Chapter 163: The Conflicted Juan Ramos,

However, Sevilla, who pushed Steaua Bucharest back into its own defensive third zone, lost the space for counterattacks and breakthroughs. In addition, Steaua had the advantage of home court and felt that they had been deceived by the visiting team's tactics before, so the whole team was full of anger and played with great concentration.

Sevilla didn't have much to do against the home team that was compressed to the extreme. Instead, the gaps in their own defense began to be exposed. The Estrellas seized the opportunity to launch several threatening counterattacks through long passes. Fortunately, Palop was experienced and focused, and he made high catches and blocked the ball to keep the goal safe.

Seeing this, Li Qi hurriedly intervened in the middle to ask for the ball. Through back passes and side passes, he held the away team's formation back, not to press too high, and changed the previous high attack and defense transition rhythm of rushing and attacking fiercely, trying to slow down the game and grind it out slowly. After all, with two goals in hand away from home, he should continue to mobilize the home team and beat them again...

So in the second half of the first half, the game suddenly became a little dull. The home team was a little stunned by the away team's two counterattacks at the beginning. They were a little afraid of losing the ball again, so they retreated and planned to stabilize the situation.

As a result, the two sides entered the halftime break with a score of 0-2. According to international practice, the home team is in front and the visiting team is behind.

In the second half, the Stars, who had lost the initiative, did not have many good solutions. If they attacked blindly, they might continue to be beaten by Sevilla's counterattack. The Stars calmed down and realized that the two set-piece goals in the first half were not because of Sevilla's good luck, but because the home team was lucky and did not get beaten by the visiting team in the open play.

So the home team continued to follow the style of play in the second half of the first half, carefully positioning themselves to defend, and then trying to create a chance to equalize the score during a counterattack or in the chaos.

The initiative of the game completely fell into the hands of Sevilla. Juan Ramos saw that it was time to continue testing tactical changes, as they also had to save their strength for the league game three days later.

So in the 55th and 60th minutes of the game, Alfaro and Korzakov replaced Renato and Kanoute respectively, and Li Qi was moved to the middle to form a new double defensive midfielder with Paulson to organize the game.

However, with a two-goal lead, most of the team's main players had worn off the excitement they had after the opening and slowly followed Li Qi's dirty tactics of passing the ball back and forth, slowing down the tempo of the game. In the absence of aggressiveness, they did not give the home team any new chances.

Li Qi was not in a hurry either. At this time, he just had to grind slowly and see who could endure the most. After all, it was the home team that was lagging behind. Alfaro, who had just come on the field, was still very active and was taking his chances to perform. It depended on whether he could steal one or two more goals before the end of the game and end the suspense of this knockout round in the first round.

Time quickly came to the last 15 minutes, and the away team's possession rate had reached 65%. Juan Ramos also played his last card and replaced Navas with Maresca. He also wanted to see if the Italian twin stars could connect successfully again and end the two-round series in advance.

At the same time, the home team was also deploying its troops, as if wanting to give it a try in the final moments of the game, hoping to retain the seeds of a comeback for the next away trip.

And when the home team attacked again, Sevilla got the chance to expand the score.

In the 82nd minute of the game, with the assistance of Marty, Li Qi successfully intercepted the Stars' direct pass in the midfield, and then made a direct pass diagonally to Maresca, who had just come on as a substitute.

Maresca was also vague. He stopped the ball without slowing down during a high-speed sprint, and then made a quick pass and headed directly to the corner of the penalty area. Then, facing the intercepting defender, he changed direction and rushed to the baseline, then twisted his waist and made an inverted triangle pass to the top of the penalty area.

At this time, the Star team's defense line had been pressed into the vicinity of the small penalty area by Fabiano and Korzakov, and the defensive midfielder had not yet returned to his position. The top of the penalty area was a defensive vacuum zone, with only two visiting team offensive players in white clothes, one was Li Qi, and the other was Alfaro who cut in from the wing.

Originally, Li Qi wanted to stop the ball, fake a shot and then dunk, shake off the blocking defensive player, and then pass the ball diagonally to Alfaro or Korzakov in the open space. It would depend on who was not offside, or if he could take two more steps inside and make adjustments before shooting.

However, Alfaro, who rushed over from the side, was obviously a little impatient. Before the ball arrived, he had already twisted his waist and swung his thigh...

Li Qi was sweating all over his face, so he could only stop and retract his feet to make way. However, with his attention paid to the explosive moment, Li Qi knew that Alfaro was obviously too eager to shoot the ball. If he tried to shoot, the ball would definitely be deflected. However, Li Qi was behind him and did not have many opportunities to interfere with Alfaro's offensive choices. Shouting to stop him might make Alfaro's shot even more embarrassing, after all, the arrow was on the string...

Sure enough, Alfaro made a gyroscope shot and almost kicked the ball out of the sideline... Young players can be great in one game and terrible in the next. It's normal for them to get too excited if they are too aggressive.

So Li Qi continued to squat back in the half court, waiting for his chance.

Before the end of the game, Li Qi really waited for another chance, and the game was about to enter injury time.

This time, when Li Qi received the ball in the backcourt, he was double-teamed by the home team. However, Li Qi was indeed mature and calm, which was not possessed by other players of the same age. He calmly passed the ball to Alves at the bottom line before the double-teaming, luring the home team's midfielder to press further.

Then Li Qi quickly moved closer to Alves and made a hidden gesture to Alves. Alves, who had cooperated with him for most of the season, understood immediately and directly kicked a powerful low ball towards Li Qi's feet.

Li Qi didn't even plan to stop the ball. He just made a long pass, a half-high ball sent near the center circle.

At this time, there was a large open space near the center circle. Fabiano retreated without any pressure to respond, and passed the ball to Li Qi who was rushing towards the midfield at high speed, and then turned around and led the defensive player away.

Li Qi controlled the ball again near the bottom of the center circle, and without any hesitation, Li Qi triggered the outbreak point and directly sent a long-distance arc pass, bypassing Korzakov who was attracting defense in the middle, and went straight to the empty space on the ribs.

That position is exactly the route Alfaro runs forward at high speed.

Alfaro caught up with Li Qi's well-timed long pass a few meters outside the penalty area corner, made a right-angle fake move, dribbled past the defender who came to replace him and rushed towards the baseline.

When Alfaro was approaching the baseline, he was also about to reach the edge of the small penalty area. At this time, the home team's goalkeeper also attacked to block Alfaro's shooting angle.

Then Alfaro unexpectedly made another fake shot, but instead of passing the ball back to the middle position where the shooting angle was wider, he did the opposite and drove the ball to the extreme position at the bottom line; this time he indeed shook the goalkeeper and created a gap!

Korzakov, Fabiano in the middle and Maresca at the far end were all in position and shouting to pass the ball... However, the young man Alfaro got carried away again and chose to shoot with his left foot towards the near corner at almost 0 angle!

This was almost the worst choice to end the attack. As expected, it also ended Sevilla's quick counterattack, but it did not end with a goal, but with a shot hitting the side net...

The several big brothers who were flanking the middle road were so angry that they held their heads and sighed or pointed to the sky and cursed: Punish De Boer!

Li Qi shook his head helplessly. Young people have to pay tuition... But the game ended here. Although Sevilla did not end the suspense of the second round in the first round, it also successfully took away a two-goal lead away from home and almost stepped half a foot into the top 16 of the League Cup.

However, Juan Ramos was still not satisfied, because he was still struggling with the tactical changes. After two games, after Li Qi retreated to the defensive midfielder position, the team's organization and offense became more stable, the control was stronger, and more opportunities were created. However, the goals in both games occurred when Li Qi played as a winger or forward, which was the old routine in the first half of the season.

Juan Ramos originally thought that either Li Qi playing as a defensive midfielder would not improve the team's overall performance much, in which case he would simply give up the idea of ​​changing the formation during the season. After all, there was a high probability that Li Qi would not be there next season, so there was no need to go to great lengths; or if Li Qi playing as a defensive midfielder had a great impact on the team's overall performance, directly solving the team's pain points and defeating the opponent with ease, at least scoring a few more goals, then Ramos would be able to make up his mind to take a gamble for the end-of-season results.

However, in these two 30-minute trials, defensive midfielder Li Qi helped improve the team's performance, but not as much as expected, which means that the investment in the change of formation may not necessarily produce results...

So Juan Ramos and the coaching staff continued to struggle: Damn, is it better to change or not? This is really a problem!

And there is no time for Sevilla's coaching staff to worry too much. They have not even had two days' rest since returning from the UEFA Cup. On the evening of the Chinese New Year, Sevilla will face the challenge of Atletico Madrid at home. Sevilla's first league defeat this season was a 1-2 away defeat to Atletico Madrid. They must find a way to regain this face!

However, before the race, Ricardo still wanted to spend a good Spring Festival with Chiara who came from afar; he spent last year's Spring Festival with Chiara, and this year Chiara still followed last year's tradition and wore festive Chinese red from the outside to the inside to bring a festive atmosphere to Ricardo.

Of course, dumplings are a must during the Spring Festival, and they are made by two people...

As for Sarafina, Julian, Eva, her father, mother, brother, uncle, cousin and other people, they just sent their blessings by phone or text message. Those who were close to them had already arranged for Pimenta to present them with holiday gifts.

The club's coaches and teammates personally received Ricardo's greetings and blessings, and many married people were congratulated on their prosperity and asked for New Year's red envelopes.

It was also the first time that Juan Ramos knew that Ricardo was so obsessed with Chinese culture, so before the weekend league, he gave Ricardo half a day off. After all, Ricardo had started in two consecutive games and played the full 90 minutes.

Moreover, there was no plan to start Ricardo against Atletico Madrid, but to be on the safe side, Ricardo was still included in the match roster. After all, Atletico Madrid is currently ranked fifth in the league and its strength should not be underestimated.

In addition, Juan Ramos is still struggling with the use of Ricardo, so he might as well put it aside for now and keep him on the bench for half the game to do a comparative experiment to see how the team's overall condition recovers without Ricardo starting.

However, what Juan Ramos did not expect was that the coaching staff of Atletico Madrid had done a thorough and detailed study of Sevilla's recent formation and tactical adjustments, and found that Sevilla had started the No. 7 player in recent games, or replaced the No. 7 player at the turning point of the game, and consciously used the No. 7 player to organize the midfield and instigate the attack.

With the same playing time, this No. 7 is the player with the most touches and passes in the entire Sevilla team. Moreover, this Italian No. 7 also clearly consciously moves the ball to the middle, launching attacks or sending threatening direct passes from the midfield many times, changing Sevilla's tactics of flying on both wings in the first half of the season.

Therefore, Atletico Madrid made special arrangements for their away strategy in this game, aiming to block Sevilla's central attack and limit the organization of Sevilla's No. 7 in the middle.

而当时间来到2007年2月18日晚上21时，06/07赛季西班牙足球甲级联赛第23轮展开最后4场比赛的争夺，马德里竞技拿到塞维利亚的首发名单不禁傻了眼，这段时间连长首发的组织核心7号竟然在替补席上待命？这是为本场比赛留后手么？

Compared with the League Cup in the middle of the week, Juan Ramos made several personnel rotation adjustments, requiring players with better physical reserves and conditions to deal with Atletico Madrid, a team known for its physical strength and tough style of play.

The traditional 4-4-2 formation with parallel positions, the goalkeeper is No. 1 Palop;

The left and right full-backs are No. 3 David and No. 4 Alves, and the double center backs are No. 20 Osio who has returned from injury to replace Navarro who has a slight muscle discomfort and No. 14 Escude;

The left and right wingers are No. 6 Adriano and No. 15 Navas, and the double defensive midfielders are No. 18 Martí and No. 11 Renato;

The two forwards are No. 10 Fabiano and No. 12 Kanoute.

Li Qi, Maresca, Korzakov, Puerta, Paulson and Dragutinovic were all on the bench.

However, after the game started, the home team's performance was beyond the visitors' expectations. Unlike in previous rounds, Sevilla did not organize most of the ball through the midfield. Instead, they returned to the first half of the season and directly launched attacks on different sides.

As a result, the central defense and double defensive midfielder tactics that Atletico Madrid had specially arranged for this game were useless; and after the kick-off, Sevilla's fierce attack on the wing was the sharpest since 07, and for a moment the Colchoneros were a little confused when their tactical arrangements failed.

Sevilla also seizes the opportunity and tries to gain the leading advantage when you are not prepared.

The game was only 12 minutes into the game and continuous attacks from the flanks had begun to make Atletico's defense lose sight of the big picture, especially the golden corridor of Navas and Alves on the right, which had already made Atletico's left defense leak out of the sieve; so Atletico began to mobilize the defense to try to plug the loophole on the left side.

Just when Atletico's defense began to lean to the left, Alves, who was attacking on the right side, suddenly sent a long diagonal pass across half the court to Kanoute in the diagonal position.

Kanoute succeeded in getting offside and cut into the defensive third zone from behind the right side of Atletico's defense line. The Mali striker chested Alves's diagonal long pass into the penalty area, adjusted a step slightly to the middle, and raised his foot to shoot.

The ball drew a slight arc along the grass, but it also passed through the fingertips of goalkeeper Franco and accurately flew into the bottom left corner of the goal. Sevilla scored the first goal and took the lead 1-0!

Atletico, who were behind, were naturally eager to counterattack, but their tactical arrangement before the game was a bit wrong, with heavy troops piled up in the middle and too empty on the flanks. Although Atletico had made adjustments during the game, when the score fell behind quickly, the team's mentality was a bit anxious, and while the formation was pressing forward, they failed to gain a firm position, allowing the home team to once again use counterattacks from the flanks to create an offensive threat.

……