On January 7, 2020, at the San Siro Stadium, the 20th round of Serie A and the first round of the second half of the season, AC Milan hosted the visiting Roma.

In the first leg, Zhang Shujie did not play due to injury, and AC Milan won 2-1 away, and that game was more difficult to win. Despite a goal alike from Cutrone and Andre Silva, the duo also squandered plenty of chances, and now Zhang Shujie will be doing everything in his power to help Milan get a big win when they face Roma for the first time this season.

Zhang Shujie did not disappoint the fans, he scored two goals in this game, increased his league goal tally to 25, and also assisted Chen Zihua to score a goal, helping Milan beat Roma 3-0.

In the next four games, Zhang Shujie scored four goals, one in each game, which is not easy to have such a number of goals if it were replaced by other players, but for Zhang Shujie, only four goals in four games is obviously a little less. "Milan Sports Daily" said: "Zhang Shujie only played the whole game in two of the four games, and the last game only played 70 minutes. But Zhang Shujie did not complain about this, because he knew that the purpose of Inzaghi's two substitutions was to give him a good rest, especially in the fourth game, and he was replaced 20 minutes before the end of the game to prepare for the upcoming Champions League. ”

AC Milan topped the group stage, with their first opponent in the Champions League being defending champions Atletico Madrid, while Atletico Madrid had a mediocre group stage, finishing second with just one point behind top-placed Borussia Dortmund.

This match is also considered a revenge battle for AC Milan. AC Milan played away in the first round, and although Atletico Madrid were the defending champions and defeated AC Milan in the final, the media were still more optimistic about AC Milan, after all, AC Milan was stronger overall.

However, the result of the match was somewhat surprising, as Atletico Madrid beat AC Milan 2-1 at home. Zhang Shujie opened the scoring in the 28th minute to give Milan the lead with his eighth Champions League goal, but in the second half, Antoine Griezmann scored twice in the 59th and 64th minutes to help his side win at home.

Speaking after the game, Inzaghi said: "To be honest I was a bit surprised, I think we lost a game that we didn't deserve, there was a bit of a gap between the two halves and in the first half we controlled the tempo and created chances. But in the second half we had only rhythm and we didn't get a good chance to score. But it doesn't matter, it's just 2-1 and we have one away goal and I'm sure we can beat Atletico by at least two goals at home. ”

Simeone said: "We won at home but we allowed Milan to score away goals, and to be honest, the next leg at the San Siro may not be very optimistic. But if you think about it, we only need a draw to advance, so the first goal in the second leg is to defend well. ”

The defeat did not put much pressure on the AC Milan players, and in the next three rounds of Serie A and one round of the Coppa Italia, Zhang Shujie played all of them, scoring six goals, and only did not score in the 25th round of the league against Fiorentina. He has now improved his Serie A goal tally by 33 and continues to lead AC Milan to the top of the Serie A table.

Inzaghi hopes that Zhang Shujie can bring his good form to the Champions League, and now AC Milan is exactly when they need to win, if they want to win, they have to score, and Zhang Shujie is the biggest guarantee for the team to score.

In the second leg of the round of 16, AC Milan sat at home and welcomed Atletico Madrid. As Simeone said, Atletico really put on a defensive position and were bound to hold 2: Milan did encounter stubborn resistance from Atletico Madrid in the opening game, and AC Milan had nine shots on goal in the entire first half, but only two were on target, while Atletico had only three shots on goal, one hitting the woodwork.

After a 0-0 draw at half-time, some AC Milan fans began to worry that if Atletico continued to defend until the end of the game, AC Milan would have to prepare for next season's Champions League after playing in the round of 16. This is absolutely unacceptable for the Rossoneri, who have reached three finals and won two titles in three years, but how can they break through Atletico's dense defence?

Zhang Shujie gave the answer, his header in the 60th minute of the second half turned the score to 1:0, and the aggregate score was 2:2, with AC Milan with one away goal dominating. Zhang Shujie's header was very exciting, he jumped to the highest air, and had a short stop in mid-air, the incredible stagnation can be felt even without slow motion. Even if Savage and Tang Ling around him jumped to the highest, they only let their heads reach his chest in front of him, so you can imagine how high Zhang Shujie jumped.

The on-site commentator said that Zhang Shujie left the surface of the earth during the battle for the top: "When Zhang Shujie was competing for this header, when he jumped to the highest point, it seemed that he had broken away from gravity and stopped in the air waiting for the ball to arrive! This may be unbelievable, but this is a fact, only after seeing it with your own eyes will you understand that there are football players in the world with such amazing bounce power, and he is stronger than Ronaldo!"

Chen Hui wrote four words in his record: Mount Tai is overwhelming! These four words seem simple, but they describe Zhang Shujie's bounce power very accurately. Look at Tang Ling and Savage, even if they jumped to the highest in front of Zhang Shujie, they felt like they hadn't jumped.

And Zhang Shujie's second header was also a header: Rodriguez crossed from the left, Zhang Shujie took two steps back in the penalty area, jumped high, and threw his head back at the commanding height, the ball bypassed Ter Stegen's finger and fell into the goal. The score became 2:0 and the aggregate score was 3:2!

If Atletico Madrid are to progress to the quarter-finals, they will have to score two more goals in the remaining 20 minutes, while also making sure they don't concede a goal. Simeone spread his hands on the sidelines, he used all the defensive strategies he could, judging from the situation in the first half, he was full of joy and thought that he could continue the score of 2:1 until the end of the game, but a powerful Zhang Shujie used two headers against the sky to push Atletico Madrid into the abyss of death.

Atletico only had twenty minutes to find a way to crawl out of this abyss of death, Simeone began to deploy troops, and when the remaining substitutions were not enough, he even pushed Tang Ling to the front and temporarily played as a winger!

(End of chapter)