Chelsea with the team's strength, so he only focused on scoring goals. As long as he could score two goals against Chelsea, perhaps the media would boast about Portsmouth's offensive ability. In this way, he would most likely be trusted by the club chairman Mandaric, and his position as head coach would be consolidated.

Everyone has desires. Zajec will not be willing to give up the position of head coach of the Premier League team that he has waited for with great difficulty. He wants to fight for the future of his coaching career.

So, in this game, Portsmouth lined up in an offensive formation, and it was obvious that they wanted to play against Chelsea at home.

However, even if the two teams are attacking each other, is Chelsea's defense really that lax?

Portsmouth does not have Harrison Clarke, let alone Harrison Clarke who is in good form. How easy is it for them to score two goals against Chelsea?

………

Zayec wanted the team to score goals, but the performance of the forwards he arranged was not satisfactory.

The team's main striker, Lomana Tresor Lualua from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is 24 years old this year. Perhaps he is also a legend among professional players.

LuaLua has been receiving gymnastics training since he was a child. At the age of 16, he began to receive football training at school. He soon showed his talent. In an English Academy Cup football final, he represented Leyton College against a Colchester team. He was discovered by a scout from the English First Division team Colchester United, who was present and brought him to the English First Division to become a real professional player. He started playing football at the age of 16, and it has only been 8 years since then. In other words, it took him only 1 year to go from a complete layman in football to a real professional football player. It has to be said that this is no small miracle.

But miracles are miracles. If an ordinary person has not been exposed to football since childhood, then no matter how talented he is, he will have a serious problem - his foundation is extremely unreliable.

And now, in the Premier League, LuaLua has shown this problem even more. Faced with the iron wall defense of Chelsea's back line, it is difficult for him to do anything. Facing such defense, he even performed worse than the average English League One striker.

The team's other striker Fleur's performance was not much better. Portsmouth's only two shooting opportunities in the first half were also missed by the veteran. Facing Chelsea, he seemed to lose the feeling of shooting.

As for Portsmouth's attack in the midfield, it was a complete mess. Chelsea used a 4231 formation in this game. In fact, this formation did not have much tight control over the midfield, at least not as good as the 433 formation that Mourinho was good at. But even so, facing Chelsea's powerful midfield formation, the performance of Portsmouth players was still terrible.

The chaos in the midfield led to chaos in the entire stadium. Although Portsmouth deployed an offensive formation, it was difficult to generate offensive momentum, which gave Chelsea many more chances to score.

………

At halftime, Portsmouth was already trailing 3:0.

In the home team's locker room, Zajec was just silently arranging the tactics for the second half. In fact, although he is now the team's head coach, his authority is not high, even not as high as some of the team's slightly emerging stars. So even if he is dissatisfied with the performance in the first half, he will not vent his temper on these players. That is definitely unwise. Portsmouth has many assistant coaches. In order to take care of the hearts of some important players, Mandaric does not mind temporarily changing a head coach.

In this situation, one can imagine how Portsmouth will perform.

At the beginning of the second half, Wang Li dribbled the ball continuously in the middle and reached the front of the penalty area. He used a standard "Ai-style" dribbling, turning and shooting to score another goal for Chelsea.

"Goooooooooooooooal Allen Wang, this is the second goal. Will he score the third one?"

"In the 49th minute of the game, Chelsea was already leading by 4 goals. Seeing the home fans nodding their heads made me feel really happy. You know, these fans were so arrogant at the beginning of the game. Now Chelsea should use goals to let these guys know that even on the road, we can still win by a large margin."

After scoring the goal, Wang Li was in a very good mood and did three backflips in a row. The visual effect of the gymnastics competition shocked the fans in the stadium. But strangely, the Portsmouth fans did not express much.

“Were you a gymnast, too?”

At this time, Portsmouth forward LuaLua came over with a kind smile on his face, patted Wang Li on the shoulder and said.

Wang Li was stunned, turned around, opened his mouth, waved his hand and said: "No, I have never touched that thing."

"You have really good physical fitness. This move is very dangerous. You have to be careful, otherwise it is easy to sprain your ankle. I only do this kind of move after I score a very exciting goal, but the coach always reminds me to be careful. I believe you are the same."

"Oh...thank you."

Wang Li was a little confused by the concern of the opposing players, but he still expressed his gratitude. In his opinion, the big black African man was indeed very friendly, although his smile was not much different from that of Drogba, the "beast".

This was just a small episode in the game.

Wang Li would not show mercy just because of the friendliness of the opposing players. In fact, since Angela returned to London recently, she stayed at his house except for Christmas Day. The two of them were inseparable and reviewed their previous "homework", which made Wang Li in a very good mood these days and his enthusiasm on the football field increased.

In the 58th minute of the game, it was Joe Cole again. He seemed to cherish this hard-earned chance to start. He broke through two players in succession on the wing, made a two-pass combination with Frank Lampard in the middle, and then passed the ball straight into the penalty area. Gudjordjansen squeezed into a gap in the opponent's dense defense and used his heel to bring the ball into the dead corner.

Five to zero.

This shot also allowed Gudjohnsen to complete his first hat trick of the season.

The Icelander who scored the goal was obviously very excited. He turned and ran to Joe Cole and gave him a long hug, even with a tear in his eye. This hat trick was not only an excellent performance of scoring 3 goals in a game, but also a kind of determination and affirmation for Gudjohnsson himself.

Looking at Chelsea's personnel changes on the front line in the past two years, the Icelander may be the luckiest "survivor".

Hasselbaink left, Crespo left, Mutu was also cleared out, and Forssell and the newly emerging Carlton Cole also had to leave Stamford Bridge after signing a loan agreement. Only Gudjohnsen "survived", and when Hasselbaink left, the team could not wait to renew his contract for 4 years. In the Ranieri era, he gradually regained the lost position from Crespo and Mutu.

Now, the same story happened in front of the trusted head coach Mourinho. The super expensive Didier Drogba and the almost untouchable Wang Li made Gudjohnsen a substitute again. Now, Gudjohnsen has proved with his performance that he is no worse than the Ivorian. Although he and Wang Li have no competitiveness at all, at least he has added more weight to his position in Chelsea---

Up to now, Gudjohnsen's playing time is no less than Drogba.

As a player who has never been famous, Gudjohnsen has persisted in Chelsea for the fifth year. To be able to do this in Chelsea, which is full of superstars, is more than just perseverance.