Chapter 126 La Liga Season Officially Opens
Shortly after the start of the second half, Li Qi fixed his defensive position near the center circle and did not retreat deeply, as that was the sphere of influence of Poulsen and Renato. He also did not defend to the wing, as that was the area of responsibility of Navas or Adriano.
Li Qi stayed near the center circle, either going around to defend Xavi and Deco to prevent them from easily receiving the ball from the backcourt, or driving them to the sidelines or back to the back line to receive the ball, strictly preventing them from holding the ball or using short passes through the midfield, forcing them to organize attacks through long passes as much as possible, and increasing their physical consumption.
Although this cannot completely block Barcelona's advancement, it can effectively reduce the efficiency of Barcelona's advancement in the midfield and backcourt, making Barcelona's passing very awkward and the success rate of long passes relatively low. This also effectively reduces the chances of Barcelona's front trident to touch the ball.
Moreover, even if Ronaldinho, Eto'o or Messi received the long pass from Barcelona's backcourt, without the support of Xavi and Deco in the middle, the three of them danced on their own. Although it could not completely stifle their talents, it had already reduced the performance of the three geniuses to the greatest extent.
In addition, at the beginning of the second half, according to Juan Ramos's midfield arrangement, Sevilla players began to use small moves more frequently to harass and foul Barcelona's big-name stars, which made Barcelona's ball organization very uncomfortable.
In addition, Barcelona's midfield and frontcourt were obviously out of shape and not in good shape. In the case of Barcelona's overall lack of movement, Li Qi's strategy was a great success. In the first 10 minutes of the second half, not only did Rijkaard's midfield adjustment and arrangement come to nothing, Barcelona did not even have an effective offensive threat, and even began to win back a lot of ball possession time.
Rijkaard watched for 10 minutes and realized that this was not going to work. The second half was not good at all and was even worse than the first half! So Barcelona made a quick personnel adjustment in the 57th minute, with new players Iniesta and Gudjohnsen replacing Xavi and Motta respectively.
The appearance of the new players made Barcelona's offensive organization smoother, especially the appearance of Iniesta, whose ability to carry the ball from the back to the front was excellent. So Li Qi began to focus on defending Iniesta. Once Iniesta planned to dribble the ball, he would immediately attack him, regardless of whether the white fried meatballs were fried or not, and he would just hit him with the pot...
Gudjohnsen was brought on to allow Ronaldinho to return to the front midfielder position, hoping that Ronaldinho's ball control could activate Barcelona's offensive organization. However, Juan Ramos had already prepared for this move. As soon as Ronaldinho retreated, Paulsen immediately followed him, Renato was responsible for assisting defense, and the remaining gap in the middle of the midfield was left to Li Qi to fill. Anyway, Li Qi was young and strong, so he could run more.
After Xavi left the field, although Iniesta provided different mobility, Barcelona's overall midfield organizational ability did not actually improve substantially. In particular, Gudjohnsen obviously did not integrate into Barcelona's system. After coming on the field, he hardly touched the ball a few times and could not cooperate at all with Ronaldinho, Eto'o or Messi.
In other words, Li Qi's tacit understanding with Paulson and Renato is not very good, otherwise Sevilla would have the opportunity to take the lead in the midfield.
The two sides were in a tense tussle in the midfield. Barcelona still had the upper hand in ball possession, but it had dropped to less than 60%. Sevilla was mainly on defense, but had a two-goal lead; and Barcelona still had no way to create too many effective attacks and threats, and could only frequently take long shots.
Ten minutes after Barcelona made the substitution, in the 10th minute of the game, Sevilla created another good opportunity and almost widened the score gap again.
It was Poulsen again, who teamed up with Escudé to intercept the ball from Messi who was about to cut inside and shoot; the former then made a long pass directly to Li Qi near the center circle.
Li Qi jumped sideways and stopped the slightly off-center pass from Paulson with his instep, but he just happened to pull Iniesta, who was playing as a defensive midfielder, to the side. Li Qi had already looked back at the situation in the front court before stopping the ball, but the moment the ball landed, he triggered the explosive point and clearly judged the best passing route...
Li Qi did not stick to the ball. When Iniesta pounced on him, he half turned around to protect the ball, then twisted his waist and sent a long diagonal pass with his right foot to find Kanoute who was in the front.
At this time, Kanoute had already secured his position, blocking Marcos behind him. Seeing a curved ball coming from the side and rear of Li Qi, he roughly understood what Li Qi meant, because Kanoute followed the path of the ball and saw the white No. 11 - Renato, who was frantically moving forward!
Kanoute understood what he meant and jumped high to face the ball. He used his forehead to relieve the force and made a wonderful header, which hit the ball right into Renato's forward path. However, the ball was still a little bit high.
Renato made a high-speed run and headed the ball at the edge of the small penalty area, about 10 yards in front of the goal. Puyol's defensive hook even hit his face, but he couldn't stop Renato's header!
The ball hit an arc, bypassed Valdés, and headed straight for the far corner of the goal! Unfortunately, Renato was too focused on the angle, and the ball hit the right post and went out of the bottom line... Barcelona escaped.
Four minutes later, Barcelona finally had a chance to close the gap. In the 4st minute, Eto'o broke through the joint defense of Navas and Alves and shot from about 71 meters outside the right side of the penalty area.
After being blocked by Navarro at the corner of the penalty area, the ball somehow decelerated and deflected towards the far end of the goal. The long shot turned into a wonderful pass, and Messi rushed to the back post and shot with his foot at a small angle 6 yards in front of the goal before David!
Fortunately, Palop moved quickly and blocked the near corner of the goal in time, bravely blocking Messi's close shot...
Having missed this opportunity, Rijkaard slapped his thigh in regret: "No, we have to make more substitutions and intensify the attack, time is running out!"
So Barcelona played its last card, Giuly came on to replace Sylvinho, and the Black Swan actually used 5 forwards, which meant they were going to give it a try.
Seeing this, Juan Ramos quickly played the last two cards in his hand. In the 74th minute, he replaced Navas with Maresca, and then two minutes later, he replaced Adriano with Puerta.
The purpose of Ramos' substitution was to maintain the running intensity of the two flanks and strangle Barcelona's counterattack. Because of the outstanding performance of Paulson and Li Qi in the middle, Barcelona had almost no chance left...
In the last 15 minutes of the game, Barcelona, who were still two goals behind, seemed to have just woken up from a dream, or the appearance of five forwards broke the balance of the personnel density in Barcelona's midfield and frontcourt. In any case, Barcelona's midfield and frontcourt finally found some feeling and started to play some wonderful cooperation.
In the 77th minute, Puyol made a long pass, Ronaldinho jumped high and made a wonderful chest pass, Eto'o followed up and dribbled into the penalty area. He was 10 yards away from the goal on the left rib. Despite the interference of Maresca, he forced a shot from a small angle, but it missed the near corner.
In the 80th minute, Marcos made a long pass, Messi received the ball on the wing and passed it directly to the middle, Eto'o shot high from 25 yards in the middle.
In the 83rd minute, Deco made a long pass, Gudjohnsen headed the ball after moving to the side, Messi took the ball and cut inside, and shot with his left foot from 25 yards on the right, which hit the far post and went slightly wide.
At this time, Li Qi also reacted. Damn, Barcelona was anxious and did not use the midfield at all. They started to play long passes directly from the backcourt. There was no point in guarding the center circle...
So Li Qi quickly greeted Kanoute, pressed forward, blocked their long passes from the front, forced Barcelona to use Valdes or Belletti to kick the ball, and gave priority to defending Deco and Marcos, who were good at long passes.
With Li Qi and Kanoute blocking the way forward, Barcelona's attack suddenly went silent again, and the ball could no longer be accurately delivered to the frontcourt; occasionally a few high balls flew over, but the landing point was not good or the arc was too high, and they were easily cleared by Sevilla's defenders.
Soon, the game came to the final moments, but Barcelona still had no way to deal with Sevilla's defense. Instead, Sevilla created a counterattack opportunity and won the game.
When the game was about to enter the 90th minute, Valdes kicked the ball directly out of the sideline with a long kick... and before the Barcelona players could react and return to defense, David had quickly thrown the ball from the sideline to Puerta.
After Puerta received the ball, he did not rush to clear the ball like other Sevilla defenders. Instead, he observed the situation for a moment and then cut inside with the ball...
Puerta quickly bypassed Messi, who was exhausted and could only defend with his eyes, and then dribbled past Deco, who was about to cramp. Then he accelerated and ate up Iniesta who came to defend...
After Puerta passed three Barcelona defenders, just as he was about to enter the penalty area, facing Puyol's backup defense, he suddenly flicked the ball sideways and made a wall-to-wall cooperation with Li Qi who was responding in the middle...
This time, Puyol had no time to react and was dribbled past. Puerta received the ball and faced Valdés directly... The latter had already attacked to block the shooting angle, but Puerta played a fake shot and then dribbled past Valdés to shoot into the empty goal.
Valdez had no choice but to pull Puerta down... The referee decisively sent a yellow card and a penalty. Then Maresca was responsible for the penalty kick. Li Qi would definitely not go for such a penalty kick. It was embarrassing. It was not a loss to give it to his Italian compatriot. He would treat him to a meal after he scored...
Maresca took a deep breath, ran up at high speed, and shot the ball directly to the upper right corner of the goal! Although the angle was not too tricky and Valdés guessed the direction correctly, the ball was too fast and he could not react in time, so it went straight into the goal net...
Maresca also excitedly took off his clothes to celebrate, revealing his muscular muscles and golden chest hair... and then received a yellow sapphire commemorative card.
But it didn't matter. In the end, the referee gave 4 minutes of extra time, but even so, Barcelona failed to score a consolation goal and almost scored another goal with Puerta's strong breakthrough in the middle.
Finally, the final whistle blew, and Sevilla defeated Barcelona by 3 goals! Barcelona's dream of winning 6 titles this season was shattered in the Super Cup. The best player of the game was also awarded to Alves, the best player of the Europa League last season.
After the game, both teams had no time to feel sad or celebrate too much, because two days later, both teams would face the first round of La Liga, with Barcelona away to challenge Celta, while Sevilla would host newly promoted Levante at the Pizjuan Stadium.
Li Qi greeted several former teammates after the game. As a winner, he started to be pretentious and annoying, especially when comforting Messi who looked unhappy.
Li Qi was so happy: "Haha, I fucked Messi again...
Is this a half-hearted victory? After all, it was the hard work of last season's teammates that made this Super Cup possible, and only half of the game was played, and when they came on the field, they were already leading 2-0...
No matter what, let’s exchange jerseys with Ronaldinho’s father first, his Barcelona jersey is the most valuable! ”
This European Super Cup is the sixth championship trophy in Sevilla's history.
欧洲超级杯之前，巴萨上次0比3兵败是什么时候？答案是2005年1月9日，20个月前他们在情歌球场曾以同样的比分输给过比利亚雷亚尔。
The last team that Barcelona didn't score against was AC Milan, who tied 0-0 in the Champions League semi-final at Camp Nou. Sevilla did what many European giants couldn't do.
It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that Sevilla is the best in Europe, but it is an indisputable fact that this Andalusian team is very strong.
It is worth mentioning that Sevilla has lost core players every summer in the past eight years, but this situation has changed this year. Not only has no one left, but on the contrary, they have continuously introduced high-level players to strengthen the lineup.
Sevilla coach Juan Ramos said proudly before the game: "Not every team can have two players of equal ability in one position, but we did it."
In the press conference after the game, Juan Ramos once again praised the players for a great game: "Sevilla fought a beautiful battle. We defeated the best team in Europe, Barcelona... The players worked hard, and the key was to keep an eye on Deco and Xavi...
The players who came on as substitutes in the second half did a great job. Yes, Li Qi is facing his old team. I am very satisfied with his performance. He has integrated into the team. I believe that in the new season, he will surprise everyone. "
Rijkaard admitted that it was the opponent Sevilla who really controlled the game: "Sevilla played very aggressively. We wanted to catch up with the score, but the players seemed a little 'drunk' and couldn't find the direction..."
At the same time, Rijkaard also accepted the fact of defeat on behalf of the team: "Sevilla deserved to win. We are sad because we also want to win, but now is not the time to be depressed. The game also tells us that it is not impossible for Barcelona to lose... We must say that the past results are in the past and Barcelona needs to start again."
Finally, Rijkaard also praised the performance of the Sevilla players, especially Ricardo Riche who was loaned to Barcelona: "The Sevilla players played very well, they have been preparing for this game... Riche is an excellent young player, we know him very well, we know he has extraordinary qualities, we have seen his rapid growth in Sevilla..."
……
Ricardo, who was praised by the two coaches in turn, received a call-up notice for the new Italian national team as soon as he returned to Seville and was about to participate in the 2008 European Cup qualifiers.
"Is it so tight and seamless? The World Cup has just ended and the European Cup is coming soon?"
……
