Chapter 232: Before the Premier League Season, Part (Breaking News)

The two sides fought fiercely and the game was fast-paced. However, as the first official game of the new season, both sides were obviously not in their best form and made frequent mistakes; the scene was more intense than exciting.

In the 21st minute, Manchester United had the first chance. Vidic intercepted the ball in the backcourt and passed it to Ronaldo, who rushed from the left to the left side of the Chelsea penalty area, but Ben Haim risked his tackle to break the ball. But the ball rolled to Giggs on the other side, but the Welsh winger's powerful shot from 12 yards in front of the goal on the right side of the penalty area was bravely saved by Chelsea goalkeeper Cech over the crossbar.

Then Chelsea almost scored in the 27th minute. Sylvester fouled Glen Johnson, Malouda made a free kick from the right, Essien rushed to the front point and headed the ball from 6 yards in front of the goal, but Mikel, who was lurking at the back point, missed the ball that slipped past the goal, and the ball finally hit the post and went out of the bottom line.

Both sides had chances, but Manchester United broke the deadlock and took the lead in the 34th minute.

Evra played a wall-to-wall match with Ronaldo on the left, breaking through the joint defense of Wright-Phillips and Glen Johnson. Then the French defender made a triangle pass near the left bottom line of the penalty area, but Mikel and Carvalho were unable to intercept and block it. This time Giggs did not let the opportunity slip away again, and shot with his left foot from 11 yards in front of the goal, sending the ball into the net.

However, Chelsea equalized the score before the end of the first half.

In the 45th minute, Ashley Cole made a long pass from the left, Malouda got rid of Ferdinand on the left side of the penalty area, and volleyed the ball into the far corner with the outside of his left foot from 7 yards in front of the goal! Van der Sar was helpless against Malouda's amazing shot.

The two sides tied 1-1 and returned to the same starting line for the halftime break. In the halftime, neither side made any substitutions. In the second half, the red and blue teams continued to play at a high intensity and fast pace.

In the 49th minute, Manchester United had another golden opportunity. Evra broke through Glen Johnson on the left and made a cross. Ronaldo stopped the ball and dribbled past Ashley Cole 8 yards in front of the goal before his left-foot shot was saved by Cech.

Rooney then grabbed the ball from the left side of the penalty area, and after being blocked by Ben Haim, he passed it back to Giggs, who followed up with a low shot from 15 yards in front of the goal, which was blocked by Cech again. Chelsea escaped!

Then, the coaches of both teams began to make adjustments. First, Mourinho replaced Malouda, the goal scorer, with Pizarro in the 52nd minute. To be honest, Malouda's performance in this game was a bit sluggish. Apart from that wonderful goal, he was almost invisible throughout the game and made many mistakes.

In the 58th minute of the game, Ferguson replaced Sylvester with Li Qi as the right midfielder, and put Ronaldo on the front line, changing to 4-4-2 to strengthen the attack.

After Li Qi came on the field, he really brought different pressure to Chelsea's defense. Although Li Qi's cooperation with Manchester United teammates was still a little unfamiliar, after two failed attempts, Li Qi no longer deliberately pursued cooperation, but sought simpler short passes and more aggressive high-pressure defense. When there was space, Li Qi would forcefully break through and pass the ball to create chaos in Chelsea's penalty area...

However, Li Qi's simple and clear tactical style achieved good results in the Community Shield, where both teams were not in good form. Li Qi's breakthrough was not sharp, but Chelsea's defense also made frequent mistakes.

Upon seeing this, Sir Alex Ferguson directly arranged for Giggs and Lizzie to switch sides, allowing Lizzie to cut in from the left with his opposite foot and interact directly with Ronaldo and Rooney in the middle of the penalty area, while Giggs looked for secondary attack opportunities at the far end and outside.

After changing sides, Li Qi's cut-in was indeed more effective.

In the 65th minute of the game, Li Qi first pressed high and intercepted Ashley Cole's pass, then decisively stopped the ball and cut in. Facing the backup defense of Mikel, his old rival in the World Youth Championship, Li Qi did not choose to blindly carry out complicated passes and cuts with Ronaldo and Rooney in the crowd, but changed direction and carried Mikel sideways to continue to rush to the corner of the penalty area.

Li Qi was gambling. Mikel would not dare to kick recklessly in the dangerous area. In addition, if he could rush into the edge of the penalty area, Mikel would not dare to act blindly. After all, he lost two penalties in the World Youth Championship...

But Li Qi underestimated how strong Mikel was. When the latter came up to him, without making any extra moves, Li Qi felt a huge force coming and almost lost his balance and almost lost control of the ball.

Fortunately, Li Qi triggered the breaking point moment, staggered and barely stabilized his body, and used his body to separate the ball from Mikel. At the same time, he observed a small gap in the penalty area and the position of goalkeeper Cech...

Seeing that Li Qi was about to rush into the penalty area with the ball, Mikel did not dare to stretch out his hands and feet, for fear that Li Qi would fake a fall and create a penalty. He just kept his body close to Li Qi to affect Li Qi's balance, and at the same time blocked the angle of Li Qi's shot or pass, driving Li Qi towards the corner flag.

If Ashley Cole returned to double-team in time, Li Qi would have surrendered, and it would have been good to win a corner kick. But Ashley Cole did not return to defense in time, giving Li Qi a space to turn around near the corner of the penalty area.

After Li Qi pushed forward against Mikel and continued to push forward into the penalty area for a few steps, he suddenly did a Cruyff turn and walked back, instantly getting rid of Mikel's close entanglement. Mikel's body was stiff for about half a second due to the inertia of the wrestling, and he couldn't get close to Li Qi immediately.

Li Qi used this half second to turn halfway, recalling the angle and goalkeeper's position he had just observed at the outbreak point, and shot a curve ball with his right foot, heading straight for the upper corner of the far post of Chelsea's goal. It was a lob shot that was beyond everyone's expectations.

Most of Chelsea's defense was tied up by Ronaldo and Rooney in the middle and far end of the penalty area, while the other two midfielders, Essien and Lampard, seeing that Mikel had already stuck to Li Qi, focused more on protecting the top of the penalty area and guarding against Giggs.

Cech was also preparing to block the near corner, because after Li Qi's several breakthroughs on the right, he used a powerful low ball to sweep the middle, and it was better to intercept such crosses from the near corner, otherwise it would cause chaos if it was passed to the middle or the back point. So not only Chelsea's defense was on guard against Li Qi's next cross, Cech also expected this; and with Mikel closely guarding him, he could only barely shoot into the near corner at most...

No one could have predicted that Li Qi would use a back dribble to get rid of Mikel's close entanglement, and no one could have expected that Li Qi would use this half second to shoot directly into the far corner without any adjustment or aiming.

When Cech reacted and turned around to dive for the far corner of the goal, he slipped because his center of gravity was not adjusted in time.

At this moment, Cech completely lost the chance to save the lob, and could only watch Li Qi's not-so-fast arc shot fall into the 9-point corner of the far post...

"Ditch oooooh! Ditch oooooh! Ditch!"

"Manchester United has surpassed the score again! The score is 2-1, and the goal scorer is Manchester United's No. 17 Ricardo Richie!"

Under the sound waves created by the DJ on the scene, Manchester United's players jumped over and pressed Li Qi, who was originally planning to cover his ears to celebrate...

With a look of horror, Li Qi protected his hairstyle: "No! Don't play stacking..." Then Li Qi was knocked down on the grass by the big brothers of Manchester United, and then pressed on to celebrate the new guy's first goal in an official match!

Not long after Li Qi scored, the Magic Bird replaced Ashley Cole, who was not active in returning to defense, with Diarra, and then replaced Joe Cole with 18-year-old young player Sinclair, learning from Manchester United to increase the attacking ability on the wing, while directing Chelsea to launch a large-scale counterattack in an effort to equalize the score.

Sir Alex Ferguson also replaced Giggs with Fletcher and rearranged the 4-3-3 defensive formation with three defensive midfielders. Li Qi switched back to the right winger position, and let Ronaldo cut inside from the left winger position to continue to attack the flank of Chelsea's defense.

However, after Manchester United missed several good counterattack opportunities, when the game reached the 81st minute, Chelsea's counterattack was indeed effective.

Pizarro received a direct pass from Mikel at the top of the penalty area, and after protecting the ball with his back, he cleverly knocked the ball between Ferdinand's legs into the penalty area. Sinclair, who came on as a substitute, rushed out of the crowd, successfully beat the offside, and was about to raise his foot to shoot from the left rib of the penalty area.

So Wes Brown, who came to defend, immediately chose to fly and block Sinclair's shooting angle. But unexpectedly, the latter did not impulsively choose to shoot, but faked a shot and dribbled it, avoiding Wes Brown's tackle. However, Sinclair did not challenge Van der Sar who was attacking and Vidic who was returning to defense, but fell behind Wes Brown, and it seemed that he was knocked down by Wes Brown's reckless tackle...

The referee decisively awarded a yellow card and a penalty, and no matter how much Wes Brown and Manchester United players pleaded, the decision could not be changed.

With the game entering the last ten minutes, winning a crucial penalty was indeed a great opportunity for Chelsea to come back to life. After equalizing the score, the momentum was boosted and it was not impossible to reverse the score and win the game!

Chelsea captain Lampard took the penalty kick himself. Lampard carefully placed the ball at the penalty spot, stepped on the grass near the penalty spot, squinted his eyes and aimed at the goal, then paced and prepared to run; then Lampard stretched his right leg and used the arch of his foot to volley the ball hard into the middle and lower part of the ball, with sufficient force and just the right contact point...

Bang! But this penalty kick flying to the lower right corner of the goal was blocked by Van der Sar with one hand!

This is amazing! Even if Lampard's penalty kick was not shot at the 90th corner, it could still score 1 points in terms of the power and angle of the shot. However, it was predicted by Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar. With a height of 97 meters and a wingspan comparable to that of an NBA player, he blocked the penalty kick before the ball crossed the goal line.

Li Qi grabbed the rebounding ball in the first place and cleared it out of bounds in time. Then he turned around and frantically stroked the golden hair of Big Brother Van der Sar, saying that he was celebrating with his teammates for Van der Sar's amazing save. It was probably a malicious revenge for being stacked by the big brothers. However... Big Brother Edwin didn't seem to have done anything to him just now. Oh, forget it, just leave it at that. Don't worry about these details!

Chelsea failed to score the penalty kick afterwards, and the game was already over. The fact that they did not allow Manchester United to score the third goal through counterattack was a sign of strong morale and unity.

In the end, Manchester United defeated Chelsea 2-1 with Giggs's first goal, Lizzie's second goal and Van der Sar's magical penalty save, winning the first championship of the 07/08 season - the Community Shield, which marked a good start for the new season!

This is also Manchester United's twelfth Community Shield championship medal, making it the team with the most championships in the history of this tournament.

@

However, some people believe that winning the Community Shield is not a good thing for Manchester United, who are ambitious in the new season. Because the Community Shield is a poisonous championship. This is the story of the Community Shield curse, that is, the team that wins the Community Shield will often not be able to win the Premier League in the new season.

This is indeed a high-probability event in previous Community Shield and Premier League matches, but there are exceptions, such as Chelsea in the 05/06 season. The Blues defeated Arsenal 2-1 at the beginning of the season and eventually won the Premier League title that season.

According to old Li Qi, this curse is still very effective in the following seasons, and not many teams can break it. However, Ricardo doesn't care much, because in the past two seasons, Manchester United could have broken this curse; so with his own strong reinforcements, what else is there to worry about?