Chapter 559: Battle of Revenge (2) A Wonderful Opening

The game was about to begin, and Sky TV commentator Graham began to introduce the starting lineups of the two teams.

There were no surprises in England's starting lineup, except for some changes in the back and midfield players: goalkeeper Thomas Clarke was still the starting goalkeeper, defenders were Gary Neville, John Terry, Ashley Cole and Hargreaves, midfielders were captain Beckham, Wang Li, Steven Gerrard, Joe Cole, and forwards Rooney and Owen.

Due to Ferdinand's injury, Ashley Cole had to move from the wing to the middle and serve as the team's central defender, while Hargreaves, who was balanced in offense and defense, served as the full-back. McLaren took into account Hargreaves' good offensive power and his ability to support the team's offensive line on the wing. In England's offense, he also played the role of a winger.

In this game, Rooney also became the starting player. His partnership with Owen has always been talked about by the English media. In the World Cup qualifiers, the offensive ability of this combination is also very good.

Since Wang Li became famous, the England team has had the partnership of Rooney and Owen, because Wang Li will occupy a forward position.

However, in this game, McLaren still put Wang Li in the middle. After four World Cup games, McLaren also found that Wang Li's performance in the middle is the best. Especially when facing some technical teams, this black-haired boy can play a huge role in the team in the middle, because it is not easy for other players to pass the ball to the front court.

Portugal's starting lineup did not surprise everyone: the goalkeeper was Ricardo, the defenders were Miguel, Meira, Ricardo Carvalho and Valente, the double wingers in the midfield were C. Ronaldo and Maniche, the other two were Petit and Thiago Mendes, and the forwards were Luis Figo and Pauleta.

As expected, although the Portuguese press officer had been emphasizing before the game that C. Ronaldo's injury recovery was worrying, C. Ronaldo still appeared in the starting lineup. Obviously, the previous words had been Portugal's smokescreen, and they just wanted the England team to let down their guard.

Unfortunately, this clumsy strategy had no effect on McLaren, and even the most ordinary fans did not believe what the Portuguese said.

"The game is about to start. According to many fans, this game will be England's revenge, while Portugal also said they want to redeem themselves from the humiliation 40 years ago. Both sides are quite angry, so the game will surely be very exciting. We look forward to the exciting game."

Following Graham's words, the referee blew the whistle to start the game at the right time.

The England team kicked off first. Rooney passed the ball back to Wang Li and headed towards the Portugal half, while Owen also ran forward.

After receiving the pass, Wang Li did not rush to dribble the ball, but slowed down and waited for his teammates to run forward before launching the attack. At the same time, Portugal's offensive players also ran towards England's half. As England got the ball, their formation retreated slightly, and Pauleta and Figo all surrounded Wang Li.

Wang Li smiled at Figo. He and Figo had been teammates for half a month, and now they had become opponents on the field.

However, this was of no importance. Figo and Pauleta wanted to force Wang Li to pass the ball, so they ran over from both sides to close the door. At the same time, Wang Li pushed the ball forward with his toes, took a "Kun" step, and then jumped directly over the two men.

Everything seems easy.

"Oh! Beautiful! The game just started and Alan dribbled past Figo and Pauleta. It seems that he has regained confidence in his ability. He is in good shape today. This is really good news!"

Good news or bad news is irrelevant. After passing the two people, Wang Li seemed to ignore Figo and Pauleta and slowly dribbled the ball towards the Portuguese half.

At this time, the other England teammates had almost reached their positions.

Seeing Wang Li dribbling the ball slowly, Figo ran back and tried to steal the ball, but before that, Wang Li made a lob pass to David Beckham on the wing, sounding the clarion call for England's attack.

After several passes, the ball was obtained by Beckham on the left side of the penalty area. He took a look towards the penalty area, and before the opponent's full-back Valente could intercept the ball, he kicked the ball into the penalty area in an arc.

Rooney!

At this time, Rooney was targeted by a Portuguese defender. He jumped up and tried to head the ball, but his body was not balanced. A moment later, Rooney headed the ball out of the penalty area, and Wang Li ran up from the outside and got the pass.

“Boom!”

With a dull sound, Wang Li chose to shoot the moment he received the ball!

"Long shot! Oh...what a pity..."

The speed of this kick was quite good, but because the shot was too hasty and the power of the foot was not controlled well, the football flew over the top of the crossbar and out of the bottom line. However, this also made the Portuguese players sweat, knowing that the game had just started less than a minute!

"England had an excellent teamwork at the start of the match. From the middle to the wing, after several passes, Beckham accurately gave Rooney a chance, and Rooney passed the ball back to Allen, giving Allen a chance to shoot. England were just a little bit away from scoring, but unfortunately the ball went out of bounds."

"From this attack, the English players were in good shape today. The whole attack looked very smooth and the players cooperated well. I think it is not easy for Portugal to deal with such an attack."

The game developed as Graham said. After England's attack, Portugal made two consecutive advances. However, due to the mistakes of the players at the beginning of the game, both attacks ended with the ball being intercepted midway. England took advantage of the opportunity to make two wonderful passes.

With these ups and downs, Portugal's situation seemed extremely passive, and it seemed that it was only a matter of time before England scored a goal.

Seeing the situation on the court, the Portuguese head coach Scolari off the court was a little worried. He had focused on studying the England team before the game. In Scolari's view, the team's tactical play was a mess. It should be said that the tactics were too simple, which led to the fact that more often if they wanted to score goals, they had to rely on the personal abilities of the stars.

For example, Wang Li, Beckham and others, England's offense mostly relies on the individual performance of these stars to bring this simplified offensive routine to its extreme.

However, simplicity also has its own functions.

For example, when all the players on the England team are in good shape, this simple offensive routine often becomes extremely threatening. Because although the Portuguese team knows England's offensive method, and even when the England midfielders get the ball, they all know which direction the ball will be passed in. However, even though they know it, they cannot resist the accuracy of the pass and the smooth coordination!

Because England's offensive routine is simple, when the simple routine is played very smoothly, it will cause a deadly threat! And this threat is very fast.

It was so fast that the Portuguese team couldn't react at all!

The most important thing is that the England team also has Wang Li, a super shooter inside and outside the penalty area. It is very difficult for Portugal to win against the England team that plays smoothly.

Scolari was very clear about this, so after seeing the performance of the two teams in the first few minutes, his heart sank.

What to do now?

The Brazilian coach was panicked. He had thought about this problem before the game but had not come up with an answer because if the England players performed well and Portugal performed poorly, the two teams would become two levels of teams and any tactical changes would not be very effective in the face of the gap in strength and performance.

At this time, Scolari can only hope that the players can find their game form as soon as possible.

But not long after, what the Brazilian coach worried about happened.

Taking advantage of Portugal's poor performance at the beginning of the game, England's attacks became more and more fierce. The players wanted to catch Portugal off guard at the start of the game. Of course, scoring a goal in advance would be the best result.

In the 7th minute of the game, Joe Cole made a diagonal pass from the left and sent the ball accurately to the feet of the old golden boy Owen outside the penalty area. Seeing that there was no chance, Owen chose to push the ball to Wang Li next to him.

At this time, there were two Portuguese defensive players next to Wang Li, namely Carvalho and Thiago Mendes. These two people were very familiar with Wang Li. They were both Wang Li's teammates at Chelsea. Now the two of them planned to close the door to Wang Li outside the penalty area and grab the ball.

Wang Li attaches great importance to the defense of these two players, because they are former teammates. They are very familiar with Wang Li's skills and are unlikely to make rash steals.

Wang Li knew this, so when he saw the two men suddenly approaching, he was immediately startled.

Sure enough, Carvalho rushed over from the side and blocked the angle from Wang Li's position to the goal. Then Thiago Mendes came over from behind. He had no intention of stealing the ball. He just followed the position and left Wang Li no space to pass the ball to the right. At this time, as long as Wang Li chose to pass, his ball would most likely be intercepted directly by one of Thiago and Carvalho.

Although Wang Li has the Lingbo Weibu body movement, body movement is not a way to dribble the ball. It is not easy for him to dribble the ball out of the encirclement.

But Wang Li had already been alert.

He did not dribble past the opponent directly, but protected the ball first to ensure that it was not directly intercepted. Afterwards, he kicked the bottom of the football and used the basic "stick" technique in internal martial arts. The football followed Wang Li's right foot as if violating the laws of mechanics and rushed out of the encirclement. Then Wang Li lightly pushed the ball forward and followed with Lingbo Weibu.

This scene shocked all the fans in the audience.

"Oh my God! Alan's dribbling is so beautiful..." Even Graham was shocked by this dribble.

Of course, this is not the point. The point is that after breaking out of the double-team of Carvalho and Mendes, Wang Li had space to shoot, but he did not choose to shoot directly.

This angle is too far away from the goal, and the chance of a direct shot being blocked or flying out of the baseline is too high. Wang Li did not want to take the risk. While dribbling the ball towards the baseline, he glanced in the direction of the penalty area, but kicked the ball towards the small penalty area.

The ball was moving very fast and almost instantly passed the sides of two Portuguese defenders and appeared on the penalty area line.

There is no doubt that facing such a fast pass, Owen and Rooney could not react at all. When they turned around to chase the ball, it was already too late. But Wang Li did not pass the ball to them, but---

Joe Cole!!!

Compared with Rooney and Owen, Joe Cole and Wang Li have much more tacit understanding. During Chelsea's daily training, he often practiced cooperation on the court with Wang Li. When he saw Wang Li dribbling the ball towards the baseline, Joe Cole's first reaction was to rush into the penalty area from the left. Sure enough, Wang Li's ball was at his feet the next moment.

In the end, Joe Cole pushed the ball into the Portugal goal with an easy shot. Goalkeeper Ricardo on the left could only watch the ball roll towards the goal and was powerless to do anything.

"Goooal!!! Joe Cole scored the first goal for England!!! Beautiful!!!"

"Allen's pass was really beautiful, and Joe Cole and Allen cooperated very well. Let's watch the replay on the big screen. When Allen was running towards the baseline, Joe Cole also rushed into the penalty area at the same time. The whole process of scoring the goal was very smooth, and the rolling route of the ball was as accurate as if it was originally set."

"England is leading! Perhaps this goal should be attributed to Chelsea, because Allen and Joe Cole were once teammates of Chelsea, and their cooperation was developed in that year. McClaren should thank Mourinho. Although the latter has now joined Inter Milan..."

In the 8th minute of the game, Joe Cole scored the first goal for England against Portugal, and the score between the two teams became 1:0.

After scoring the goal, Joe Cole seemed very excited. Before the World Cup, he felt that it would be very good if he could score a World Cup goal, but now he has scored another goal, which makes him feel like he is in a dream.

You know, the top scorer of the World Cup only scores 5 or 6 goals every year. Now Joe Cole has scored 4 goals. This efficiency is really too high!

However, thinking about the fact that Wang Li scored eight goals despite playing one less game, Joe Cole no longer had any hope of winning the title of World Cup top scorer.

Want to compete with that black-haired kid who is like a goal-scoring machine in the scorer list? That's just asking for trouble.

Moreover, this goal was also passed by Wang Li. Even if Joe Cole wanted to do so, he still had to please Wang Li, otherwise it would be difficult for him to score again in the future...

This goal boosted the morale of the England team. After a simple celebration, the two teams returned to the field. When the game resumed, England's attack was still very fierce.

Portugal seemed helpless.

At this time, the whole stadium truly became the world of English fans. There were originally many more English fans, and they all shouted loudly to cheer for the England players on the field. Every time an England player got the ball, they would make thunderous cheers and shout the player's name.

When Wang Li got the ball, he would get cheers from almost the entire stadium, and even many neutral fans joined in the shouting of Wang Li's name.

"Alan! Alan! Alan!"

This cry filled the entire Schalke Stadium.

As the game progressed, players from both teams gradually entered the game state. In the England team, the most outstanding performances were Joe Cole and Hargreaves. The outstanding performances of these two players allowed the left side to frequently attack the heart of Portugal's defense.

Both Hargreaves and Joe Cole are fast and technically skilled players. They are both good at playing on the left and are two of the few technically intensive players in England. Their performance on the left makes England's left side much stronger than the right side.

The right side appears weak.

In England's right-wing attack, most of them relied on Beckham's passes. However, in this game, Beckham did not have any dazzling performance except for a wonderful cross in the front. His condition was obviously not good, at least not as good as his performance against Ecuador in the last game. The offensive ability of right-back Gary Neville can be completely ignored. Although the Manchester United right-back frequently made insertions in the attack, the role he played was really too small.

As a result, England's attack gradually tended to the left, and when Wang Li cooperated with his teammates, he mostly chose the left.

On the other hand, as the game progressed, the Portuguese players' condition improved. Just as the media commented before the game, C. Ronaldo became the most dazzling player in Portugal.

His frequent dribbling breakthroughs on the left side of Portugal highlighted his superb skills.

However, under the pressure of the England team, C. Ronaldo did not have many opportunities to perform. Most of the time, he was still involved in defense in the backcourt. Otherwise, Portugal might be easily scored by England again. By then, the situation would be different, and it would be too difficult for Portugal to win the game again.

Portuguese players all have such concerns, but England will not stop scoring goals because of their concerns.

In the 27th minute of the first half, Wang Li received a high cross from Joe Cole in the penalty area. After squeezing away the Portuguese defender, he used his right foot to shoot the ball into the goal guarded by Ricardo from the air with a beautiful overhead kick.

This goal made the entire stadium silent for a moment, but one second later---

"Ulla..." The whole place was noisy.

Then, Graham got excited: "goooooooooooooooooal!!!"

He yelled at the top of his voice: "Alan!!! Alan, it's an overhead kick! Beautiful, so beautiful! Perhaps this can only be described as God's masterpiece, I can't find a better word!"

"Alan scored England's second goal with a brilliant overhead kick, a great start!"

“2:0, maybe the England team will win this game easily.”