Chapter 559 The rise of Tottenham, the key battle for the Spanish team

In Celtic Park, the home team faced unprecedented defensive pressure after Manchester City made consecutive substitutions.

Due to excessive defensive pressure, their formation was completely squashed. Dembele, who had been hanging around the center circle before, had to come back to participate in defense at this time.

Although if he stays in the frontcourt, he can create a certain threat to Manchester City through counterattacks, allowing Manchester City to use defensive weapons when attacking.

But when Manchester City pressed fully, the Celtics couldn't get the ball at all, let alone launch a counterattack.

From the 50th minute of the second half, the ball has been flying in front of Celtic's goal.

Manchester City's offensive went higher and higher, and in just 20 minutes, they had completed 12 shots.

If the Celtics hadn't used an almost tragic defensive method like blocking and eye-catching, their goal would have been breached long ago.

However, no matter how strong the defense is, it will be breached one day.

In the 73rd minute, Lin Quan's breakthrough caused chaos in the Celtic penalty area. Although the Celtic goalkeeper narrowly blocked Lin Quan's shot, the ball flew out of the penalty area and landed again. At the feet of Manchester City players on the outside.

Before the Celtic players in the penalty area could rush out to press, the Manchester City player holding the ball took a long shot.

Celtic goalkeeper Gordon barely stood up from the ground and barely reached out to flick the football in mid-air.

The football fell into the penalty area. Aguero had quick eyes and quick feet. He stretched out his foot and scored the ball.

The score became 3:3, and Manchester City finally equalized.

Although the opponent is not particularly strong, when the opponent is focused on defending, even if it is as strong as Manchester City, it will be difficult to break the opponent's goal.

Just like this goal, they have been attacking the opponent's goal for more than 25 minutes.

As long as the opponent does not have any thoughts of luck, unites their thinking, and defends strictly, the difficulty of scoring will be greatly increased.

Manchester City's equalizer goal just extinguished the Celtics' last illusion.

The opponent's coach made decisive substitutions. Dembele, the hero of the goal, was replaced. All three substitutions were players on the defensive line.

Obviously, the other party is going to hold on to the end.

Although it is cowardly and embarrassing to use this style of play on your own home court, when the opponent is shameless, there is really nothing you can do about it.

Although Manchester City worked very hard, they were unable to score in the subsequent period.

Although the Celtics were beaten ugly, they successfully held on to the hard-won draw, and Manchester City got a point.

This is not an easy task. Many top giants have difficulty scoring points when facing Manchester City, and they may even be killed by Manchester City accidentally.

When the game on Manchester City's side ended, the game on Barcelona's side was also coming to an end.

The score on the field is 1:2, with the home team in front and the visiting team in back.

Although the victory was very embarrassing and even a bit lucky, Barcelona still won in the end.

After a hard-fought victory, Barcelona's players and coaching staff cheered when they learned the result of another game.

Their win and Manchester City's draw meant that Barcelona had grabbed first place in the group.

Their own morale has been greatly boosted, while the opponent's morale has been dampened. The next game is another strong showdown between them and Manchester City, and the venue of the game is still at Barcelona's home court.

Under the superposition of multiple factors, Barcelona has become optimistic.

Perhaps, the next game will be their moment of revenge against Manchester City!

…

They failed to win the game away from home, and the physical exertion of the team was not small, which affected Manchester City's morale to a certain extent.

In the seventh round of the Premier League, at White Hart Lane, Tottenham's home stadium, the entire Manchester City team was in a sluggish state. The players felt heavy-footed and depressed.

It rained all night, and in the 9th minute of the opening, the field was a little slippery due to the rain. Kolarov accidentally kicked the ball into his own goal at the end, giving Tottenham a goal at the beginning. A great gift.

It wasn't over yet. In the 33rd minute of the first half, a Tottenham player fell down in the penalty area. The referee did not hesitate to award a penalty kick, allowing Tottenham to extend their lead to 2 goals!

After conceding two goals in a row, the Manchester City soldiers seemed to be awakened and recovered a little. They took advantage of the opponent's heavy pressure and seized the opportunity to attack Tottenham. In the end, Son Heung-min scored a goal.

However, this state did not last for long. In addition, Tottenham were in a hot state, especially Kane and Eriksen. They frequently created threats in front of Manchester City's goal, which greatly restricted Manchester City's energy, making Manchester City It was never possible to devote heavy troops to participate in the attack.

In the end, the game ended. With a penalty kick and an own goal, Tottenham defeated Manchester City 2:1 at home, ending their opponent's six-game winning streak.

For Tottenham people, this is a long-awaited victory.

After the rise of Manchester City in the past few years, Tottenham has almost become Manchester City's experience package. Every time they encounter it, they are inevitably repaired by Manchester City, and they often score very exaggerated scores, which makes Tottenham people lose face.

After Kane grew up, Tottenham have been planning to take revenge on Manchester City.

Last season at home, they once saw hope of winning, but ultimately fell short.

They finally got their revenge this season. For Tottenham people, this joy is comparable to defeating their city rival Arsenal!

Manchester City's unexpected defeat is a good thing for other competitors to celebrate.

With this victory, Tottenham quietly reached second place in the league, with only one point less than the defending champion.

Below Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool, who have won this round, are ranked third and fourth respectively. The two teams have the same points, both with 16 points.

As for Manchester United and Chelsea, who have strong momentum at the beginning of the season, they have 13 points and are temporarily ranked sixth and seventh.

After an unexpected loss to Tottenham, Manchester City, which had lost two rounds in the league and Champions League, was unsurprisingly denigrated by the media.

Some analysts believe that without Kroos, Manchester City's offensive threat has declined, their tactics are single, and they have lost the dominance of previous seasons.

"This may be good news for other teams in the Premier League. This year's Premier League champion may be a new face!"

Manchester City's consecutive championships in the Premier League have made many fans tired. They are eager to see new faces take the throne.

And the current momentum of competition for everything shown in the Premier League makes them feel delighted.

A dominant league is definitely not a normal league.

A league where multiple giants compete fiercely and chase each other is the league they want to see most.

This season's Premier League is obviously in line with their psychological expectations.

After the seventh round of competition, FIFA match day has arrived again.

It has been less than two years since the 2018 World Cup. For those countries that aim to compete in the World Cup, the most important task of the national team at this stage is the World Cup preliminaries.

Since the Spanish national team will usher in a key match in the group at the weekend, all the main players of the national team, including Lin Quan, received calls from the national team after playing in the league, and each of them played as fast as possible. Report to the national team’s training base.

For countries in the European region, the World Cup preliminaries not only depend on strength, but also on appearance.

Although they have a lot of World Cup qualifying spots allocated to them, reaching 13!

However, since there are so many strong teams in Europe, these 13 places are completely insufficient.

Therefore, for the teams participating in the European World Cup preliminaries, they must try their best in every game and score all the points they can get without any slack.

Because only by ranking first in the group can we securely qualify for the World Cup.

If you don't get first place in the group, it will be very troublesome.

They need to win a spot to participate in the play-offs, and then go to the brutal play-offs to fight with other opponents to compete for the last four qualifying spots.

Therefore, once two or more strong teams are assigned to a group, it will be very unlucky.

Because it is destined that some people will not be able to advance directly!

Unfortunately, Group G, where Spain is located, happens to have two such strong teams - Spain and Italy!

Except for these two teams, the remaining four teams are more like studying with the prince. Their own strength is very weak, and it is basically impossible to compete with these two strong teams for the right to qualify.

This means that the direct confrontation between these two strong teams will directly determine the first place in the group!

Precisely because this game is so important, Del Bosque and the Spanish coaching staff did not dare to slack off. They summoned all the main players, and after the players recovered a little, they immediately took the time to conduct targeted training.

Although Spain and Italy have just played against each other in the European Cup, they have defeated their opponents before, which does not mean that they can easily defeat them in the future.

What's more, Italy is not a weakling. They will also learn from their failures, sum up their experience, and find ways to defeat Spain.

"This game is at the opponent's home court. The Italian side will probably take advantage of the home court to launch a fierce attack on us, so we have to play more steadily, do a good job of defense first, don't concede the ball, and then think about scoring goals. thing."

Del Bosque is relatively stable. In this kind of critical match, neither side can afford to lose, so they don't plan to give the other side any chance.

Even if this game is a draw, he can accept it. At worst, he will deal with Italy after returning home in the next round.

Moreover, Spain's tactical play is very restrained against the underdogs. When facing the other four teams in the group, the probability of Spain losing or even drawing is very low, which means that their fault tolerance rate is very high.

On the other hand, Italy, which focuses on defense, may not be able to score points as steadily as they do when facing weak teams.

As long as Italy makes even one mistake in other games, it will be enough to ensure that Spain takes first place in the group.

Therefore, Spain does not need to worry at all. It should be Italy that should be anxious.

I have to say that Bosque's experience is really sophisticated. He can see through the Italian's fate at a glance and find a way to restrain it.

On October 7, at the San Siro Stadium, it was drizzling in the sky.

Fortunately, the stadium's drainage system works well and there is no obvious water accumulation on the field. This is good news for the Spanish team, which pays attention to footwork.

As Bosque expected before the game, after the game started, the Italian team took advantage of the home court and launched a fierce attack on the Spanish team.

The two teams currently have the same points, but Spain has a goal difference of 9, while Italy only has a goal difference of 2, so Spain temporarily ranks first in the group, and Italy ranks second.

The Italians are well aware of the terrifying strength of the Spanish team. Among the remaining four opponents in the group, Liechtenstein is just a scorer and will not pose any threat to the two teams.

North Macedonia has limited strength and will most likely not be able to pose any hindrance to Spain.

As for Israel, let alone this, their strength has always been worth mentioning.

The only team that can be counted on is Albania. This team is considered a second-rate team in Europe, but it has also defeated France and other strong teams in the past.

If Spain is careless and underestimates its enemy, it is possible that it will fall on them.

But placing your hopes on other people is certainly not advisable.

Rather than relying on others, Italians prefer to take the initiative of destiny into their own hands.

Defeating Spain at home is the key to taking the initiative.

The Italians playing at home are very popular, and their offensive tactics have obviously been studied, targeting the Spanish team's weaknesses.

Spain's midfield lineup is no longer as luxurious as before. The Italians obviously want to make a fuss about this, so that they can not only contain Spain's attack, but also wait for opportunities to launch counterattacks.

However, Bosque has already understood the opponent's intentions, so he arranged the starting lineup for this game very carefully.

He put Fabregas on the bench and let Cork start.

He also put Iniesta on the bench and asked Lin Quan to take his place and act as the team's offensive midfielder.

As for the forward position, he asked Morata to act as the shadow forward and Diego Costa at the front.

In this way, Morata can participate in the defense of the midfield, further enhancing the control of the Spanish team's midfield.

As a result, the Italians' plan went bankrupt.

They tried to exploit the weakness of Spain's midfield, but found themselves hitting a brick wall.

Spain's midfielder is not only not weak, but also very strong and tough.

What's even more frightening is that this midfielder's offensive power is still very strong. When the Italians attack aggressively, they can frequently launch high-quality counterattacks that threaten their goal.

In the 35th minute of the first half, Spain seized the opportunity of the Italians to press forward and completed a textbook quick counterattack.

From the time the Spanish player stole the ball in the backcourt to Diego Costa scoring the ball into the opponent's goal, this counterattack only required 3 passes and took 8 seconds.

Such a quick counterattack, even Italy, which is famous for its defense, was completely unable to react!