Chapter 1001
Chapter 1001
Chelsea shrinks the defense, and the space vacated is naturally occupied by Manchester City.
The conceded goal also spurred Manchester City, after they had the ball, to launch a fierce attack on Chelsea's goal. They hoped to equalize before the end of the first half - if they could, that would be the best result.
At this time, we can see how correct Ancelotti's decision is.
If Chelsea continue to attack Manchester City after the goal, then Manchester City can use the space left by their offense to play a defensive counterattack.
That was simply too easy for Manchester City led by Benitez.
But now Chelsea's recovery of defense has brought a lot of trouble to Manchester City's offense.
They can't use simple and quick counterattacks to score goals, and they have to spend more time and energy to score goals.
There was not much time left in the first half, and there were not many opportunities left for Manchester City.
The time passed by every minute and every second, and soon the first half went to No.404 minutes, and the fourth official stood on the sidelines, holding the stoppage time sign in his hand, and was operating on it.
He will tell everyone that there are a few minutes of first-half stoppage time.
"The first half is almost over. Generally speaking, the first half went relatively smoothly. There was not much time wasted, so there shouldn't be too much stoppage time in the first half..."
"2 minutes, up to 2 minutes." Alan Hansen said beside him.
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Sneijder had the ball in the frontcourt, and he was pressed again by his opponent.It was a microcosm of the defense he had to deal with throughout the first half.
After returning from injury, Sneijder, who is not in a good state, struggled to face this kind of defense.If his normal state and body were fine, Sneijder would not be so embarrassed to deal with such a defense.
But after the first half, Sneijder is gradually adapting and looking for countermeasures.
Since the opponent wants to press close and grab the ball from me, then I should reduce the time of holding the ball, change my role, and change from a midfield organizer to a transitional player.
More often, it is to quickly transfer the football to the feet of other teammates. In many cases, what is needed here is not observation, but instinct and experience.
So this time when Sneijder got the ball, he passed the football directly.
Instead of passing the ball to others, he passed it to Rong Guang.
Because Chelsea is shrinking the defense, Rong Guang is also facing away from the goal at this time.
Seeing the ball being passed towards him, Chelsea's players stepped up their pressing defense, pushing him outside and sticking close to him, preventing him from turning easily.
Everyone knows the threat of Rongguang, especially when it is close to the goal.Now with a few minutes to go in the first half, Chelsea are not actually defending Chelsea's offense, they are defending Rong Guang.
So as long as the glory is contained.
Before Rong Guang could catch the ball, he felt the pressure from behind.
It would be difficult to turn around in this situation, and it would also take time. Even if you turned around, you would still face Chelsea's impregnable walls. What's the point?
Although the possession is on his side, he can pass the football and reorganize the attack.But that was when the game time was quite rich. Now that the first half is coming to an end, how can there be time to deal with Chelsea slowly?
So there must be another way to break the deadlock.
During this time when the football is rolling towards him, he has to make a decision.
Whether to stop the ball and then turn around, or pass the football directly, is there any way to threaten Chelsea's goal?
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Responsible for standing behind Rong Guang is Chelsea's captain, centre-back John Terry.
And beside Rongguang, there is Barak, who defends Rongguang from another angle.
As long as Rongguang stops the football, he will rush forward and surround Rongguang, making him unable to turn around and threaten the goal.As long as he is forced to pass the ball back, the defense is successful.Time will fly by in Manchester City's meaningless back and forth, reaching the end of the first half.
Ballack kept staring at Rong Guang, wanting to see how he would handle the ball.
At this moment, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a figure wearing a black away Manchester City jersey. He flashed past the corner of his field of vision.
Barack noticed this, and he couldn't help casting his gaze there.
Because he found that the figure was advancing, and the direction of advancing was behind John Terry!
He saw the figure clearly, David Silva...
He is inserting into the restricted area!
That was a gap...
Barak suddenly turned his gaze back to Rongguang.
He happened to see Rong Guang raise his right foot, but this action didn't look like stopping the ball, because the foot was raised a little high...
Next, almost in the blink of an eye, Rong Guang swung his right foot down, and his heel knocked the rolling football back!
He passed the ball!
Or heel pass!
The football just slipped between the legs of an unprepared John Terry!
Go straight behind the line of defense!
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"Rong! Pass! Beautiful..." Before John Mortensen could finish his sentence, David Silva had already received the ball!
So he quickly changed his words, raised his voice and shouted loudly.
"David Silva! He's unguarded!"
Chelsea's defense put all their attention on Rong Guang. Everyone only wanted to stop Rong Guang from shooting and not allow Rong Guang to score, but they all ignored that Rong Guang not only scored goals!
You must know that Rong Guang's position in Manchester City's formation is the midfielder!
David Silva received the ball passed to him by Rong Guang at the moment he stepped into the penalty area. He did not hesitate and shot directly!
Bang!
The football sprinted forward against the turf.
Although the goalkeeper Petr Cech made a save, but because Rong Guang's pass was so sudden, he did not expect Manchester City to form a gate so quickly. His save was slower and the coverage area was not very large.
In addition, David Silva kicked out the most difficult ground ball to save.
Cech's hand was not able to catch the ball...
The football rolled past him and rolled all the way into Chelsea's goal!
Chelsea only lead by 3 minutes!
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"GOOOOAL!!! David Silva! David Silva! David Silva!" John Mortensen yelled. "He equalized for City! Towards the end of the first half!"
Everyone on Manchester City's bench and the coach's bench jumped up, rushed to the sidelines, waved their arms, jumped up vigorously, and shouted.
A quick equalizer after conceding a goal, nothing could have been better!
And next door, on Chelsea's bench, many people held their heads in their hands, their eyes widened, and they stared at the pitch with disbelief.
It was hard for them to believe that their team was evened after only leading for a few minutes!
Between the two is the fourth official. At the moment David Silva shot, he just raised the sign in his hand, which clearly displayed the Arabic numeral "2". As Alan Hansen said, the injury time is 2 minutes!
But Manchester City did not use these 2 minutes to equalize the score!
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Ancelotti stood on the sidelines, listening to the cheers coming from the Manchester City bench next door and the coach's bench, feeling a little bitter in his heart.
His mind was full of guarding against Rongguang, guarding against Rongguang, and he never thought that it was not Rongguang who scored the goal, but David Silva.
The whole Chelsea team followed his instructions and defended Rongguang strictly.
But who would have thought that in this game, Rong Guang is not a terminator, but an... assister!
When he was facing a tight defense and couldn't turn around and get rid of it, Rong Guang resolutely gave up his plan to shoot, but passed the football, and it was such a beautiful heel pass!
Such an assist is really unexpected.
Who would have thought?
No one can think of it!
He tried his best to let Chelsea hold such a goal lead.
As a result, his precautionary measures only worked for 3 minutes.
Three minutes later, Manchester City equalized the score.
All Chelsea's hard work in the first half was in vain...
The lead no longer existed, and the two sides returned to the same starting line before the end of the first half.
But the impact is much more than that.
The impact of this ball on Chelsea's morale is also very obvious.
Chelsea's players must be feeling frustrated in their hearts at the thought of losing their hard-won first-half lead.
This kind of emotion is very fatal when facing a strong enemy like Manchester City.
In the duel of masters, most of the time the competition is not about technical and tactical level, but about psychology and will.
Emotional swings can affect a player's performance.
Not to mention the players, when Ancelotti himself saw the conceded goal, there were some fluctuations in his heart.
However, Ancelotti recovered quickly. He did not let this emotion continue to affect him, but began to calmly consider how to readjust the mental state of his players during the intermission.
This is the hardest.
Ancelotti is not a coach who is good at mobilizing players' emotions with some extremely inflammatory language, which is a challenge for him.
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After Manchester City equalized the score, the Chelsea players were obviously affected by the ball in the next 2 minutes of stoppage time.
There is every reason to believe that if there are a few more minutes in stoppage time, Manchester City might be able to score another goal.
It can be seen that Ancelotti's concerns are very reasonable.
In the end, the referee's whistle saved Chelsea.
At the end of the first half, the two sides scored 1:1.
Although it was a tie, the performance of the players on both sides was completely different.
The Manchester City players looked very excited, while the Chelsea players were downcast, as if they had lost the game...
(End of this chapter)