Chapter 640: Goal Battle
On May 13, the second leg of the Champions League semifinals between Bayern Munich and Juventus was played on time at the Allianz Arena.
Although most football insiders are optimistic that Bayern Munich will reverse and advance to the Champions League final on their home turf, in the face of Juventus's iron bucket formation, without the "Robery's" Bundesliga team, although the offensive is as fierce as the recovery battle, it is always difficult to knock on the away team's goal.
In the end, Bayern Munich, who had the highest odds to win the championship before the semi-finals, hated the Champions League semi-finals for the second year in a row.
A day later, the Champions League semi-finals were played as scheduled.
Because Atletico Madrid, who have excellent defensive ability, came to the Camp Nou with a two-goal advantage, coupled with the fact that they also have the "counter-attacking nuclear weapon" of Fengquan, almost all football insiders and major media believe that Diego Simeone will choose defensive counterattack as the core tactic of this game.
However, when Luis Enrique saw Feng Quan, Mandzukic and Griezmann in the starting line-up at the same time before the game, he realised that his opponent would not have chosen the counter-attacking tactics as the media had expected, at least not at the beginning of the game.
As Luis Enrique had guessed, Atletico Madrid pressed Barcelona fiercely up front from the start of the game, forcing their opponents to play a penetrating attack with short balls.
On the surface, Atletico Madrid's high pressing seems to be risky, after all, it is not easy to get a tackle from their feet with Barcelona's passing ability. And once they successfully delivered the ball to the front court, Messi and Neymar's individual assault ability was enough to make any defence shudder.
However, the reason why Diego Simeone made such a choice was deliberate.
Barcelona, who lost by two goals in the first leg, has no way out, and they will inevitably choose to attack unreservedly when they return to home.
Shrinking the defense and waiting for an opportunity to counterattack, while it may seem like a safe move, is not the best option for Simeone.
Under normal circumstances, the dense formation of the shrinking defense line can indeed compress the opponent's offensive space to a certain extent, but in the face of Barcelona who have developed their pass-and-control play to the peak and have Messi and Neymar who can still cope with the siege of multiple people, it is obviously not realistic to want to be foolproof throughout the game.
You must know that Messi staged a stunning performance of single-handedly challenging four defenders in the first leg of the contest and still calmly scoring goals. Although such performances are not the norm, in the absence of enough oppression, Messi still has a good chance to repeat such performances.
Of course, Messi's individual ability is very strong, but without the strong support of his teammates in the midfield, his performance will also be greatly affected. For example, in the first leg, Barcelona's two full-backs did not dare to boldly press the assist due to the deterrence of Fengquan, which greatly reduced Messi's performance.
Therefore, putting enough pressure on Barcelona's defence to force them to attack at full strength is the right choice for Atletico Madrid.
Although Luis Enrique was well aware of Diego Simeone's intentions, he had no choice but to attack because of the two-goal defeat in the first leg.
As a result, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid "joined forces" for nearly 80,000 fans at the scene to "dedicate" a wonderful offensive battle.
In the 9th minute of the first half, Feng Quan got rid of two defenders on the left side of the front field and cut inside to the edge of the penalty area, attracting the center of gravity of Barcelona's defense and then passing the ball to the space on the right side of the penalty area.
Griezmann, who was barely disturbed, calmly stopped the ball and fired a left-footed shot into the top left corner of the Barcelona goal.
Ten minutes later, Neymar was caught between Juanfran and Koke on the edge of the box on the left side and passed the ball to Suarez on the edge of the box.
Suarez, with his back to the goal, will do it directly to Xavi, who suddenly plugged in.
Xavi received the ball and then feigned a long-range shot, but when Gabi subconsciously stretched his leg to block, he sent a scalpel-like through ball to the space on the left side of the penalty area.
Neymar, who inserted into the penalty area at high speed, swept the ball sideways to the goal before Miranda cleared it, and Suarez, who was outflanked in place, pushed the ball directly into the bottom left corner of the Atletico Madrid goal with his left foot, 1-1.
In the 27th minute, after receiving a cross from Juanfran in his own half, Cork made a slight adjustment and sent a long pass over the top to the front.
Mandzukic, who was flanked in the direction of attack, struggled to head the ball to Griezmann, who was closest to him, under the interference of Pique
Griezmann pushed forward almost 10 metres and drew Barcelona into the overall formation before suddenly passing the ball to the "full wind area" on the left side of the field.
After receiving the ball, Feng Quan first pretended to cut inside the edge of the penalty area, and then suddenly buckled the ball with his right foot in the direction of the baseline, using the speed advantage to ask Danny Alves to entangle.
Meanwhile, full-back Felipe Luiz was quick to step forward, ready to pick up the wind.
After getting rid of Alves, Feng Quan dribbled directly into the Barcelona penalty area.
In the face of the two-man defense of Sergio Busquets and Mascherano, Feng Quan first flicked the ball forward with his left foot and pretended to break through to the baseline, and when Busquets, who was the best away from him, moved his center of gravity, Feng Quan suddenly made a sudden stop, and then swept the ball sideways with his right foot and swept the ball sideways from the left side of the opponent's body like a wave of lightning.
Seeing that Busquets was passed, Mascherano, who was only about 3 meters away from Fengquan, immediately prepared to fall to the ground and sliding to sabotage Fengquan's attack.
However, just when Mascherano's body leaned back, and his right foot suddenly kicked his body to "fly out" but he didn't have time to stretch his legs, he saw that Feng Quan had already completed the action of smashing the ball with his right foot and stabbing with his left foot in a very short period of time.
Although Ter Stegen made the first save, the ball kicked by the wind grazed his fingertips, hit the post and bounced into the goal, 2-1.
11 minutes later, Messi, Xavi and Iniesta hit the wall in the front court and hit the opponent's 30-meter area after hitting the wall in succession.
In the face of Felipe Luiz and Gabi's double attack, Messi did not choose to break hard, but first passed the ball to Suarez, who received near the top of the penalty area, and then suddenly accelerated to the middle.
Suarez, with his back to the attack, first turned to the right, but suddenly passed the ball to Messi with his heel after Messi got close to him.
After receiving the ball, Messi took 3 steps horizontally with his left foot to dodge a little space, and then directly got up with his left foot and completed a curling ball at a distance of about 23 meters from the goal.
Although Oblak made an accurate judgment, Messi's football still went around his right hand and grazed the left post and drilled into the net, 2-2.
After the change of sides, Messi took advantage of a direct free kick in the 26th minute to overtake the score, giving Barcelona a glimmer of hope for a reversal.
But in the next 10 minutes, Feng Quan completely destroyed Barcelona's comeback hopes with his brilliant performance.
In the 31st minute, Feng Quan first used a free kick with a more arc than Messi to tie the score at 3-3.
In the 36th minute, Feng Quan received a direct pass from Cork in the penalty area and first deducted Mascherano with his left foot, and then sent the ball into the upper right corner of the goal with a direct shot with his right foot.
In the end, with Feng Quan's scattered pass, Atletico Madrid defeated Barcelona home and away and reached the Champions League final for the second consecutive year.