Chapter 45 Stable State
After returning to Granada, after a few days of training, the team soon had another game. The nineteenth round of La Liga, which is exactly halfway through the competition, is against Celta Vigo, who look hopeless this season.
Against such a team, and still on their home turf, Granada naturally won't let the points slip out of their hands. No surprises, Granada won 2-0 against Celta Vigo.
In this game, Yan Feng's performance was still extremely stable. Although he didn't score, he assisted Lin Fan to score one of the goals with his deliberate attempt.
Compared with last season, Yan Feng frequently scored goals at critical moments, and now he is more of a contributor in defense. Yan Feng didn't care about the fact that his goal statistics had declined a lot in the same period. He thinks the team's results are better in the same period. At the same time, he also feels that his performance is becoming more and more consistent. This kind of stable situation is more and more similar to Feng Xiaoting, who is said to be as stable as a dog by the Chinese people.
As the captain, Yan Feng's state is stable, and the combat effectiveness of the Granada team will not fluctuate too much. Stability is the most powerful combat strength of a strong team.
This stable state has also been carried over to the Champions League games that followed.
It's time for two matches a week again, but with nearly half a month of rest, the Granada team's slightly tired body has recovered well.
In good physical condition and in a stable overall condition, Rao met Champions League rivals Roma four days after playing against Celta Vigo. But the Granada team is not afraid.
The match against Roma was arguably the most important game for Granada in the Champions League group stage.
With both sides evenly on points, with Chelsea already firmly in top spot and booking a place in the qualifying places, this game is essentially a battle to determine who will secure a place in the second group.
The game is so important, but the good thing is that Granada have the advantage of being at home. They took advantage of the home advantage and became more and more consistent, and in the end they won 2-1 against Roma.
With a win over Roma, Granada also reached 10 points in the group and thus occupied second place in the group. In the final round of the group stage, when the opponent was Qarabagh and Roma was against Chelsea, Granada could be said to be in sight.
Getting ahead of the pack in the Champions League group stage is a great boost to morale.
With such a victory, Granada also performed well after returning to the league.
In the 20th round of La Liga, Granada challenged Athletic Bilbao from afar.
Although Athletic Bilbao wants to take revenge on Granada with the bravery of the Basques by virtue of their home advantage. However, with Granada in good form and high morale, Athletic Bilbao also had to swallow the bitter pill of defeat at home.
Due to the tenacity of Athletic Bilbao's game, Granada won by only one goal.
Big wins and small wins, as long as you can win. After a break, Granada have won all three games in the new year, another start that is too good to be good.
And after the away win against Athletic Bilbao, Granada has not yet been given time to rest. They had to rush back to the city of Granada. Because they still have the last game of the Champions League group stage to play.
It should be said that the schedule of the Granada team is quite ideal. After all, you can only play at home, otherwise if you go to Cyprus and play away again, you really won't have any time to rest. That would be extremely disadvantageous.
Fortunately, this time it was still the home field.
At the home of Granada, the opponent is still a weak team like Qarabagh that has been repaired by their three goals before, and it stands to reason that there is no suspense in this game.
And this game, at least in the first half, was true. Thanks to Luka Modric's brilliant performance, Granada led Karabakh 2-0 in the first half.
With a two-goal lead in the first half, and the opponent is still such a team that is not taken seriously, it can basically be said that the victory is certain. This is what everyone thinks after the first half, including Yan Feng.
Considering the double game in a row, coupled with the winning hand, Pirlo replaced the goal-scorer Xander at the start of the second half. After all, there is a league game in a few days, and Kravitz also needs games to maintain his form. Sundell happily returned to the bench.
Yan Feng, the captain, also had no opinion on this. How could he himself want to go down to the bench and relax. You have to know that his fitness is too good, and there are really not many opportunities for substitute Morris to play.
Letting Sandel go down early to rest didn't affect the situation on the pitch. Apart from Granada's failure to add more goals, the opposition Karabakh has not been able to threaten the Granada goal on many occasions.
In this case, less than 60 minutes into the game, Pirlo sent Modric down to rest. Let Morris come up to partner with Yan Feng, and Lin Fan move forward, which can allow the 30-year-old Modric to rest, and in the case of a favorable game, fans have no opinions.
After Modric went down, the Granada team's attack was indeed not as sharp as before. After all, Lin Fan is too young, and there is still a gap between the heat of the organization and Modric. However, even so, it still failed to give the opponent a chance.
In the 65th minute, Pirlo replaced the main player Mahrez again, allowing Aslan to move his muscles on the field.
In less than 70 minutes, Granada had used up their three substitutions. But the whole team didn't have a problem with that. At least until 70 minutes, no one had any opinions.
But after 70 minutes, it was time for Granada. In the fierce competition in the future, it is often at this point in time that they start to really exert their power.
Because of this, when they felt that the game was more beneficial to them, the Granada team slackened. Even Yan Feng was a little lax.
The result of this relaxation is that the number of singles in the Granada team has increased, and the enthusiasm of everyone has decreased. After a series of mistakes and a few easy cuts by the Karabakh team, this only boosted the morale of the Karabakh team.
Gradually, the Karabakh team is playing better and better, and they are becoming more and more confident. Before they knew it, they had attacked.
The increase in mistakes of the Granada team did not attract attention quickly, and by the time Yan Feng realized that the situation had changed, the momentum of the Karabakh team had risen and he had scored a goal in a sneak attack that followed.
After conceding the goal, Granada regained its attention. But at this moment, the morale of the Karabakh team became high, and they looked like they were screaming to push the home team away.
Once the team is relaxed, it is not easy to move again. This made the Karabakh team suppress the Granada team for a while. If Yan Feng hadn't started to be ruthless immediately, it would have been possible for them to catch up or even overtake him.
After Yan Feng actively defended and yelled at his teammates, the Granada team was tense again. When they get serious, the Karabakh team no longer has so many chances.
In the end, in this game, the Granada team still won.
2:1 results. Although there were some twists and turns in between, the Granada team had the last laugh. With this result, they qualified for the second place in the group stage.
Successfully qualifying for the Champions League for the first time in their history is another historic achievement for Granada.