Chapter Ninety-Seven: Changing Events
The German media are optimistic about the Champions League journey of the two Bundesliga teams, not to mention Bayern Munich, who meet Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon in their last-16 encounter. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
In the first leg, Bayern Munich's blow-up offensive completely stunned Sporting Lisbon, losing five bloody goals at its own home, Bayern Munich is now not one foot into the top 8, but has been declared to have entered the quarterfinals, Sporting Lisbon wants to reverse at the Allianz Arena, the possibility is more difficult than Hoffenheim to win the Bundesliga title.
Another team, Schalke 04, drew away from home and scored an away goal, undoubtedly taking the lead and having good hopes of progressing to the quarter-finals.
The media gave Schalke 04 all kinds of support, some proposed to use attacks to break up the opponent at home, and some proposed to deliberately defend at home, as long as they held 0:0.
Schalke 04 itself is not as optimistic as the media, and it is clear from top to bottom that the draw in the last game was really hard work, and Villarreal is scoreless, and the attack routine is very orderly.
Although the penalty is unwarranted, if the Villarreal striker gives a little more force, it will be difficult for Schalke 04 to get a draw.
Buskens and Mulder are both old teammates of Muller, and now the high-level scuffle has been exhausted, and the Champions League is one of Muller's lifesavers, so he asked his two old friends to ensure that they advance to the quarterfinals anyway, and with a place at the bottom of the quarterfinals, it is not so easy for Schnusenberg and Peters to drive him away.
As the team's acting head coaches, the pressure on Buskens and Mulder is not only from Muller's side, they are eager to get the team promoted, and Buskens is of course hoping that with Schalke 04's gradual improvement, he can keep his position and remove the code next season.
Therefore, after the match against Cologne, Buskens and Mulder spent their main energy studying Villarreal's attacking routines and defending Villarreal's attack.
Front-court offense Zhang Yuan surprised everyone in the last game, they still pinned the offense on Zhang Yuan, and Zhang Yuan was responsible for the front-court offense.
It's good not to concede a goal, that's their most basic tactical focus.
No matter in any game, a team must have a consistent tactical idea, if you keep changing your tactics, you are destined to end up in a cocoon.
On the stage of the Champions League, the strength of the team accounts for 60%, and the flexible tactical response and luck also account for 40%, and the strong team is qualified to play its own tactical style, but the weaker team is not fully able to play its own strengths, and must be adjusted according to the opponent's tactical ideas.
Buskens and Mulder put their team's stance very low, thinking mostly defensively.
At 8:45 p.m. on March 10, Schalke 04's home match against Villarreal officially began.
Schalke 04 Buskens was suspended and could only watch the team's performance from the stands, and the starting line-up was compared to one game, and Bolton returned to the starting line-up after injury, this time with him and Digan two Brazilians.
Raphinha was replaced by Westermann, Kristadzic played at left wing-back, Schalke 04's tactical intent was already obvious, and the players at the back were good defensively and tall.
Raphinha and Pandel were balanced in attack and defence, but neither was as good as the two sides of the pitch to defend, and Schalke 04 was determined to defend.
In midfield, Engraar and Jones form a two-man midfield combination, and Rakitic cannot be regarded as a midfielder, but only a central midfielder.
The front line is still the three people from the previous round, Asamoah, Zhang Yuan, Farfan, Kuranyi, Altentop Jr., and Sanchez are all sitting on the bench.
Villarreal's side, Pelagrini fielded the exact same formation as in the previous game, with changes in the line-up being Godin returning to centre-back, Capdevilla returning to the starting line-up and Nihat replacing Llorente.
For Pellegrini, he has his plans for this game, and not conceding any more goals is the most important thing after the start, if he concedes first at Schalke 04's home stadium, it will be a heavy blow to Villarreal, so Pellegrini chose a more conservative tactic.
There is also an important purpose, in the face of Schalke 04's dense defense, Villarreal wants to attack it is not easy, rather than pressing up to attack, it is better to let Schalke 04 guess his tactics wrong, take the initiative to stand up and attack himself, so that he can find some gaps.
But Schalke 04 did not go as he wished, no matter whether Villarreal attacked forward or not, Schalke 04 was unwilling to take the initiative and did not come out to give up space.
As a result, after the start of the game, both sides played very dullly, as if neither side was willing to attack, and everyone was dead in the middle of the field.
This made UEFA President Platini, who came to watch the game, very depressed, and the game was ugly!
After becoming UEFA president two years ago, the Frenchman has never hidden his frustration with the giants dominating the Champions League landscape. He reformed the rules for allocating places in favor of weaker leagues, but sadly, such changes only increased the base of the Champions League pyramid, and it was still the teams that Mr. Platini wanted to see the last thing to see.
On the first matchday of the second leg of the 1/8 finals, Mr. Platini went to neither Anfield nor Turin. He came to the Stadium of Schalke to watch Schalke 04 talk with Villarreal.
Bundesliga clubs are in the healthiest state, with the exception of Bayern Munich, where Schalke 04 made history in the last eight last season.
Villarreal is also an emerging force, it doesn't matter if they are in the top league or not, the important thing is that these two teams can only be regarded as a mid-table team in the Champions League, Platini wants to make the Champions League look better, not every year is Barcelona, Real Madrid, the Premier League powers are singing, everyone has aesthetic fatigue, and the Champions League is not interesting if it goes on like this.
Mr. Platini does not want to see the Champions League become a game for the giants, he does not want to be a messenger to reconcile the relationship between the giants, so he came to watch this game that is not worth paying attention to, which is a signal that he prefers the underdogs.
Half an hour into the game, the two teams were still focused on the midfield, with Villarreal having a slight advantage, but it was difficult to get into the Schalke 04 penalty area.
Manuel Pellegrini had already figured out in the last game that it was too difficult for his team's forwards to compete for high balls at Schalke 04's backline, so he brought on Nihat, who was more versatile and technically good than Llorente.
But so far, the forward partnership of Nihart and Rossi has not been able to pose any real threat to Schalke 04.
Manuel Pellegrini's heart is a little nervous right now, he doesn't know if he can save his current form by changing his tactics, and he thinks Schalke 04 has defended too tightly so far.
Just as he was sitting in the coach's seat thinking about countermeasures, cheers came from the scene, and the home team fans let out a tsunami-like cheer!
What's going on?!
Pellegrini looked up at the field, Zhang Yuan was running to the fans to celebrate surrounded by his teammates, he scored again?!
Back in the 32nd minute, Ngral stole the ball from Ibagasa at the back, and then found Asamoah on the left side with a long pass, Asamoah advanced like a tank with the ball, and Angel stepped up but was overrun by Asamoah.
Asamoah's cross after getting past Angel was poor, neither high nor ground, but a half-high ball, making it difficult for Zhang Yuan, who received in the middle.
Godin stretched out his foot to clear the siege, but Zhang Yuan grabbed the ball in front of him and intercepted the ball with his chest, and of course Zhang Yuan's chest was also kicked by Godin's foot.
There was no time to make any adjustments, Zhang Yuan's volley from a small angle hit the top of the near corner, and Diego López was broken by Zhang Yuan again.
Schalke 04 leads Villarreal 1:0 at home, but this is not a safe score, if 1:0 becomes 1:1, Schalke 04 will immediately return to the same running line with Villarreal.
However, the home team will still have a great degree of morale boost, just look at the scene, not only the players on the field, but also the substitutes off the field are also happy with this goal.
Perlagrini is still figuring out a way to simply attack or adjust to the second half, bad is bad, but Villarreal only needs one more goal to change the decline.
He hasn't thought about it yet, and he scored again on the field!
Manuel Pellegrini's mood is like falling into an ice cave, bad, very bad!
But this time, before he could react, he was hugged tightly by the assistant coach next to him.
"Manuel, we've scored!" said Ruben Cucillas as he hugged Peragrini with emotion. (To be continued.) )