Chapter 108: One Goal Away
After the goal, Montella was extremely excited, and directly made his classic celebration gesture, spreading his arms to imitate the flight of an airplane. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ļ½ļ½ļ½Uļ½Eć info And Prato's lightning goal also made the already lively atmosphere of the Bisencio Stadium completely boil.
With the repeated play of "Cuoreazzurro", no one in the stadium was still seated, and from the East Stand, where the Italian fans were most concentrated, everyone was shoulder to shoulder, swinging and chanting loudly, the scene was like a rough blue wave.
In this frenetic home atmosphere, Spartacus' Argentine coach Sabel also had a trace of scruples, and in the end, Sabel chose to shrink the defense first, stabilize the defense, and then wait for the opportunity to counterattack. He gestured to Onopko, the captain of the field, who nodded in understanding.
Sabel's choice was based on his considerations, the atmosphere at Prato's home stadium is so enthusiastic, if you play against them, it is difficult to guarantee what the result will be if Prato goes crazy in the cheers of the home fans, and it is not uncommon in history to turn the tables by virtue of home advantage. Shrinking the defensive line and hoarding heavy troops in the backfield can largely solve the weakness of the Spartak team's defenders who turn slowly and are not fast enough, because in this way, even if the Prato players are fast and have a strong ability to break through with the ball, they have no space and can only plunge into the crowd. Anyway, Spartak scored three goals in the last game, and as long as they don't let Prato score three goals in this game, Spartak can advance to the quarterfinals of the Cup Winners' Cup with their heads held high.
However, Sabel's approach just allowed Prato to avoid the biggest weakness of this lineup, which is the relatively weak backline. No matter how hard Chen Lin tries to cultivate the young players of the Chinese Jianlibao team, compared to the strength of the same period in history, Sun Chenghai and Li Weifeng have already far surpassed, but they are only 17 years old after all, and no matter how they are, they can't change the fact that their strength is relatively weak. And Iuliano and Billindeli are both new to the Prato team this season, although the individual strength is good, but the back line itself is the link that needs tacit understanding and cooperation the most, and both are still in the stage of integrating into the team.
In this case, it is almost impossible to achieve the same airtight defense as in previous seasons, which is why Prato has suffered frequent defeats in recent games. But what they didn't expect was that the Spartak team took the initiative to give up their familiar offensive style and played Prato's best defensive counterattack. You must know that the two strikers of the Spartak team are not fast, both belong to the physical center forward type, and Elpin, the attacking core of the team that helped Spartak win the Russian Super Cup last season, has been transferred to Real Sociedad in Spain, which makes it difficult for the Spartak team to organize an efficient counterattack. The Spartak strikers, who had lost their support in midfield, were like two headless flies, and the Prato backline easily locked them up.
In this way, Prato is equivalent to making up for the last shortcoming. Looking at the players in Prato's midfield, even the worst Ma Minyu has the level of star players in the second division, others like Doni, Tomasi, Jonti, and Montella are all at the level of first-division players, and Vieri already has the strength of a giant player.
And Spalletti seems to have expected that the Spartak team will adopt such intensive defensive tactics, so early in the Prato midfield put Ma Minyu, Tomasi two long-range heavy guns and Jonty, a free kick expert, you know, in history in AC Milan, which has Albertini, Rui Costa and other free kick masters, Jonty can also play the role of the penalty taker, and his free kick skills have been revealed at this time.
Just like the Spartacus team's defensive counterattack in the last game with high-altitude bombardment, Prato's long-range shots and free kicks are also effective magic weapons to break through the dense defense. All of a sudden, the goal of the Spartak team seemed to have suffered a lot of baptism of fire, one would be Ma Minyu's shot forty meters away without even an arc, one would be Tomasi's extremely fast shot against the grass, and then it would be a free kick by Jonti's extremely tricky angle and extremely strange arc. The Spartacus goalkeeper was really high and resisted, and he was so busy that he didn't hesitate for a moment.
However, it seemed that the good fortune was exhausted by a quick goal in the opening period, and Prato did not score until the end of the first half. However, Prato's three hits to the post and 12 to the woodwork did not alarm Sabel, who still believed that Spartak would win the game by defending alone.
However, in the second half, Tomasi's long-range shot was blocked by the Spartak defender with his legs, and the ball changed course and flew directly into the goal, so that the Spartak goalkeeper, who had been showing great courage before, could only look at the ball and sigh.
Tomasi, who scored a goal for his team, was so excited that he ran straight to the stands with the most fans in Prato, took off his clothes and yelled at what was his first goal since joining the Prato team.
Seeing Prato score another goal and see that he could equalize the aggregate score, the fans in the stands were very excited. The Bisencio Stadium, which was originally like a boiling pot, has entered the festive atmosphere at this time. The gongs and drums of the Chinese fans became louder and louder, the Italian fans directly set off flashing lights and fireworks, and the streamers flying in the stands everywhere dressed up the atmosphere of the Bisenchio Stadium extremely warmly.
However, Tomasi's goal also woke up the Spartak players, making them realize that they were standing on the edge of the cliff, usually when this kind of tension, the body's adrenal hormones will make people reach an extraordinary state, and the Spartak players give people this feeling.
All the players were much more active in defending and running, even though they had played most of the game, they were still away from afar, but they didn't feel tired at all, and even felt that their reactions were much faster than before.
Under the command of captain and defender Honorco, the tall Spartak players built a high wall at the back, and even two forwards retreated to join the defensive line, seemingly to hold on to the last point.
As the minutes passed, the Spartacus team was getting closer and closer to victory, which also meant that Prato was on the verge of elimination, and many Prato fans who came to watch the game stood up anxiously.
At this time, in the loudspeakers around the stadium, another Prato song that fans had never heard before, unlike the melodious and beautiful "Blue Heart", which is close to the hearts of fans, as soon as this song is released, all the fans' scalps explode.