Chapter 167 The devil’s schedule is coming!

The day after the game, Juan Ramos did not take Getafe's draw to heart for too long. After all, it was just a La Liga game, and Getafe was the best defensive team in La Liga this season, conceding 24 goals in 16 games. Real Madrid and Barcelona both conceded 4 goals more than Getafe, so there was nothing to worry about about a draw with Getafe away from home.

It's just that Juan Ramos is a little worried about the team's performance. This season's La Liga is said to be the most exciting one in the past 10 years, and the competition is extremely fierce. Real Madrid and Savills, which are currently in the first group, have not widened the points gap. It seems that no team has absolute dominance. Barcelona and Sevilla take turns to be the boss, and Real Madrid and Valencia also have the opportunity to look forward to the championship.

Moreover, Sevilla is currently not falling behind in the three fronts of La Liga, Copa del Rey and UEFA Cup. This rare opportunity makes Juan Ramos itchy and he begins to fantasize about the good results that he dared not think about at the beginning of the season. Therefore, he is extremely sensitive to the team's current situation and performance, even a little neurotic. After all, this is an opportunity that many mid-range teams don't have in a century.

The upcoming early March is very critical for the top four teams in La Liga, because in this stage of the schedule, there will be many direct matches between the championship contenders. In other words, the next 3 days are likely to determine the overall trend of La Liga this season. Whether it is Barcelona, ​​Sevilla, Real Madrid or Valencia, they all need to treat these 11 days of games as their last chance to fight.

Among them, Barcelona's schedule is the most difficult: this week, in the second round of the King's Cup quarter-finals, Barcelona will away challenge Zaragoza. Due to the 1-4 defeat at home in the first round, Barcelona needs to reverse the score away from home to advance; this weekend in La Liga, Barcelona will away challenge Sevilla, which is a showdown between the first and second in La Liga; next week in the middle of the Champions League 0/1 finals, Barcelona will take on the bitter fruit of a 1-8 home defeat in the first round, and will play away against Liverpool, which can be said to be a matter of life and death; next weekend will be another game that the whole world is watching. In the league, Barcelona will be at home to face the challenge of Real Madrid.

Real Madrid's schedule in the next 11 days will also be bumpy: this weekend they will play at home against Getafe in the league. In the first round, Getafe made Real Madrid lose without any temper; next week in the middle of the week, Real Madrid will challenge Bayern Munich away in the Champions League. Although they won the first leg at home, the score of 3 to 2 is an ominous sign; next week in the league, Real Madrid will start the "Century War" against Barcelona away. If they lose, they will probably fall behind Barcelona by more than 10 points, and then Real Madrid will basically say goodbye to the league championship battle.

On the other hand, Sevilla has crucial games to play in the Copa del Rey away against Betis, the league home against Barcelona, ​​and the UEFA Cup round of 16 against Shakhtar Donetsk. However, Sevilla's opponents in March are not as tough as Barcelona and Real Madrid, so relatively speaking, this is a key node for Sevilla to overtake the standings and even widen the points advantage.

However, just when Juan Ramos was planning a big battle in March, the accident happened on the last day of February, which was also the first game of March, the second round of the King's Cup quarter-finals, Sevilla's away derby against Real Betis.

In order to prepare for this game, Juan Ramos specially arranged rotations last week and this weekend. Sevilla naturally fielded all their main players in this game, but there were also rotations in some individual positions.

No. 1 goalkeeper Palop returned to the starting lineup;

The left and right backs are No. 16 Puerta and No. 4 Alves, and the double central defenders are No. 14 Escude and No. 2 Navarro.

The left and right wingers are No. 6 Adriano and No. 25 Maresca, and the double defensive midfielders are No. 8 Paulson and No. 7 Li Qi.

The two forwards are No. 9 Korzakov and No. 12 Kanoute.

Alfaro, Fabiano, Duda, David, Hinkle and Dragutinovic were all on the bench.

Although Juan Ramos and the coaching staff verbally said that they had stopped tactical experiments, they remembered Real Betis's defensive nature in the first two games and honestly arranged Li Qi in the defensive midfielder position in order to use Li Qi's midfield organization and speed-changing forward runs to break Real Betis's turtle shell.

But how could Betis coach Irueta not have a response? He had done his homework in advance. After all, the previous two matches lasted about half an hour, and Li Qi retreated to play in the midfield, which was indeed difficult to deal with. In addition, he also knew that Sevilla had been secretly making tactical adjustments and attempts recently, so he naturally had a plan to deal with Juan Ramos's changes.

So not long after the game started, after 10 minutes of play, Li Qi found that Real Betis in this game was different from the previous two matches. Although they also strictly guarded the two wings, the two defensive midfielders kept circling around him instead of blocking the two ribs as before.

However, Juan Ramos and Li Qi are not worried, because in the previous match, Betis had tried to use two midfielders to double-team Li Qi and restrict Li Qi from passing the ball, but the effect was not good. After all, midfielders can more easily get support from teammates, and the tactical options are more diverse. Li Qi, who is in the defensive midfielder position, can even return to the back line to get the ball and calmly observe and organize the attack.

However, Betis did make some upgrades in the double-teaming tactics of Li Qi this time. They had tried to steal the ball directly or press Li Qi closely before, but it was ineffective, so they changed to one interference and one cover, trying to drive Li Qi away from the threatening area and let Li Qi pass back or long pass as much as possible...

However, Li Qi is not afraid of such interference at all. Although Betis has a large number of players in the midfield and backcourt, in Li Qi's opinion, Irueta has not created his own style of defense for Betis, or at least formed a tactical system. He just relies on human sea tactics and physical strength to fill in positions, and there will always be mistakes.

This is when patience, concentration and technical basics are needed. As for the ability to read the game, Li Qi doesn't think that Betis has any teammates on the field who can catch up with him. Even if there are, they don't have the ability to mobilize the entire team's defense or low position, which means they are a wild card.

When it comes to the level of the top five European leagues, an 11-person football match is no longer a child's play. It requires close coordination and a formed tactical system. Otherwise, even if there are 5 Qi Xuanzongs, they will be beaten.

Li Qi plays as a defensive midfielder, and is very aware of his youth and loan status, so he will not rashly try to change the team's traditional two-wing tactics. On the contrary, Li Qi knows what the team lacks, so Li Qi will try his best to make up for this shortcoming: the two-wing offensive tactics remain unchanged, Li Qi is more involved in the connection between the midfield and backcourt, controlling the rhythm of the game, and delivering the ball to the right wing players at the right time...

Therefore, Real Betis had a very difficult time defending in this game. It was fine in the first 15 minutes. When they were full of energy, they were not afraid of Li Qi's deployment on the wings. Anyway, they could sprint at full speed to make up for it. But after 15 minutes, when their energy declined or their attention was not focused, they would be very uncomfortable with Li Qi's pulling, and the away team's wing breakthroughs began to work. After all, there was always a chance to open up a 1-on-1 situation. Sevilla's wingers were not vegetarians.

In the 22nd minute, Alves received a pass from Li Qi and successfully found Korzakov who was lying in ambush at the front point. The latter touched the ball with his foot and the ball changed direction and went straight to the far corner of the goal. Unfortunately, the home team's goalkeeper Dovlas made a wonderful sideways dive and hit the ball out of the bottom line with his fingertips.

In the 24th minute, Adriano received a through ball from Li Qi and almost broke through the defense and entered the penalty area, but unfortunately he was fouled by Betis defender Nano on the penalty area line. The visiting team won a free kick near the left side of the penalty area line; Renato was responsible for the penalty and sent the ball into the small penalty area. Kanoute got in position and won the header, but unfortunately he did not hit the right spot due to the interference of the defender, and the ball also went over the crossbar.

The visiting team could create an offensive threat almost every two to three minutes, and what was more terrifying than the previous two encounters was that almost every attack ended with a shot. This not only made Betis nervous, but also made it almost impossible for Betis to get a good counterattack opportunity. When Betis lost its advantage in the midfield, they did not dare to press forward to attack.

In fact, in Li Qi's opinion, Betis's continuous use of the iron bucket formation in the derby is a losing strategy. This will give the players a strong psychological hint that they can win by defending. It may be effective the first and second time, but the third time the players will lose their enterprising mentality and even develop a weak mentality that they cannot win head-on. Then the game is half lost before it even starts.

After Sevilla continued to exert pressure for nearly 20 minutes, Betis' defense finally collapsed.

In the 38th minute of the game, Li Qi played a trick. Before that, Li Qi basically did not make any forward runs. He was always in the middle directing the two wingers to rush up, and Paulson was responsible for filling the vacancies on the wing; so this time Li Qi winked at Alves in advance, pretending to continue to go to the wing, but after a wall-to-wall cooperation with Alves, he sped up and went straight to the middle.

Li Qi took a leap and shook off the interference in the middle. After all, in the first half hour, Li Qi did not make much progress. Apart from constantly receiving and dispatching the ball on both sides, he was almost a harmless child. Naturally, his defensive vigilance dropped. Anyone who ran back and forth in vain for half an hour would be distracted...

After Li Qi faced Betis' defense, he pretended to pass the ball to Adriano in the open space on the left outside the penalty area. With a fake eye move, he deceived the defensive focus of another midfielder Miguel Angel and central defender Nano.

Li Qi flicked the ball in a light direction, and while passing Angel, he flashed a clear shooting range, which was considered a half-single shot, facing the goalkeeper directly. This was definitely a good opportunity.

Sarafina went to college and left her parents. Her life was colorful. After all, she had money and her roommates loved to play. They often went to bars or parks. She hadn't seen her little wolf dog Ricardo play for a long time.

That evening, she had an appointment with her classmates to play board games in a bar. There happened to be a live sports match in the bar, and Sarafina remembered that there seemed to be a match of Ricardo's brother tonight, so she asked the boss to turn on the less popular Spanish King's Cup broadcasting channel.

Just as I switched the channel and the TV picture didn't stabilize yet, I heard the Latin-accented commentator yelling:

"Opportunity! Li Qi drove straight into the game with his first pass, and fooled the defender with a realistic eye fake!"

"Li Qi raises his foot and shoots! Oh! No! Another fake move! Oh my god, it's too realistic!"

"Li Qi dribbled with his left foot. No one could interfere at this point. Even the goalkeeper was knocked off balance by the fake shot and the real dunk."

"Push the shot into the far corner! Ditch oh oh oh! Ditch oh oh oh! Ditch!"

"Li Qi stepped on the penalty area line and pushed the ball into the far corner! Helping Sevilla lead Real Betis 1-0 away from home!"

"Looking back through slow motion, Li Qi started the attack from near the center circle, and it seemed as if he was passing the ball slowly and methodically at the beginning."

"But suddenly, Li Qi started to accelerate and dribble the ball straight into the home team's defense."

"Oh! Stop the slow motion here, look! Li Qi made a gesture first, Alves came over and played a wall pass with Li Qi, and filled in Li Qi's defensive midfielder position, while Maresca and Adriano pulled to the side and opened up the defense at the same time."

"Then Li Qi's diagonal run was so clever that it completely caught Rivera off guard. He passed Rivera in just two or three steps."

"And then it was even more exciting. Betis's defense in the middle was originally very dense, but it was diverted or pressed into the penalty area by several Sevilla players. After Rivera was broken through, Angel was the only one left in the area of ​​the gourd top."

"Maybe Li Qi's constant passing and direct passes were too well-known. Li Qi's fake move of turning his head while dribbling the ball at high speed made Angel think that Li Qi was going to pass the ball to Korzakov. Who knew that Li Qi would just flick the ball in the opposite direction, flash past and face the goal directly."

"As you can see, Nano was also fooled by Li Qi's eye fake move in the penalty area, and he moved ahead to block Korzakov's forward line; instead, he gave Li Qi a one-on-one chance."

"But what happened next was truly amazing. Li Qi had a clear shooting range, and this explosive shot straight to the near corner of the goal was definitely a good opportunity, about 23 yards away; but Li Qi made another realistic fake shot and a real dunk."

"This move once again shook off Angel and Nano who were coming to defend! In order to make up for the loss of their center of gravity just now, the two of them directly let go of their center of gravity and flew over to block the shot that was so realistic."

"And you can see that this fake move even knocked the goalkeeper down, and Dovlas had already lowered his center of gravity to prepare to save the near corner."

"So when Li Qi dribbled the ball back with his left foot, there were almost no defenders standing near the middle of the penalty area; Li Qi calmly pushed the ball into the far corner of the goal. Dovlas could only half-kneel on the grass and watch the ball go into the net... It was really easy for Alves to get this assist."

Sarafina crossed her princess legs, leaned against the soft leather sofa, and elegantly sipped a Bloody Mary: I knew that Brother Ricardo is the best, I'll go visit him during the spring break!

After Li Qi scored the goal, Irureta on the sidelines was furious and kept educating the players, but this made the home team dazed for a moment. "Coach, you greeted me like a machine gun, but you didn't say anything about tactical adjustments. Should we attack or continue to hide?"

Taking advantage of the home team's tactical entanglement, Li Qi quickly organized the midfield to grab the ball that Betis kicked again, and then immediately launched a counterattack. Li Qi's direct pass was immediately given to Korzakov outside the penalty area corner.

When Korzakov changed direction and tried to cut outside and break through, he was brought down by Nano. After all, the home team's defense had not yet stood firm, and the referee also gave the visiting team a good free-kick opportunity.

Renato and Alves stood together in front of the ball. This set-piece outside the right penalty area was a bit off-angle, so a direct shot might not be the most appropriate, but it was not impossible...

In the end, Alves took the penalty and sent a cross, but it was not towards the small penalty area in the crowd, but to Li Qi who was ambushing at the edge of the big penalty area!

Facing two defensive players who flew over to him, Li Qi did not choose to shoot. To be honest, this ball was not easy to shoot. It was a half-high ball. If you kick the ball, it is too high. If you head it, the distance is too far... Li Qi just turned his head sideways, and at the same time as the defensive player intercepted it from the front, he used his head to rub the half-high ball from the front point into an arc and went straight around the far goal post!

And the one lurking at the far post was none other than Sevilla's Mari striker, Kanoute!

……