You and I, we can ride on the stars.

****

9:19 p.m.

32nd minute of the first half.

Nicholas had wanted to make a change two minutes ago. Phil Beasley hit the post and Rojas clearly had a bit of a problem with the anticipation. And when he saw that Van der Bergh had too hard a leg and a yellow card for Leon Ferreira, he finally couldn't sit idly by.

For the last ten minutes, he has been trying to understand the thinking of the opposing manager. At the start of the game, she put Patrick in possession and used Patrick's individual ability to constantly hit areas where she thought Real Madrid might be vulnerable, which was a test. Two possible outcomes are possible:

If the blow is good, it means that you can maintain this form, keep attacking, and try to score goals quickly.

If the blow is not effective, then it is necessary to choose a strategy to reduce the risk and use gradual cannibalization to consume Real Madrid while controlling the situation.

With Real Madrid's defense doing an excellent job in the opening stanza, it was the second scenario that happened. But before she could change the way she played the game, she conceded a goal -

This is the point that puzzles Nicholas the most.

Tina is no longer the Christine Lu who lost to him 4-1 at Loftus Road. With what he knew about her now, she would have had the results of this test about 10 or 15 minutes into the game. But she didn't adjust in time, causing her team to concede a goal in the 17th minute.

This is a mistake. It was a mistake she could hardly have made now.

Why?

At first, Nicholas thought that it might be because of the atmosphere of the game and the environment of the final that affected her decisiveness in her decision. But is it really? Two years ago, in the two games he lost to her, she was already a lot better at improvising than she was at the beginning of her tenure. Moreover, she had not made too many mistakes in the previous two legs of the semi-finals against AC Milan, especially when the first leg may have been influenced by Massimo Romano's words. He didn't think it was the outside world that influenced her decision.

So what is she waiting for?

If he had set up this opening tactic, he would have changed his strategy in the 15th minute, or even earlier, if he saw that the momentum was not right.

In a short period of time, Nicholas could only think of one possibility.

It's that she didn't communicate with Patrick before the game about the tactical requirements of giving up the ball at this stage. The plan was in her mind, but she didn't tell Patrick until after conceding the ball. Probably in her mind, she didn't want to force Patrick to do what he didn't want to do, she didn't want to highly restrict his freedom until it really mattered.

In Nicholas's opinion, this is ridiculous. 166 Reading Network