Chapter 148 The World's Best - God of Cards ascends the throne

However, the fatal pass from young player Copa was too long and was intercepted by the goalkeeper who came out from the outside of the home team's penalty area.

However, the surprise came in the next second, because Athletic Bilbao goalkeeper Lafuente made the second key misjudgment of the game, which was to underestimate Li Qi's speed.

After Lafuente intercepted Copa's straight pass, he did not think about clearing the ball out of the sideline immediately, but wanted to control the ball and pass it to the defender who was returning to defense and reorganize the attack as soon as possible.

Seeing that Li Qi was still nearly seven or eight meters away from him, Lafuente felt that he seemed to have plenty of time and space...

However, Li Qi did not stop just because Copa passed the ball too long. He rushed forward. After all, pressing the ball is better than stopping and turning suddenly. As a new force who came on in the 70th minute of the second half, he has plenty of energy.

So when Lafuente just stopped the ball and turned around to pass the ball, he found that it was too late. Li Qi was about to come in front of him, so he could only quickly poke the ball in the direction of his own players...

In a flash, Li Qi, who had triggered the explosive point, had already predicted Lafuente's action in advance. The moment the latter kicked, he blocked the flight direction of the ball in one step...

There were only two snaps, and the ball was blocked in front of him by Li Qi with the instep of his left foot. The first snap was the sound of Lafuente hastily clearing the ball, and the second snap was the sound of Li Qi blocking Lafuente from sending the ball to the other side.

The ball blocked by Li Qi rolled a little far, after all, the two hits were quite powerful. However, Li Qi deliberately adjusted the angle and blocked the ball towards the goal, so the ball also bounced towards the goal...

Li Qi also continued to rush towards the goal. There was no one in the penalty area, and the closest person was Li Qi who was sprinting at full speed. When the ball was about to bounce out of the bottom line of the near corner of the goal, Li Qi caught up with it in big strides, jumped up, and lightly used the arch of his foot to lift the ball into the empty net.

In the 86th minute, Li Qi helped Sevilla lead Athletic Bilbao 3-1 away from home, and this goal almost secured the victory.

Why almost? Because the home team did not give up even though the score was pulled away again. After all, most of the game was spent on attacking and defending with Sevilla, and they saw the hope of equalizing the score 15 minutes ago. So with the cheers of the home fans and the coach's desperate substitution decision, Athletic Bilbao mustered up the remaining courage and continued to attack Sevilla's position after the next kick-off.

Blind attack is more dependent on luck, but today the visiting team was obviously luckier. So in the last minute of extra time, Sevilla scored another goal and completely killed the game.

It was Li Qi again who made a deadly arc pass from the right in the 94th minute, bypassing three defensive players, getting stuck in a position where the goalkeeper could not attack, and accurately finding Fabiano who was lying in ambush at the far end; the latter, with no one guarding him, stopped the ball and broke into the penalty area, then shot a low shot into the near corner of the goal!

Fabiano, who scored twice in this game, has scored in three consecutive games and also scored his fourth goal in the league, making the final score 3-4 and helping Sevilla to a resounding victory away from home!

While the away win ended Athletic Bilbao's six-game winless streak, Sevilla has won five of its last six games and is in second place in the standings, just one point behind the leader Barcelona.

However, after the game, it seemed as if the game was immediately forgotten, because everyone's attention was attracted by another big event, the world-renowned 2006 European Golden Ball Award, the result of which would be announced about 10 minutes after the end of the game!

As it is a World Cup year, Germany's World Cup performance played a decisive role in this selection. Among the 27 players who received votes, there were 7 players from the world champion Italy team, 4 players from the runner-up France team and the third place Germany team, and players from the fourth place Portugal team.

In terms of clubs, the distribution was relatively even this time. If Ricardo Richarliquid, who was on loan at Sevilla, was included, Barcelona had a total of 7 people who received votes, the most. Chelsea and AC Milan also had 3 votes each.

Yes, Ricardo Liqi also received 6 votes, surpassing Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United who only received 5 votes and ranked 14th; after all, 2006 was also a super fruitful year for Ricardo, as he won the La Liga championship in the 05/06 season, the Champions League championship, the 2006 World Cup in Germany and the European Super Cup in the 06/07 season.

Even if we only compare the championships, Ricardo is the first in 2006. However, Ricardo is still young and his influence is not enough. Many championships are suspected of being won by luck. It is a pleasant surprise to get 6 votes. It may be related to the stable first-team appearances he got in Sevilla in the second half of the season.

However, Ricardo, who ranked low, did not cause much waves except for the attention of his own family, because the most attention was still paid to the top three, or only the winner of the Golden Globe could get the spotlight.

In the end, it was Cannavaro, who came from Italy and played for Real Madrid in La Liga, who won the European Golden Ball Award awarded by France Football with an absolute advantage of 172 votes.

He is also the third defender to win the European Golden Ball, following Beckenbauer in 1976 and Sammer in 1996. He is also the fourth Italian to win this honor, following Rivera in 1969, Paolo Rossi in 1982 and Roberto Baggio in 1993.

Ranked second is a defensive player from Italy, goalkeeper Buffon who plays for Serie B Juventus, who received 122 votes; and he should be the only player playing in the second-tier European league to be ranked in the top three of the European Golden Ball Award.

French striker Henry ranked third with 120 votes, Ronaldinho, the winner of the last European Golden Ball, ranked fourth with 72 votes, and retired French star Zidane ranked fifth with 70 votes.

In addition, Ricardo's little friend Messi also received two votes and ranked 20th.

After winning the award, Cannavaro was interviewed by the organizer France Football.

Cannavaro gave his first speech: "It is an honor to be here this afternoon to accept such an award. I must thank Real Madrid, as well as my former teammates at Juventus and the Italian national team, for giving me the opportunity to win this award. This award is usually given to players whose skills are far superior to mine, but today it was given to a defender. I enjoy this moment very much because this trophy means a lot to me. I don't want to discuss whether this award is fair to me, but it is a recognition of my hard work over the past year."

Then, Ka revealed that he actually knew he had won the European Golden Ball as early as early November: "When I was still in the national team preparing for the warm-up match against Turkey, I received a call from France Football... I even thought it was a joke at first. Winning the World Cup is a dream come true for me. I really didn't expect that I could win the European Golden Ball."

Then Cannavaro did not forget Naples, where he made his debut: "I hope to bring the Golden Ball back to my hometown Naples... I want to tell the children of Naples that their dreams will come true one day, because I have proved it." (Naples is currently ranked first in Serie B, ahead of Juventus, who started with a loss of 30 points, and has great hope of being promoted to Serie A.)

Afterwards, Ka also talked about the strikers that gave him, the newly crowned European Ballon d'Or defender, the most headaches: "I think the strikers that gave me the most trouble were Ronaldinho, Henry and Shevchenko."

Finally, Cannavaro also said that if he were to choose, his national team teammate Buffon should be the winner of the European Golden Ball.

However, not all media and professionals agree with the selection results of France Football.

After the final ranking of the French Football magazine was confirmed, three famous French coaches, Houllier, Wenger and Domenech, all expressed their dissatisfaction in strong words: "Cannavaro does not deserve to win the European Golden Ball!"

Louder criticism came from the media of Real Madrid's arch-rival Barcelona, ​​with Mundo Deportivo even sarcastically saying that the Italian should have received the shot put award rather than a Golden Ball.

However, as an insider, Ricardo also has his own opinions. Of course, first of all, he supports the captain of his national team. Secondly, Ricardo quite agrees with a comment in Gazzetta dello Sport:

“On the football field, forwards are always more likely to shine than defenders. Forwards can score impressive goals, make wonderful passes, and use incredible ways to score to show their talents, while defenders mainly disrupt the offense and provide boring restrictions.

Therefore, in the selection over the years, forwards and attacking midfielders are always more likely to receive the majority of praise and favor. Even the selection of the European Golden Ball Award, which is known as the most professional, cannot escape this cliché.

Compared with his two award-winning predecessors Beckenbauer and Sammer, Cannavaro, who is also a defensive player, has some similarities.

In 1976, Beckenbauer was crowned European Footballer of the Year after helping Bayern Munich win three consecutive European Cup titles; in 1996, Sammer helped Germany win the European Cup that year; and Cannavaro, also as captain, helped Italy win the 2006 World Cup.

In fact, this also shows that without the support of honors, it is difficult for a defender to stand out from the crowd of midfielders and forwards in the selection of the European Golden Ball Award, an individual honor.

However, Cannavaro also has many differences with Beckenbauer and Sammer.

Beckenbauer was a defender who promoted the free-man style of play. His duties on the field were not only defense, but he also participated in the offense. He was called the No. 10 on the back line. His long-range shots, dribbling and organization were the killer weapons of the German team and Bayern Munich at that time.

Sammer is a modern version of Beckenbauer, with the most goals scored in a season, 14 league goals. That was in the 92-93 season, in the first half of the year at Inter Milan, he scored 11 goals in 4 games, and in the second half of the year at Dortmund, he scored 17 goals in 10 games! This should be a number that belongs to an excellent striker.

Although Beckenbauer and Sammer are defenders, their outstanding offensive abilities added a heavy weight to their honor of winning the European Golden Ball.

However, Cannavaro is different from them. Although Cannavaro has a record of scoring goals from set pieces from time to time, including key goals, but outside of set pieces, he is a defender who rarely crosses his own half. It is even rarer for him to dribble the ball from the middle of the backcourt to the frontcourt like Blanco and Hierro. The shocking long shot from 2003 meters away against Reggina in 40 when he was in Inter Milan was the only one in Cannavaro's career.

Therefore, Cannavaro's ability to win the European Golden Ball Award is more due to his defense.

Although he is only 1 meters tall, Cannavaro has excellent judgment of high balls. In addition, unlike traditional positional defense, Cannavaro's ground defense relies more on fierce tackling, predicting and destroying the ball before the forward receives the pass; this requires a perfect combination of explosive power, predictive ability, and starting speed.

In international football, there are not many defenders like Cannavaro. It can be said that compared with Beckenbauer and Sammer, Cannavaro is the defender who is truly recognized by professionals for his defensive ability and thus won this award; from this point of view, Cannavaro should not be the third person in history, but the first person in history.

It is not an exaggeration to call him one of the best central defenders in the world.

……

On the third day after the European Ballon d'Or was announced, FIFA also announced the preliminary results of this year's World Footballer of the Year. Cannavaro also successfully made it into the top three, becoming one of the candidates competing for this honor together with the defending champion Ronaldinho and the retired three-time winner Zidane. The final answer to this award will be announced in mid-December.

The newly crowned European Ballon d'Or winner was cautious: "The selection of the World Footballer of the Year is a completely different matter. The judges are not professional sports journalists, but voted for by the head coaches and captains of the representative teams of various associations. This award is very important, but it does not just represent an individual. Now my team is Real Madrid, and of course I hope to continue to win this honor. As the captain of the national team, I have the right to vote, but who I vote for? That's a secret."

……

Having just returned to Seville for two days of rest, after the training session on Tuesday, Ricardo traveled with the team to Switzerland to prepare for the fourth round of the UEFA Cup group stage on Wednesday night.

The defending champions had a record of 1 win and 1 draw in the first two games, so they can advance to the knockout stage in advance as long as they defeat the weakest team in the group, Grasshoppers.

Therefore, Juan Ramos, despite having just played an away league game last weekend, although there were some rotations in individual positions, including captain Navarro who had just returned from injury, still arranged most of the main players to start, trying to lock in the victory as soon as possible so that he can arrange the subsequent games calmly.

It was still a 4-4-2 formation, with the unshakable No. 1 Palop as goalkeeper;

The back line from left to right is No. 3 David, No. 19 Dragutinovic, No. 2 Navarro and No. 4 Alves;

From left to right in the center line are No. 6 Adriano, No. 8 Paulson, No. 11 Renato and No. 25 Maresca, one of the Italian double stars;

The forward duo are No. 10 Fabiano and No. 7 Li Qi.

In this game, Li Qi replaced Kanoute, who has not been in good form recently, as the starting striker. This should be to allow Kanoute, who has been in the starting lineup for consecutive games, to have a good rest and regain his form. Therefore, Juan Ramos did not let Kanoute travel with the team to Switzerland.

In addition, the head coach arranged right winger Maresca and forward Li Qi to mainly move on the right side for coordinated attack; it seems to be an attempt to fine-tune the formation, from the starting double midfielders in the last League Cup to testing the combination of forward and midfielder in front and behind in this game.

Also sitting on the bench were Puerta, Copa, Duda, Escud, Hinkel, Marti and Sales.

After understanding Juan Ramos's deployment and combining it with the previous lineup, Li Qi began to understand that he wanted to arrange the Italian duo to play mainly in the UEFA Cup and King's Cup...