Chapter 203

At noon the next day, the AFAS Stadium, which can accommodate more than 17,000 people, was packed.

Except for more than 2,000 away fans of Roda JC, all other seats were filled by Alkmaar's home fans.

There were even one or two thousand people wandering outside the stadium for a long time, trying to buy tickets from scalpers to enter the stadium, but unfortunately they failed until the game started.

This was the second round of the first round of the play-offs, a decisive match, so the stadium was full.

Before the game started, reporters from the sports channel of China National Television conducted random interviews inside and outside the stadium.

Both Chinese and overseas Chinese fans and Dutch fans of Alkmaar are full of confidence in Alkmaar's promotion tonight.

And the source of confidence is Jiang Xiaolin.

Of course, Chinese and overseas Chinese fans are more concerned about Jiang Xiaolin's personal success. Although they also want Alkmaar to advance, they think it would be best if Jiang Xiaolin scored three or four goals and led Alkmaar to advance.

The local Dutch fans tend to just want Alkmaar to advance.

As for Jiang Xiaolin, they believe that Jiang Xiaolin will definitely score goals, but they don't care how many goals he scores. Now, in their hearts, the team's promotion is more important than Jiang Xiaolin's personal performance.

But no matter which side, they all pin their hopes on Jiang Xiaolin. Jiang Xiaolin's performance since joining Alkmaar is really amazing.

Even a 20-year-old girl shouted the slogan "I love Jiang Xiaolin, I love China" after knowing that this is a TV reporter from China, which made the two Chinese reporters quite excited.

Obviously, the appearance of Jiang Xiaolin has indeed led many Dutch people to love China.

Even those who have not fallen in love with China are full of good feelings for China.

Jiang Xiaolin's role is obviously not limited to football.

Of course, these are just extensions of the game. The most important thing is the game.

If Jiang Xiaolin cannot continue to show excellent performance in the game, these off-field roles are all mirages without foundation.

Jiang Xiaolin had to prove everything with his performance in the game.

Because it was less than a week since the last game, Jiang Xiaolin did not add attribute points to his skills before the game this time.

Even so, he felt that he had recovered to his normal state and would definitely lead Alkmaar to defeat Roda JC, advance to the final of the play-offs, and finally get a place in the UEFA Cup next season.

On Sunday, May 4, 2008, at 14:30 noon, the second round of the first round of the 2007/2008 Eredivisie UEFA Cup play-offs between Alkmaar and Roda JC at home officially started at Alkmaar's home AFAS Stadium.

Van Gaal did not use a defensive counterattack tactic in this game.

Although Alkmaar drew 1-1 with Roda JC away in the last round, allowing Alkmaar to score an away goal.

If Alkmaar took a defensive stance in the second round and drew 0-0 with Roda JC at home, Alkmaar would advance to the final with the advantage of away goals.

No matter what tactics Alkmaar plays, Roda JC must attack and score goals to eliminate Alkmaar and advance to the final.

Therefore, Alkmaar's defensive counterattack is actually the most efficient way to play.

But Van Gaal did not do so.

In the Netherlands, defensive counterattack is not a common tactic, all-out attack and defense is.

Especially at home, if Van Gaal uses defensive counterattacks to deal with opponents, then more than 14,000 home fans may not boo the opponent, but will boo Van Gaal instead.

Of course, if he is not sure about the offensive, Van Gaal will not care whether the fans boo or not, he will continue to play the most favorable tactics for himself.

But now Jiang Xiaolin has fully recovered, and Van Gaal is 90% confident that he can win this game, so he doesn't need to risk offending fans and being criticized by the media to play defensive counterattacks.

He chose to play offensive against Roda JC.

So, this game became the favorite offensive battle of the media and fans.

From the beginning of the game, Alkmaar, who got the kick-off right, launched a fierce attack on Roda JC.

In less than 20 seconds, the ball was passed into Roda JC's penalty area.

However, Schals, who passed the ball, did not master the strength and angle well, and failed to coordinate with Jiang Xiaolin's running position, causing the ball to deviate a little and be kicked out of the penalty area by a defender of Roda JC.

If the ball was passed more accurately, Jiang Xiaolin might be able to shoot without stopping the ball.

However, when more than 14,000 Alkmaar fans were still immersed in the frustration of not being able to shoot in this lightning attack,The players of Roda JC had passed the ball to Alkmaar's half after three passes and two drops, forming a counterattack.

However, although this counterattack resulted in a shot, the quality was very low and it missed the post by several meters, posing no threat to the goal guarded by Romero.

Within just one minute of the start, both teams completed an attack, and the offense and defense transition was extremely fast.

Next, the two teams continued to pass and cut at a high speed, playing a big offensive battle, and both wanted to score first.

Under the fast-paced offense and defense transition, the passing and receiving error rate of the players on both sides increased significantly.

And Jiang Xiaolin's ability to seize opportunities was the highest among all the players in the game.

So, in the 8th minute, Jiang Xiaolin seized a mistake made by the opponent.

In the 8th minute, Roda JC passed the ball all the way back to the goalkeeper under the counter-attack of the players in the frontcourt of Alkmaar.

The original intention was just to let the goalkeeper make a transition, and to move away a player from Alkmaar when someone went up to steal the ball, so that one of the defenders of Roda JC would be in a vacant position, so that Roda JC could pass the ball in the backcourt.

As a result, when goalkeeper Castro received the pass from the full-back, Hamdaoyi pressed forward and wanted to pass the ball to the central defender, the force was too small and the angle was also wrong.

This is a typical example of making mistakes in a hurry.

Jiang Xiaolin did not expect that Castro would pass a backcourt pass between him and central defender Sankaye under Hamdaoyi's pressure.

Sankaye was originally pulling away from Jiang Xiaolin and preparing to receive the pass from his teammate Castro.

Unexpectedly, Castro's pass would be wrong, catching Sankaye off guard.

Then, when he reacted, Jiang Xiaolin had also reacted, and the two rushed towards the direction of the ball.

At this time, the fans watching from above could easily see that Jiang Xiaolin was much faster than Sankaye.