Chapter 198 Season League Cup Championship, China

Before the game started, both teams had many considerations about the starting lineup for the final. After all, it was a decisive final, and they also needed to consider the subsequent overtime and even penalty shootouts.

因此纸面上实力较弱的西班牙人虽然明面上仍然是排出了4-4-2的首发阵型，但实际上的阵容应该是4-5-1；西班牙人主帅巴尔维尔德启用了刚伤愈复出的小佛爷德拉佩纳领衔西班牙国产三叉戟，而将最近状态火热的本赛季联盟杯最佳射手潘蒂亚尼被留在了替补席上。

The Spanish starting lineup is:

Goalkeeper No. 1 Ilaisos;

The left and right wings of the back line are No. 3 David Garcia and No. 8 Zabaleta, and the double center back combination is No. 21 Jarque and No. 19 Torrejo;

The more defensive midfield combination is led by No. 9 De La Pena, No. 18 Rufete, No. 22 Moises and No. 11 Riera;

No. 10 Luis Garcia plays as an attacking midfielder or false striker;

The single arrow is Tamudo No. 18;

The bench is naturally led by Rifleman Pandiani, as well as strong players such as La Cruz, Honatas and Eduardo Costa.

Likewise, Juan Ramos has many doubts, and Sevilla, like the Spaniard, has made slight adjustments to the 4-4-2 formation, focusing more on defense and organization.

However, due to the presence of Ricardo Richie, Sevilla's adjustments were much simpler and more natural than those of Espanyol, and this formation had been practiced many times in previous games.

And because of his god-like performance in the UEFA Cup final last season, Juan Ramos once again chose Maresca, who has been in excellent form recently, to start in this final, forming a flexible and changeable Italian twin combination with Li Qi in both offense and defense.

At the same time, Adriano's timely return from injury also allows Sevilla's midfield to be regarded as four defensive midfielders when defending, which is very tough!

As for Navas, who was slightly injured, and Renato, who was not in good condition due to muscle fatigue, they were on standby on the bench as backup; Escudé pulled a muscle in the pre-match training and unfortunately missed the final.

Sevilla's slightly adjusted 4-4-2 starting lineup is as follows:

Goalkeeper No. 1 Palop;

The left and right backs are No. 16 Puerta and No. 4 Alves, and the double center backs are captain No. 2 Navarro and No. 19 Dragutinovic;

The four midfielders are No. 25 Maresca, No. 7 Li Qi, No. 8 Paulson and No. 6 Adriano;

The double center forwards are No. 12 Kanoute and No. 10 Fabiano;

In addition, there are powerful stars such as Navas, Renato, Korzakov, Marty, David and Osio mentioned above on the bench.

2007年5月16日19时40分，06/07赛季欧洲联盟杯决赛在苏格兰格拉斯哥的汉普顿公园球场一触即发！

Against the backdrop of the UEFA Cup entrance music and theme song, the Swiss referee team, led by referee Busacca, was the first to walk out of the player tunnel, walked past the podium where the UEFA Cup trophy was placed, picked up the match ball on the podium, and strode towards the competition stadium.

Following behind the referee were the two teams of the two sides, the red shirts, red pants and black socks of Sevilla and the blue and white striped shirts, blue pants and white socks of Espanyol. Li Qi chose to go out side by side with his old friend from the World Youth Championship, Zabaleta. However, Li Qi felt that Zabaleta was very nervous. When he was waiting to go out in the player channel just now, in response to his enthusiastic greeting, the Argentine just said "Hola" with a solemn expression...

However, nervousness and excitement should be the normal psychological reflection of most players on both sides at this time. Sevilla may be better, less nervous and more excited. After all, more than 12 players on the roster participated in last year's UEFA Cup final, and 8 players on the starting roster played in last year's 4-3 victory and won the championship. All players who scored goals were in the starting lineup.

However, the Espanyol players were obviously more nervous than excited. Although they won the Spanish King's Cup last season, this was the only championship experience that this group of Espanyol's main players had in recent years, so it was inevitable that they felt worried about gains and losses.

Li Qi, who has participated in the World Cup final and the Champions League final, can be said to be the most relaxed among the two teams. Although the starting lineup has been slightly different from Li Qi's original impression due to his appearance, most of the team is still the same, and their strength and condition are obviously better than their opponents.

Moreover, his presence is also a plus at present. He is very strong and has the ability to exert influence on UEFA through sponsors through secret channels...

In addition, as Sevilla came to Glasgow early to prepare for the game, Li Qi declined the requests of other girlfriends to follow him. Sarafina, the only one who came to Scotland yesterday, was entangled by her group of girlfriends and could not spare any time. So Li Qi has been keeping a pure mind and abstinence these days. It can be said that his energy is now full and he has endless energy all over his body. He is just waiting to have a big fight in the game soon!

And with the whistle of the Swiss referee, the game officially began!

According to Li Qi's suggestion, after Navarro won the coin toss, he decisively chose the right to kick off. He wanted to take the lead while the Espanyol team was nervous and not in good form, or at least suppress the opponent in momentum.

As expected, after the kick-off, the Spaniards' movements were obviously a bit stiff, and their intentions of passing and defending were too obvious, making them easy to guess. So Li Qi's strategy was to calmly control the ball with his feet, mainly pass the ball safely, but he would take advantage of the Spaniards' players' rush to grab the ball and send the ball to the opponent's threatening area...

Although the Spanish defenders are very brave in their tackles because they are too nervous, they are easily fooled by fake moves. After all, they are highly nervous and focused, so sending a straight pass is not a good choice. Instead, they can easily get opportunities by passing the ball steadily.

For example, in the 4th minute of the game, Alves made a diagonal pass to Li Qi from the backcourt. Li Qi stopped the ball in the midfield and deceived Luis Garcia's center of gravity with a lowered shoulder. Then he turned around naturally, aimed at Moises' crotch and sent a through-the-crotch ball.

The ball came steadily to Maresca's feet on the right wing; Maresca made a feint with the ball and deceived David Garcia's center of gravity, then reversed the ball into the penalty area. However, Maresca was a little too hasty and did not seek to cooperate with Kanoute or Fabiano, but directly chose to shoot.

Unfortunately, the ball was blocked by the focused Halke, and the Italian twin stars almost scored again...

In the opening stage, when the Spaniards have plenty of energy, they will definitely move quickly and defend at all costs, regardless of their physical strength; so the best strategy should be more patient transmission.

So two minutes later, Li Qi changed his attack route again. However, this time the attack on the left was more patient than on the right. When Adriano had already faked past Zabaleta, he deliberately made another wall-to-wall cooperation with Li Qi, which completely made Zabaleta unable to chase back.

Then Adriano decisively sent a cross behind Torrejo before he was intercepted by him. Rufete obviously couldn't stop Kanoute, but fortunately he interfered a little, allowing Kanoute's shot from 7 yards in front of the goal to go slightly over the crossbar, and the Spaniard escaped.

However, before the game was even 10 minutes old, the Espanyol team was already going crazy with nervousness, and Espanyol coach Valverde was sweating: Damn, the opponent's No. 7 is too experienced? Is he really only 21 years old? De La Pena didn't even have a chance to control the ball...

However, the Spanish team is now in a state of full defense. Valverde, who is sweating profusely, has no good tricks. He can only hope that the team can quickly adapt to the tense atmosphere and rhythm of the UEFA Cup final, calm down, and play at a normal level. Only then will they have a chance in the game. Of course, the premise is that they cannot let Sevilla score first, otherwise the more nervous Spanish team will definitely be exhausted in the second half...

However, things went against their wishes. When the Spaniards gradually found their rhythm and began to win back some offensive opportunities, they fell into the trap set by Li Qi again.

After 13 minutes, Li Qi could feel that the Spaniard seemed to have calmed down a little. He no longer chose to pounce without losing his center of gravity and defensive position when stealing the ball, and he no longer pursued one-touch passes or quick straight passes, but tried to position himself and control the ball under his feet.

So Li Qi thought that he could take this opportunity to create an illusion for some of the Spanish players: when the Spanish calmed down, Sevilla was no better than them, and the Spanish should seize the opportunity to counterattack and teach Sevilla a lesson, and it would be even better if they could break the deadlock first.

Li Qi started by deliberately making two long passes and organizing the midfield to retreat to the defensive third zone and then intercept, giving the Spaniards space to organize an attack and allow them to attack.

As expected, the Spaniards, who were under great pressure at the beginning of the game, suddenly felt that they could control the ball and organize attacks steadily. Their morale suddenly rose sharply and they even began to be eager to try.

Li Qi noticed that when the Spaniards successfully organized a positional attack for the first time in the game, both the left and right full-backs crossed the half court. This was definitely not the tactical arrangement that should be used in a conservative final game.

When the Spaniards got the first corner kick in the 17th minute of the game, Li Qi knew that the opportunity had come, because the Spaniards actually sent 6 people into the Sevilla penalty area to grab the point, and the right-back Zabaleta who was protecting behind was obviously standing too far forward.

So when defending the corner kick, Li Qi also secretly greeted Palop, Adriano and Maresca; Palop tried to open the ball quickly after the corner kick, while Adriano and Maresca stayed outside the penalty area to protect and be ready to counterattack at any time, attacking behind the Spaniard's right defender Zabaleta...

However, things went better than Li Qi had expected.

De La Pena, who had just returned from an emergency injury, obviously had not found his form yet. The corner kick he took from the right side was high and floating, and was snatched away in the air by Palop who was well prepared.

After receiving the hint from Li Qi, Palop did not hesitate at all. He took two quick steps, and under the single block of Li Qi and Kanoute, he crossed the crowd in the penalty area and launched a quick counterattack with a powerful hand throw!

Due to his lack of experience, Zabaleta's position at this time was too bad. He was in the middle of nowhere. He couldn't stop Palop, and he was too far away to intercept Adriano who had already circled to the wing at high speed. He couldn't even commit a foul...

So Adriano received Palop's powerful hand throw near the left side of the center line, lightly unloaded the ball with the outside of his foot, and then accelerated towards the Spanish goal. David Garcia, another Spanish defender, also hurried to defend diagonally, ready to intercept Adriano.

But just when David Garcia had not yet decided whether to pay the price of a yellow card or even a red card for fouling Adriano who was sprinting at high speed, the latter changed direction and accelerated to pass David Garcia, whose defensive angle was not very good, and broke into the penalty area.

Then, facing Iraizos who did not choose to attack, Adriano used his right foot to accurately push the ball into the far corner from ten yards in front of the goal on the left side of the penalty area. After Adriano touched the ball with his right foot, the black and white elf drew a small arc, bypassing Iraizos who was blocking the near corner, and rushed into the far corner of the net!

Sevilla broke the deadlock in the 18th minute of the game and led Espanyol 1-0 in the UEFA Cup final! This goal made the entire Sevilla team ecstatic, as if they would defeat their nervous opponent as easily as they did in last season's final...

Even Li Qi, who jumped on Adriano's back to celebrate, felt that he had already won. However, it was obvious that the final was not that easy, and the Spaniards who had remained undefeated until the final also had something going for them. At least in terms of luck, they were definitely no worse than Sevilla.

After taking the lead, Sevilla decisively slowed down the tempo and began to control the ball; the Spaniard’s offensive organization was once again blocked for a while, and they also realized that Sevilla had deliberately lured the enemy out of its hole, and they suffered from their lack of experience and excessive nervousness!

Both teams began to switch to a more pragmatic defensive counterattack tactic, and the game focused on the battle in the midfield. This was in line with Li Qi's expectations, because in the midfield battle, although Sevilla had one less player, it controlled more ball possession and initiative.

However, about 10 minutes after Sevilla scored, the Spaniards equalized the score, and the goal was conceded due to the careless mistakes of Maresca, the best player in the last UEFA Cup final, and Alves, the best player of the season...

Indeed, after taking the lead, the balance of victory had already begun to tilt towards Sevilla. Seeing that the opponent's attack had no way to deal with the team's impregnable defense, and even the midfield was difficult to pass, the players who performed well in the final last season could not help but want to perform again.

Kanoute and Fabiano, who were at the front, raised their hands to ask for the ball. Li Qi waved and said no, so he could only complain a few words, and then continued to move faster and press the opponent. However, the two on the right were restless at the same time, which was a bit beyond Li Qi's expectation.

Around the 27th minute of the game, Maresca took advantage of Li Qi's cover and did not pass the ball back, but resolutely led the ball to attack from the right wing. Originally, this was nothing, after all, the advantage was in my hands, and it was okay to attack once, but Kanoute and Li Qi had good shooting opportunities in the middle, and Maresca did not pass the ball but wanted to continue to break through and shoot, which was obviously too selfish.

However, under the double-team of Zabaleta and Moiles, Maresca dribbled too much and lost the ball.

Moiles made a direct pass, and Riera launched a counterattack on the left side where Maresca was out of position. Alves' choice at this time was also a bit intriguing. He didn't stick to him immediately, nor did he choose to foul. He actually wanted to play a trick, trying to block Riera and hold the ball under his feet...

Li Qi, who was still on his way back to defense, didn't know how to complain. He actually wanted to play some fancy tricks in defense. How big is his imagination and how high is his confidence?

So Alves made a misjudgment and was dribbled past by Riera; after getting rid of Alves, the latter cut inside the middle and then shot directly from 20 yards in front of the goal!

Alves knew that he made a mistake due to his overconfidence, so he quickly flew to intercept. However, the ball shot by Riera hit the tip of Alves's toes, changed its direction slightly, and drew a strange arc, just bypassing Palop's head and deflecting into the dead corner in the upper left corner of the goal...

World wave! The Spaniard's first shot on target of the game tied the score at 1-1!