In the nagging sound of Xu Yang, the long whistle of the Bahraini referee Abdullah, the game officially began.

After quickly introducing the starters of both sides, Duan Xuan specifically mentioned: "This is the second time that Longteng and Guangzhou Evergrande have met in the knockout round of the AFC Champions League. Last year, the two teams met together in the quarter-finals, forming the first 'Super League derby' of the AFC Champions League, when the two teams did not win or lose in two games, Longteng team played 2:2 at home, Guangzhou Evergrande played 1:1 at home, and finally Guangzhou Evergrande still relied on the advantage of away goals to advance to the semi-finals, but those two games played at a very high level, and the two sides can be regarded as a battle of wits and courage. Now that a year has passed, we look forward to the two sides giving us another Chinese derby feast!"

Xu Yang took advantage of the fact that both sides were playing a little cautiously after the opening and hurriedly introduced: "The team is still these two teams, but both sides have changed a lot. In the two games last year, the Longteng team was still a new team in the Chinese Super League, their absolute core player Pato was injured and missed the game, Ben Alpha and the team's cooperation was not too skilled, but at that time, Ivo was still there, and Ivo also scored a leading goal in the second leg, of course, Wen Kai, who scored in the first leg, Ding Huaiyi and McGovern, who played well at the time, are now no longer in the team, and their captain Shu Jun was transferred to the opponent Guangzhou Evergrande. Guangzhou Evergrande has changed even more, the head coach has changed from Lippi to Scolari, in terms of foreign aid, the previous Gilardino and Diamanti have been different, Paulinho and Goulart's Brazilian combination has replaced the previous Italian combination, the core players and playing style have all changed, and only Elkeson, who had performed well before, is still in the team. ”

"Elkeson is definitely Mr. Big Spec. Duan Xuan took over and said, "I'm very much looking forward to his performance in this game." ”

At this time, the situation on the field of Guangzhou Evergrande was in great contrast with Duan Xuan's expectations.

Scolari has the stubbornness of this top coach in the use of Elkeson, and Elkeson on the field is now more by pulling out space and pulling sides to help Goulart, which means that Elkeson is the wingman and Goulart is the main attacker.

For example, in the fifth minute of the first half, Guangzhou Evergrande began to try to organize the first attack, Elkeson through his own ability, in front of a person involved Ma Yongli and the defender Roque Gil two defensive attention, as a result of the lack of Goulart was ignored, his long shot in front of the penalty area almost broke through the door of the Longteng team, fortunately Lin Feng has been following him closely, so that he was affected when shooting.

Seeing Goulart's shot, Duan Xuan shouted loudly: "Oh, oh, oh! Goulart, long shot, the football flew out against the goalpost, Guangzhou Evergrande's first shot is very threatening, it seems that Goulart is in very good shape today." ”

Zhang Sheng, who was on the sidelines, was also extremely decisive, he made a gesture on the field, asked Ma Yongli and Lu Zhihui to make a position substitution, and let Lu Zhihui be responsible for the top defense of Elkeson, because Lu Zhihui is stronger than Ma Yongli in physical confrontation, even in the face of Elkeson.

It should be said that Zhang Sheng's adjustment was very timely, in the eighth minute, Guangzhou Evergrande launched an attack again, Paulinho cooperated with Zheng Zhi in the middle, and once again put pressure on the middle defense of the Longteng team.

This time it was Elkeson who transitioned in the middle, after receiving Paulinho's pass, he leaned on Lu Zhihui with his body, and then arched the latter with his ass, wanting to turn around and pass the ball to Goulart, but this time he was disappointed, under the squeeze of Elkeson, Lu Zhihui can be said to be as stable as Mount Tai.

It is extremely difficult for a player to pass a good ball to the attacking side without turning, not to mention that Elkeson is not the kind of center with super assist ability, and his ability is more reflected in the destruction of the city.

Therefore, Elkeson, who did not have an advantage in continuous physical confrontation in a very short period of time, could only choose to pass the ball back to Paulinho, and Goulart's clever forward insertion became useless.

Paulinho's long-range shot next didn't pose much of a threat because it was too far away.

Goulart, who had sprinted in vain, was a little unhappy, the timing and line of his forward insertion were very successful, and it was in vain that no one delivered the shells, and after he came out of the penalty area, he stretched out his hands to Elkeson, saying that he had passed the ball in the first place.

Elkeson also raised his hand to indicate that he knew.

Although Elkeson did this action, he also had a pimple in his heart, as a center forward, the task of shooting and attacking was a matter of course, but now he has to play a supporting role, of course he is not happy.

In fact, this is also related to Goulart's playing habits.

As a former Brazilian international, although Goulart has the title of a forward midfielder and has a certain ability to organize attacks, it is his goals that make him enter the national team.

Goulart scored 10 goals in 2013 and 15 goals in 2014 to help Cruzeiro win the Brazilian Liga title, and in both seasons he had five assists.

It can be seen that Goulart is an "attacking midfielder" rather than a "playmaking midfielder" like Conca.

In fact, after Goulart scored 5 goals in the first three official games after coming to Guangzhou Evergrande, when most people were saying that Guangzhou Evergrande's 16 million euros were really worth it, some people faintly raised a question: Evergrande's main intention in introducing Goulart was to ask him to score goals?

With Elkeson's ability, ball intelligence and emotional intelligence, creating opportunities for his teammates is a matter of course, and he doesn't complain too much. But if Elkeson does not get the "right help" from his teammates, especially the strong reinforcements brought in with a lot of money, then it will be a little unfair for Elkeson, you know, Goulart's first official goal came from Elkeson's header, why can't the former return the favor?

It would be wrong to say that Goulart does not have this ability.

During the period when Elkeson was injured in a row, Goulart frequently acted as a playmaker, he had a wonderful mid-pitch stopper, a noticeable increase in the distribution of the ball in front of the penalty area, and Yu Hanchao's goal was also from Goulart's high-quality passes on the wing.

Goulart definitely has the strength to do a good job of "organizational striker" in the Chinese Super League! If he doesn't do it, there must be other reasons.

Therefore, Elkeson's most relaxed and happy period in Evergrande was the period when Conca was in the team. This is because Conca is a "playmaker midfielder" whose technical ability is absolutely above the standard of the Asian category.

Even if Diamanti and Gilardino did not perform well last season, when Lippi ordered Diamanti to retreat, "Diamond" can continue to instigate fighters through his mid-long pass scheduling ability, coupled with Gilardino's "bridgehead" to lead the way, even if he has to pull the side in the position, he can still get a lot of help and form a lot of opportunities.

From here, it can be seen that the only thing that makes Elkeson unhappy on the field, in addition to his physical troubles, comes more from the head coach Scolari.

Historically, it was not for nothing that Elkeson left Guangzhou Evergrande and Scolari brought in Jackson Martinez, because Scolari wanted to have a strong, leading player in the center forward position.

Of course, some unscrupulous reporters, such as Zhao said, when Brazil lost 1:7 to Germany, Elkeson went to the kitchen to heat up a bread when he was hungry, and when he came back, he found that the score had become 0:3, and what Elkeson said that even if he and Evergrande's Chinese players went to play Germany, they would not play a score of 1:7, which is obviously a rumor.

It's just that when Elkeson left Guangzhou Evergrande, he specially thanked the club and Lippi, and even said later that he was very happy to cooperate with a high-level coach like Eriksen, but he didn't say Scolari, obviously he still had ideas in his heart.

Zhang Sheng, as a traverser, of course, knows how Scolari uses Elkeson, and has a targeted deployment for such tactics.

Next, Elkeson, who was the bridgehead, was "taken care of" by Lu Zhihui and Roque Gill, and the ball passed to his feet and head by Guangzhou Evergrande always brought the attack to a halt.

Scolari, who was standing on the sidelines, frowned tightly, thinking about how to solve this problem through adjustment, because now Guangzhou Evergrande's offensive is extremely fierce, and such an offensive is completely supported by the players' crazy running and confrontation, but this situation cannot last long, no team can continue with such a high intensity, once it can't score at the best of its physical fitness, it will be difficult to say next.

Soon Scolari made adjustments to the positioning of the players on the field, and Goulart and Elkeson, who had been concentrated in the middle, were slightly pulled to form a double center impact situation, and Guangzhou Evergrande changed from a 4-2-3-1 formation at the beginning of the game to a 4-2-2-2-2 formation.

This tactical adjustment is a very routine change for Scolari.

When he coached the Brazilian national team for the second time, he was most stubborn.

The first is that he has always liked to use a forward bridgehead, and when he coached Brazil for the second time, he no longer had a world-class goalscorer like Da Luo, and still insisted on using a pure nine, reusing Fred under heavy pressure, rather than using a strikerless lineup.

The second is to convert 4231 into 4222 with wide players who have strong ability to assist up and down. At the beginning, Neymar began to be taken seriously by Scolari, and began to lean more towards the middle, close to the goal, and formed a double arrow with Fred (or Ruo), at this time, Oscar moved from the middle to the left, echoing Willian left and right, and the two were appropriately adducted, vacating the corridor on the wing, allowing the full-backs to attack.

Finally, Scolari also had a 3-4-3 formation, just like he did at the 2002 World Cup, relying on three centre-backs and two midfielders to defend the defence, while the wing-backs and the three-Rs up front were combined to penetrate the opposition's defence. It's just that the current Guangzhou Evergrande does not have such a personnel reserve.

When Scolari changed the lineup, all this was already expected by Zhang Sheng, so Zhang Sheng immediately made adjustments, that is, to take advantage of the weakness of 4222 without pure wingers and can only rely on fullback assists, so that Pato and Yu Bo kept impacting the gaps left after the assists of the two fullbacks of Guangzhou Evergrande; at the same time, when Lin Feng and Roque Gildo entangled Huang Bowen and Zheng Long, the two wingers, and cut off the route for the two of them to send the ball to the forwards; and finally let Tao Wentao and Nie Jiang return to the defense more, harassing Zheng Zhi and Paulinho, and preventing the two of them from taking the ball easily.

Sure enough, in the next game, Guangzhou Evergrande played very awkwardly.

In the fifteenth minute of the first half, the right side composed of Huang Bowen and Liu Jian launched an attack on the left side of the Longteng team, and at the same time, Goulart also came to respond.

As a unique advantage of the 4222 tactic, it can pass the threat ball in the opponent's two ribs, and there is an inherent routine in this way of passing the threat, that is, the two-by-one collision between the winger and the striker.

This time, Guangzhou Evergrande's players chose exactly this way.

As the fullback Liu Jian who came up with an assist, he is actually just a pretense in order to draw the defensive attention of the Longteng team, and the real killing still depends on Huang Bowen and Goulart.

Sure enough, when Liu Jian slipped along the side, Huang Bowen shook his ankle and made a gesture to pass to Liu Jian, and suddenly turned the direction and passed the ball to Goulart, who came out of the penalty area to pick up, Goulart's retreat made Ma Yongli follow, and it was Roque Gill who came back from the back position to fill Ma Yongli.

Roque Gill's run was a key point that Zhang Sheng had highlighted many times before the game, which was to prevent the opposition from taking advantage of the gaps in the central defenders. Sure enough, Goulart did not let the ball stay at his feet more in front of the penalty area, but knocked the ball diagonally under his very hidden feet, and after the football was touched, the direction of running was the direction in which Huang Bowen ran after passing.

As early as when Huang Bowen passed the ball, Yu Bo, as a fullback, had already followed Huang Bowen's side, when Goulart's ball came over, Yu Bo made a physical squeeze for the first time, when Huang Bowen, who was 1.77 meters and weighed more than 130 pounds, met Yu Bowen, who was 1.86 meters and weighed nearly 160 pounds, the consequences can be imagined.

Such a one-in-half chance ball depends on who has the stronger confrontation ability, and it is obvious that this time it is Yu Bo who wins.

When Yu Bo squeezed away Huang Bowen, when he got the ball, he immediately chose the weakest place of Guangzhou Evergrande, which is now completely empty.

Yu Bo's pass directly found Xiao Yunfan, who was quickly inserted from the side.

It should be said that at this time, the tacit understanding between Yu Bo and Xiao Yunfan who have been playing together since childhood has played a role, the former knows the latter's speed and habit of touching the ball well, and his passing is just the most comfortable place for Xiao Yunfan to catch the ball, and the corresponding is Liu Jian, who is chasing back frantically behind Xiao Yunfan.

Seeing that Xiao Yunfan had crossed the halfway and was about to reach the 30-meter defensive area of Guangzhou Evergrande, an Evergrande player rushed over diagonally, and used an extremely beautiful sliding tackle to shovel the ball out of the sideline from Xiao Yunfan's feet.

It was Paulinho who made this crucial defense. 10