Courtois is 1.99m tall, but when he opted to drop the ball and lower his centre of gravity to target the ball at the feet of Sergio Garcia, it was difficult for him to react to a spoon-and-shoot from his opponent.

So, just five minutes into the first half, the home side of Spain took advantage of a mistake by Javi Manquillo to break the deadlock through their captain Sergio Garcia.

Despite taking the lead at home to Spain, Diego Simeone, who had just led Atletico Madrid to the best start in club history, still believed his side would be able to win the game.

Although the team lacks the two main players of Alda Turan and Koke in the frontcourt, after all, there are still Feng Quan and Diego Costa, the hottest forward partners in Europe at the moment. In particular, 7 league appearances have contributed to the "double eight data" (8 goals and 8 assists), and it has almost become a god-like existence in the hearts of Atletico Madrid fans. In their opinion, as long as Feng Quan can play at his normal level in the game, no defense line in Europe can stop him from moving forward.

However, the Espanyol team, which was playing at home, chose to "go off the beaten path". Instead of adopting a single-person marking or even multi-person defense method to play against the opponent like the previous teams that lost at the feet of Atletico Madrid, they also deliberately "relaxed" the defense on both wings, so that the two full-backs could be as close to the middle as possible to compress the defensive density around the heart of the penalty area as much as possible.

As a result, although Feng Quan, who likes to move on the wing, has gained a lot of space to move, it has become very difficult to imagine cutting inside from the wing as he did in the previous games when the opponent deliberately compresses the space in the middle of the defense.

Not only that, Espanyol's Mexican coach Javier Aguirre (Javier Aguirre) also used offside tactics very boldly in defense to stifle the speed advantage of the wind.

On the surface, Aguirre's defensive strategy seems very risky, but in fact, the Mexican coach changed his team's original defensive strategy after learning about Atletico Madrid's starting line-up for this game.

Although Aguirre, who has been teaching for many years, has been labeled as "tactical conservative" and "keen on defensive tactics" by his peers and insiders, the Mexican coach who has led the Mexican national team to the World Cup twice still has his own uniqueness.

In addition to being good at managing the team's overall defense, Aguirre is also very good at defending against the "ace" players of the opposing team. Because of this, when many La Liga teams face Espanyol, their "ace" players often have "abnormal performance" or "poor form".

Just over two hours ago, when Aguirre was given the starting line-up for Atletico Madrid's game, he immediately recalled the players who were warming up before the game to the players' dressing room. The combination of dense central defending and offside tactics was then the Spaniards' main defensive strategy in the game.

The reason why Aguirre dared to make a seemingly risky decision was mainly because he had thoroughly studied Feng Quan's technical characteristics and style of play before the race.

It shows that Feng Quan, who not only has the world's top foot skills, but also has a "perverted" level of physical fitness, can even be called a "perfect" level football player.

However, even if Feng Quan is really a "perfect" professional, his attacking threat will be greatly diminished if he does not have a football at his feet or cannot get a chance to get the ball in the opposition's dangerous area.

If Feng Quan has excellent header ability, he may be able to penetrate into the heart of the opponent's penalty area, and then threaten the opponent's goal with his far superior bounce ability. It's a pity that even with "great progress", Feng Quan's heading ability has only reached 71 points. With such a header ability, it is extremely difficult to put the ball into the opponent's goal in a densely defended box, even if you want to put the ball in the target spot.

In the previous 8 rounds of the league, due to the existence of two midfield playmakers such as Koke or Alda Turan, Feng Quan only needed to find the vacancy on the field, and then rushed to the open field as quickly as possible, and midfielders such as Koke or Alda Turan would basically send "cannonballs" into his control.

However, when Diego Simeone fielded three defensive midfielders at the same time in this game, not only did it make it easy for the team to attack, but it was also difficult to organize an effective and fluid attacking combination in the midfield in the face of Espanyol's dense central defense, even though they had a lot of time on the ball.

Unable to organize an effective attack, the midfielders of Atletico Madrid began to try to pass the ball more to the feet of Feng Quan, who was active on the wing, in the hope that Feng Quan, who was good at breaking through with the ball, could tear through the dense defense of the Espanyol team.

However, due to Aguirre's deliberate targeting, Feng Quan, who was a little too high in this game, fell into the opponent's offside trap many times.

The reason why Feng Quan has fallen into the opponent's offside trap many times is not only the psychological problem of rushing to equalize, but also has a lot to do with his poor "physical condition", or "lack of physical fitness".

Although Feng Quan did not travel to various continents to compete in various national team competitions like many of his teammates, the long flight between China and Spain still greatly drained his physical energy. Coupled with the fact that he has participated in the Moscow Athletics World Championships in the past two months, as well as 7 La Liga games and 2 Champions League group stage games, Feng Quan's [physical function] has dropped to a level close to the critical value of 69 points (if it is lower than 66 points, Feng Quan's speed, strength, endurance, reaction, flexibility, and explosiveness 6 physical attributes will be reduced by 2%).

Although Feng Quan can use skill points to purchase [Status Recovery Potion] to restore his [Physical Function], how can Feng Quan be willing to spend precious skill points to purchase [Status Recovery Potion] when he needs to accumulate 30 skill points to upgrade [Great God's Light]?

Because of this, he was worried that his [physical function] would continue to decline, which would affect the wind in the next game, so he deliberately narrowed his range of activities in the game. At the same time, in order to be able to get closer to the opponent's goal, he pressed his position very forward.

Unable to convert possession into goals, Diego Simeone had to involve his team's two full-backs more in attack.

Diego Simeone's change not only strengthens the team's wide attack, but also reduces the risk of falling into the opposition's offside trap.