Chapter 20: The Battle of Italy and Argentina, Part

In the first half, Argentina had some chances through active pressing and tireless movement between the two wings, but unfortunately Cardoso and Alchubi missed two excellent opportunities in front of the goal.

Messi, however, did not get many opportunities to perform under Li Qi's close care.

It seemed that Argentina played more proactively, passing the ball forward and attempting more breakthroughs.

Although Italy played a bit dull and rigid in the first half, they had a relative advantage in ball possession and number of shots, with a ball possession rate of nearly 60% and 9 shots to Argentina's 4.

In the first half, the Italian team had eight set-piece opportunities, including three corner kicks, and had several good chances to score, but their luck was a little bad and they did not end up scoring a goal.

Right winger Rossi was very active in cutting inside, but did not get a good chance to shoot, and his only long-range shot was a cannon.

On the other side, Bentivoglio made four long-distance passes, two of which were successful, but center forward Pelle failed to seize the opportunity...

During the half-time break, the TV commentator summarized the wonderful performances of both teams in the first half.

In the locker room, the head coaches of both teams were busy arranging tactics.

On the Italian side, Li Qi exchanged views with Casiraghi on Messi's deep retreat in the final period of the first half and the response plan.

In the end, Casiraghi also agreed with Li Qi's idea, and expressed to the team that he would launch a general attack after 60 minutes based on Argentina's physical strength and condition!

On the Argentine side, Ferraro was also studying Li Qi's playing style of playing as a defensive midfielder and Italy's disgusting set-piece tactics...

But there weren't many good solutions; all we could say was that when Argentina attacked, Messi continued to retreat on a large scale to support the attack, creating space for Biglia or Cardoso to take turns attacking the middle.

But when defending, Ferraro could only instruct the team to strengthen the pressing and man-marking in response to Italy's shabby positional attack. However, he also had to consider the issue of allocating physical strength, and half-court defense would also work...

Finally it was Italy's turn to kick off in the second half. Li Qi consoled himself: It doesn't matter if we didn't kick off first in the first half, we can kick off in the second half.

At the beginning of the second half, Argentina started to grab...

However, this time even the other Italian players felt that Argentina's speed began to slow down, which was much worse than the beginning of the first half.

Li Qi easily transferred to both sides and broke through Argentina's pressing...

Seeing that Argentina had failed to grab the ball after more than two minutes of trying, and that it really needed to allocate its energy properly to avoid being counterattacked by Italy, it stopped trying and retreated to the other half of the court to defend.

Li Qi passed the ball slowly in the backcourt, thinking that he would let Argentina grab the ball for a while and continue to consume their energy...

I turned around and saw that they had all retreated, even the little fleas that often jumped around me in the first half stopped bothering me...

That's fine, I can handle the ball calmly...

In the 50th minute of the second half, Argentina launched a wing attack. Zabaleta made a diagonal pass to the middle, and Messi rushed forward after receiving the ball, but was forced to the right corner by Li Qi who followed up...

Finally, Messi forced a cross with his right foot, which bounced off Li Qi's legs and went out of the baseline. This was Argentina's first corner kick of the game.

This time, Cardoso took Argentina's corner kick. The corner kick flew into the small penalty area, but Viviano jumped up and easily caught it in his arms...

Just as Viviano was about to kneel down with the ball and pretend to be a good kid, he suddenly heard the boss yelling at him to hurry up. He had to quickly throw the ball to Li Qi who was almost running to the midline...

It turned out that just before the corner kick, Li Qi suddenly had an inspiration. Yes, Messi can learn from me to retreat over a large area to receive the ball and then attack, so why can't I learn from Messi and make a high-speed breakthrough?

Especially when Li Qi saw this corner kick, he saw that the main defensive players of Argentina in the midfield and backcourt, because of their height, all came to the Italian penalty area to compete for the header...

So what if they all come? Isn't it just delivering food?!

So can we have a counterattack this time? Hmm?! There is a chance!

"Here! Emiliano, drive, give me the ball!"

Li Qi hooked Viviano's long-distance hand-thrown ball with his heel, and took advantage of the situation to lift it in front of him. While most of the Argentine defenders were still in the Italian penalty area, he accelerated and passed Barroso who was blocking him...

Barroso, who was dribbled past, didn't even have time to hesitate whether to commit a foul. The Italian number 10 had never dribbled forward before, so how could he be so fast? !

Fortunately, Barroso did not raise his hand to commit a foul. Li Qi had seen that Barroso had a yellow card and deliberately rushed towards him violently. If he couldn't get through, the referee might give the other party a yellow card, which would be a huge profit!

But now that we're here... let's speed up!

Just after passing the center circle, Zabaleta felt that Li Qi was lying too far, so he gave up retreating and rushed forward to try to steal the ball.

Who knew that Li Qi's speed was beyond his imagination. He took the lead and touched the ball with his left foot, pushed it to the side, then crossed left and right to easily avoid Zabaleta's tackle, and continued to advance quickly towards Argentina's defensive zone 3...

This is also the reason why Li Qi was always passing the ball slowly in the previous games, which made Argentina misjudge Li Qi's speed and explosiveness, thinking that Li Qi was just an organizing midfielder with excellent skills, balance and strength...

Although the above is already abnormal, now with this explosive power and speed... he can obviously play as a winger!

(Li Qi: Yes, I played as a winger...)

There was only one defensive player left in front of the Argentine goalkeeper in the half, Formica. He was even more afraid to rush for the ball, and decisively retreated while blocking the position...

All the Argentine players in the front court were running back at full speed, and Messi, who was leading the crowd, was sprinting back...

But it was obviously too late, Li Qi shouted to remind Rossi not to be offside!

After dribbling the ball diagonally to create an angle, he faked a shot and passed the ball. Whether or not he fooled Formica was not important. He passed the ball diagonally behind Formica...

Rossi, who received the reminder, retreated half a step to avoid the possibility of offside, and then ambushed not far from Li Qi, ready to respond at any time...

Seeing Li Qi pass the ball, he immediately rushed forward, and before the goalkeeper fell to the ground to block him, he lightly touched the ball with his left foot, dribbled past the goalkeeper, and then shot into the empty goal near the small penalty area...

Gooooaaal! Gooooaaal! Goal!

At this time, apart from Formica, Messi, who was the closest to him, was still at the top of the gourd and could only watch the ball go into the net...

Italy broke the deadlock first, 1-0!

Messi looked at the Italian players celebrating in the distance and couldn't help but clench his fists. They can't lose!

Argentina kicked off from the center circle again, and immediately stepped up their pressing and attacking, which really caused some trouble for the Italian team...

As soon as Li Qi stole the ball, he was tackled by Cardoso from behind, leaving him no chance...

Cardoso spat: "Asshole! You deceived us for so long!"

(Li Qi:???!!! It’s so unfair…)

However, just 5 minutes later, Argentina equalized the score.

Argentina's full-court pressing lasted for 5 minutes, which made Italy busy for a while.

Li Qi was also kicked several times secretly...

Another foul, Italy got a set-piece in the backcourt, Li Qi passed the ball to Motta at right back...

Motta didn't know whether it was because of the change in mentality after taking the lead or because of the constant pressure from the Argentine Oberman that he got a little panicked. This time he didn't have the patience to cooperate with Li Qi to organize the formation to move forward, but directly kicked the ball forward to find Pelle...

Pelle did head the ball, but the power was not strong enough when the ball headed towards Bentivoglio. While Bentivoglio was waiting for the ball, Zabaleta intercepted it.

At this time, Li Qi was a little panicked, because when Li Qi took the free kick, Messi had already bypassed and went to the right side away from Li Qi, just in front of Zabaleta...

This time, Zabaleta did not work alone, but passed the ball directly to Messi on the side...

Seeing Messi's expression when he stopped the ball from afar, Li Qi knew that something was wrong, and Messi's "explosion point moment" was coming again...

As expected, Messi started to speed up, touched the ball several times with his left foot, bypassed Criscito who was pressing forward, and then faced Nocerino who was particularly active in this game...

But Nocerino didn't dare to foul directly because he had a yellow card. He could only put his hand on Messi's shoulder and kept close to Messi...

Although Messi was affected a little, it did not affect his continued dribbling forward...

Messi deliberately avoided Li Qi's line. When Li Qi went to defend, there were still several people between him and Li Qi, especially Nocerino, who just helped Messi separate Li Qi.

Li Qi could only defend the middle, allowing Canini to intercept Messi from the front...

Messi was seen between Canini and Nocerino, and he used his left foot to move left and right continuously to create a narrow passage and rush into the penalty area...

But Canini, who was trying to steal the ball, helped Messi block Nocerino. Messi broke away from the close defense and faced the goalkeeper directly!

Even with Li Qi's excellent dynamic vision, which he had developed through years of practicing table tennis and badminton, he didn't see clearly how Messi just passed the ball and got rid of Canini and Nocerino...

The commentators in front of the TV must have been exclaiming: "How did it pass?! You have to watch it several times in 0.2x slow motion... It's too abnormal!"

Seeing that Messi was ready to shoot with his right foot as soon as he entered the penalty area, Li Qi could only prepare to block Messi's shot...

But Messi's shot was really amazing. Even though it was with his left foot, he kicked it very quickly and with great force, and he shot the ball directly into the upper corner of the near corner of the goal...

Gooooaaal! Gooooaaal! Goal!

There wasn't much problem with Viviano's position, but Viviano probably only felt a gust of wind in front of him, and the net behind him moved...

Aiming at the 10-minute corner above the near corner, and shooting in the face not far from the small penalty area, any normal human goalkeeper would lie down and accept his fate, leaving it to God...

Unless I didn't react and didn't dodge...

Okay, Li Qi doesn't need to put down the shovel anymore, just watch...

The score is back to the same starting line.

However, the balance of victory has already tilted towards Italy. Li Qi thought anxiously, maybe Casiraghi has also discovered it, or maybe Ferraro has also discovered it?

After Messi's wonderful shot helped Argentina equalize the score, Argentina's morale was boosted and they pressed Italy for another 5 minutes...

But Argentina's head coach Ferraro stood on the sidelines again, frowning...

Less than 60 minutes into the game, the Italian team requested a substitution, with No. 18 Cozzolino coming on and No. 17 Bentivoglio coming off; No. 18 Cozzolino stood at the right winger position after coming on, replacing Rossi at the left winger position...

This is Casiraghi's signal to start speeding up the attack!

Before Italy scored, Li Qi noticed that, except for the first few shots at the beginning of the game, the speed of several key Argentine players had obviously dropped. For example, although Cardoso was still pressing fiercely, he had not actively asked for the ball for nearly 10 minutes. And Zabaleta, who was flying up and down in the first half, never held the ball to attack in the second half. He basically took two steps with the ball and passed it away...

In addition, after Italy scored first, Argentina spent nearly 10 minutes pressing the ball with high pressure; Argentina was already at the end of its strength, or the goal just now was actually Argentina's last gasp...

It's Italy's turn to speed up the siege of Argentina!

Soon Italy took control of the tempo of the game and began to siege Argentina in the half...

Argentina was still trying to fight back and forth for about 5 minutes at the beginning, but after a few rounds, they found that they were unable to keep up and could only defend themselves with difficulty. Therefore, they could only get a chance to catch their breath by constantly committing fouls.

The game came to the 66th minute, and Li Qi thought it was a lucky moment (it was just like his birthday, June 6). Italy got a free kick in a good position. Cozzolino, who had just come on, rushed from the wing to the middle and was knocked down by Biglia not far from the corner of the penalty area...

Li Qi handled the set-piece: he took a run-up, kicked the ball, and then the ball went around the wall in a strong arc and flew towards Argentina's small penalty area at high speed...

This time the ball also went to the back point, and the four-man melee team in the middle also watched the ball pass over their heads...

This time it was Motta who beat Zabaleta to the goal, but this time he did not head the ball directly. Instead, he headed the ball back to the front of the goal!

The four-man melee team in the middle watched helplessly as the ball was pushed back and even bounced past them, but no one had the chance or time to react to stretch out their feet to reach the ball...

The goalkeeper also watched the ball pass through the goal again...

The ball went back to the near corner...

Cozzolino, who was lurking in the near corner, easily knocked the ball into the goal...

At this time, the Argentine goalkeeper flew over in surprise, but theoretically it was too late...

However, I don't know if it was because Cozzolino had just come on the court and had not warmed up yet, or was just too nervous, but he didn't have enough strength when he kicked the ball with his dominant right foot, and his kick was a bit towards the middle, allowing Ustari to catch the ball when he came back!

Then Ustari, who blocked the ball, continued to move forward and crashed into the net, but the ball stayed on the goal line, spinning in place and slowly rolling towards the goal...

"Li Qi took the free throw and kicked the ball back..."

"Motta got the point!"

"Middle...near corner! Cozzolino!"

"Ustari! It's amazing!"

"Pelle!"

"Gooooaaal! Gooooaaal! Goal!"

"Pellet got there first and slotted the ball into the net on the goal line!"

"Italy takes the lead again with a set piece!"

Pellet excitedly took off his clothes to celebrate...

Hmm? No need to give a yellow card?

Oh, it still has to be given. Yes, according to the regulations after July 2004, 7, taking off clothes to celebrate will result in a yellow card.

This big fool...but he finally got the ball in...

Argentina fell behind again, but this time Argentina's counterattack after the kick-off was obviously weak, more like a show, tickling Italy's defense, and did not threaten Italy's defensive zone 3 at all...

After a few rounds, Italy quickly regained the initiative and continued to rub Argentina in the half court...

Hey, the Italian team is leading now!

"Where are they? Hmm..." Seeing Messi with his hands on his hips, panting...

Should I follow him or not? Li Qi hesitated again...

"Let's follow for a while, just in case there's another God-like explosion moment?!"

"Anyway, it doesn't matter if I'm here or not, let Montolivo lead the team and have some fun for a while..."