Chapter 182 Mali's Revenge

The next day, Ricardo even looked for a video recording to review the normal match between Manchester City and Charlton Athletic. Although the match process was not very exciting in Ricardo's opinion, and the two core players of the Chinese team did not show any outstanding skills, he still felt a sense of regret in his heart. This was the peak of Chinese football since the 02 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. I wonder when we can see the Chinese players compete on the world's top football stage again...

However, just a few days after the weekend league, Ricardo traveled to London with the team.

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club was founded in 1882. Its home stadium is the new White Hart Lane Stadium in Tottenham, north London, England. It is a North London team like its arch-rival Arsenal. Because of the traditional white home jersey, Tottenham fans call themselves "Lilywhites".

In addition to its long history, Tottenham Hotspur also has many honors. It was the first team in the 1963th century to win both the league and the FA Cup. It is one of the three teams that have won two consecutive FA Cups and the only team that has achieved this feat twice. In , it won the European Cup Winners' Cup, becoming the first British team to win a European championship. It has also won the UEFA Cup twice.

Of course, the trophies Tottenham has won are obviously not enough compared to other Premier League giants, but as a London team, it has its own reasons to be proud. In the past two seasons, Tottenham's performance has also recovered and stabilized in the league's European competition zone.

Ricardo is very familiar with London, the core city of the United Kingdom, and he comes here often. One of his girlfriends, Julian, once studied here, and now his number one girlfriend, Sarafina, is also studying in this city.

When she learned that Ricardo was coming to London to play, Sarafina had already arranged a date for the two of them, and a hotel room was booked in advance in the hotel where Seville was staying. So even though there was a curfew within the team, it did not affect the young couple's passionate date.

Juan Ramos seemed to have received intelligence in advance, knowing that Ricardo was going to meet his girlfriend in private after warm-up training in London, and he also deliberately hinted to Ricardo that he would give Ricardo a night off after the game, and Ricardo could stay in London for one more day instead of returning to Spain with the team - the meaning was naturally to just show his appreciation before the game, don't be pretentious, and post more after the game...

Ricardo naturally understood, and when they met in the afternoon, he conveyed the coach's instructions to Sarafina, who was wearing a British plaid JK uniform, and immediately the little princess shyly twisted her thigh...

2007年4月12日晚上20时45分，06/07赛季欧洲联盟杯1/4决赛次回合同时展开4场争夺，其中最受关注的是卫冕冠军塞维利亚客场挑战英超劲旅托特纳姆热刺。

In the first leg last week, Sevilla won 2-1 at home, but Tottenham also got a valuable away goal, so in the second leg Tottenham only needed a 1-0 victory to eliminate Sevilla.

Therefore, Tottenham coach Jol's tactics before the game were stable and stable, and he wanted to control the rhythm. The goal was to accurately control the score 1-0, so the starting formation was a 4-4-2 double defensive midfielder layout, and the left and right fullbacks who made mistakes in the previous game were all rotated:

The goalkeeper is No. 1 goalie Robinson;

The left and right backs are a new combination of No. 6 Tainio and No. 2 Chimbonda with stronger defensive capabilities, while the double center back combination remains unchanged, No. 26 Ledley King and No. 20 Dawson;

There was an adjustment in the left midfield of the four-man midfield. When Tainio retreated to the defensive line, No. 15 Malbranque replaced him as the left midfielder. The remaining three players remained unchanged, still No. 25 Lennon, No. 8 Jenas and No. 4 Zokora.

The starting two strikers are the same as in the last round, with the handsome No. 9 Berbatov and No. 10 Robbie Keane.

On the other hand, Sevilla deployed a strong attacking formation. Juan Ramos knew very well that it was not safe to defend in the away game in the current situation. On the contrary, if they could score a goal away from home, it would be equivalent to two goals for the home team. Therefore, he was determined to fight against Tottenham, and Li Qi and Kanoute were his support.

The starting lineup is still a 4-4-2 parallel formation, with the old goalkeeper No. 1 Palop standing in front of the goal line;

The back line is a very attacking main lineup, with the two Brazilian wingers No. 4 Alves and No. 6 Adriano on the two wings, and the captain No. 2 Navarro and No. 14 Escude in the middle;

The central midfielders on the two wings are No. 15 Navas and No. 16 Puerta. In addition, Juan Ramos also learned from the lessons of the previous game and no longer arranged technical midfielder Renato to partner with Li Qi in the starting lineup. Instead, he arranged defensive midfielder No. 8 Paulson to assist No. 7 Li Qi in organizing the midfield and attack.

The two strikers are No. 12 Kanoute, who vowed to defeat White Hart Lane before the game, and No. 9 Korzakov, who has been in hot form recently.

On the bench, many strong players such as Maresca, Renato, Fabiano, Osio, Hinkel and Marti are ready to go.

As soon as the referee blew the whistle, it was Tottenham's turn to kick off, wearing the traditional white home jerseys, while Sevilla, wearing the orange away jerseys, all pressed forward to get the start as soon as possible!

However, maybe it was because of bad luck in the last round, so in this confrontation, Sevilla was favored by the goddess of luck in the opening stage and almost had a perfect start.

Shortly after Tottenham kicked off, facing the full pressure of Sevilla players, Tottenham passed the ball back to the back line, and Chimbonda kicked the ball to the front court, but Navarro overpowered Berbatov and headed the ball to Li Qi who retreated to meet the goal.

So Li Qi started to organize the first wave of attack, but Li Qi changed his usual patient organization, and instead, he looked for a gap and passed the ball directly to the center forward Kanoute. Because Kanoute had specifically told Li Qi before the game that he wanted to explode at the beginning, Li Qi, the little brother of the black buddy, naturally had to cooperate with him.

And Kanoute really lived up to his promise. He changed his weak state when he just returned from injury in the last round. He took the ball and forced his way into the penalty area. He had to go through the joint defense of Zokora and Ledleykin. In the end, Ledleykin made a forced tackle and the ball went out of the baseline.

Sevilla got the first corner kick, and the corner kick taken by Alves from the right side also drew an arc and went straight to the head of Kanoute who was lurking in the middle of the small penalty area.

Kanoute once again took on Ledley King and headed the ball, but fortunately the ball was headed too straight due to interference; although the distance was very close, Robinson, who quickly focused after the start, still reacted quickly and dragged the ball that was heading straight to his face over the crossbar with one hand. Sevilla immediately won the second corner kick of the game.

In view of Kanoute's strong start, Tottenham players stepped up their defense on Kanoute. Not only did Ledley King stay close to him, but Zokora also assisted in defending in front.

This time, Li Qi took the corner kick from the left. Li Qi observed the situation in the penalty area. This time, Kanoute and Navarro squeezed in front of the penalty area, attracting Tottenham's focus on defense...

So Li Qi raised his hands high, which was a signal to send a back-point. Kanoute, Navarro and Escude, the teammates who were blocking the front point, immediately understood and started fighting hard to attract more attention from the Tottenham defenders. Paulson and Puerta, who were ambushing at the back point, quietly looked for opportunities for pick-and-roll cooperation.

Immediately afterwards, Li Qi took a run-up and took a high-quality corner kick. The speed was extremely fast, and the arc and height were excellent. It just passed the crowd in the front and the middle, and went straight to the far post at the back!

Paulson, with Puerta's cover, shook off Jenas's defense, flexibly grabbed the ball and headed it into the goal; but obviously, Paulson's header was not practiced much. Such a good header opportunity 8 yards in front of the goal, Robinson was definitely out of reach; but Paulson headed the ball wrong, heading it back to the middle of the goal, turning it into a header ferry, wasting Li Qi's corner assist.

When the ball was headed towards the middle, Malbranque, who was defending Escudé, tried to clear the ball with his left foot, but somehow missed the target and the ball flew to the far corner of his own goal! Robbie Keane, who was guarding the far post, was also stunned for a moment. He did not expect his teammate to make a difficult shot, and he jumped up half a beat too late to intercept the ball. The ball just passed over Robbie Keane's head and fell into the top corner of the goal...

Robinson ran from the front point to the back point and then back to the middle, but it was all in vain. He could only watch his undercover teammate magically clear the ball into the upper corner of his own goal: Who can he complain to?

So in the third minute after the kick-off, Sevilla was lucky enough to score the first goal thanks to an own goal by French midfielder Malbranque, leading Tottenham 1-0 away from home.

As soon as he saw the ball go in, Juan Ramos jumped out from the coaching bench excitedly. Now Tottenham's away goal advantage is gone. Tottenham needs to score at least two more goals to drag the game into overtime. Now the advantage is mine!

However, Tottenham was obviously stunned by the sudden attack from their teammates and it took them a long time to recover. Head coach Jol's pre-match arrangements were basically wasted at the beginning of the game.

However, Li Qi obviously noticed that something was wrong with Tottenham, so he would naturally not wait for Tottenham to recover, but would take advantage of the situation to kill them.

After Tottenham kicked off from the center circle again, Sevilla pressed the entire court again under the organization of Li Qi. After a few moves, Li Qi intercepted the somewhat panicked Malbranque's long-winded dribbling in the midfield. The French midfielder should not have been able to recover from the own goal just now.

Li Qi was not vague. After intercepting the ball, he immediately passed it to Korzakov who was ready. The latter switched smoothly from the pressing state, turned around and made a counter-run. Li Qi's straight pass reached the player, who took two steps and rushed into the vicinity of Tottenham's penalty area.

Then, facing Dawson's interception, Korzakov made a cross directly from the right edge of the penalty area. Kanoute, who cut to the far end, was unguarded. He jumped high, spread his wings like an eagle, and violently headed the ball, slamming it towards the far post from 11 yards in front of the goal!

Robinson had no way of dealing with Kanoute's powerful and angled header, and he made no save, but the ball hit the far post and bounced out of the bottom line. Tottenham escaped...

Jol also saw that Malbranque was not in good shape, so he quickly arranged for Danny Murphy to warm up. He had no time to consider the French midfielder's face. He could only replace him on the pretext of injury after playing for a while. Otherwise, Sevilla would definitely use this point to defeat Tottenham.

If Li Qi knew what Joel was thinking, he would definitely say that great minds think alike. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and he must make good use of it before Malbranque leaves the field.

So within a few minutes, Sevilla seized the opportunity again; this time Li Qi directed Paulson and Navas to press Tottenham's midfield and backcourt, and deliberately defended against Malbranque, who had no confidence in his attack, in order to allow the latter to hold the ball.

Tenio, who was under pressure, had no time to think and could only pass the ball to Malbranque in an open position, because other passing routes had been blocked. He could either kick the ball with his foot or pass it, but Malbranque was clearly in an open position, so there was no reason not to pass the ball to him.

Seeing Malbranque staggering as he received the ball and turned around, Li Qi knew that his mentality had collapsed and he couldn't even catch a simple straight pass. So Li Qi pretended to steal the ball, but in fact he was preparing to intercept Malbranque's nearest short pass and pass it horizontally to Janus in the middle...

Sure enough, when Malbranque turned around and looked up and saw Li Qi preparing to pounce on him, he obviously wanted to pass the ball across the middle to his teammates, as if the ball under his feet was a hot potato or a bomb that was about to explode and he had to pass it over quickly.

But just when Malbranque was about to touch the ball, he suddenly found that Li Qi was not pressing forward, but blocking his cross pass from the middle. So Malbranque tried to change the pass to a dunk, but his unbalanced mentality made his technical movements deformed, and the temporary change of movements failed; which directly led to the original cross pass being distorted, and the ball was kicked softly, and his center of gravity was directly knocked down...

Sarafina and her girlfriends in the VIP box all widened their eyes when they saw this scene, as if Malbranque had been put under a spell by Li Qi. After catching the ball, she turned around and looked up to see Li Qi, and then she passed the ball directly to Li Qi's feet, and then she stumbled!

The TV in the box also played the shouts and exclamations of the TV commentators:

"After Sevilla took the lead, they continued to press high, which was completely different from the first leg. It was difficult for Tottenham, who were playing at home, to get through the half. Is it rare that home teams in the League Cup have the habit of giving up the game at the start?"

"Dawson passed the ball to Tenio, and Paulson and Navas pressed forward together..."

"Pass to the wing, Malbranque..."

"It wasn't a good stop, but there was no defender around; turn around, this is a counterattack opportunity for Tottenham!"

"Li Qi makes up for the defense..."

"Oh my god! What the hell did I see?"

"Malbranque passed the ball directly to Li Qi's feet and tripped himself!"

"Li Qi passes the ball! Kanoute..."

"Beautiful! Kanoute touched the ball deftly, passing the ball and dribbling past the reckless Zokora..."

"Kanut, entering the penalty area... Korzakov... wall pass! One-on-one!"

"Beautiful! Kanoute once again deftly pulled the ball past Robinson who was attacking..."

"Ditch oooooh! Ditch oooooh! Ditch!"

"Following the penalty kick in the first round, Kanouté scored again! Two rounds, two goals!"

"The former Tottenham striker celebrated passionately, roaring at the away fans who came to cheer him on, as if he was venting the injustice he faced at his old club and the revenge for the previous contempt for him! It was so wild, and it made the audience excited!"

"Sevilla was leading the home team 8-2 in the eighth minute of the game."

"Tottenham's away goal advantage in the first leg is gone! Now Tottenham needs to score at least 4 more goals to turn the tables. The Spanish team can be said to have one foot in the top 4 of the UEFA Cup."

"Let's review it in slow motion to see how this goal happened..."

"Oh! After Malbranque received the ball and turned around, he thought that Li Qi wanted to come up and press, so he wanted to pass the ball to Janus in the middle. But he didn't expect that Li Qi was bluffing and just predicted the route of Malbranque's cross pass. The latter also realized that he was careless and was fooled the moment the ball was passed. He wanted to change his action temporarily, but it was too late..."

"So we saw the astonishing scene just now. Like an undercover agent, Malbranque passed the ball directly to Li Qi's feet, and then he tripped himself."

"For this defense, we can only say that Li Qi is too smart. He predicted every move of Malbranque in advance and carefully set up such a trap..."

"Then Li Qi's direct pass was just right. Zokora must have been misled by Kanoute's previous hard-line attack and thought that the Malian striker would continue to force his way through. Unexpectedly, Kanoute did something fancy this time and Zokora dived too hard, so he was easily passed."

"Then Kanoute and Korzakov's wall-to-wall cooperation in the penalty area was so calm that Ledley King had no way to stop it."

"Facing Robinson's attack, Kanoute was surprisingly calm, once again showing his agility and delicate skills that did not match his size. He dribbled past the opponent in one go, and finally connected with his left foot to push the ball into the empty goal, which was also extremely smooth!"

"It was only 8 minutes into the game, but both of Sevilla's goals came too magically. First, there was an own goal, and then there was an own goal assist. I guess Tottenham fans after the game will definitely ask how much money Malbranque received..."

……