Chapter 121: First win in the Champions League
Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris started his career at Nice FC in Ligue 1, transferred to Ligue 1 giants FC Lyon in 2008, during which he won the Ligue 1 Goalkeeper of the Year three times and was selected for the Ligue 1 Team of the Year three times, and joined Tottenham Hotspur Hotspur in the English Premier League for 10 million euros in 2012 and has been playing for so far.
Lloris is not a tall goalkeeper over 1.90m, but he has something special about him, which is his reaction and the speed of his attack.
He is characterized by good explosiveness, fast attacking speed, usually when the opposing player is single, there is already a god-like Lloris in front of him to resolve the ball, his control of the high ball is also very large, as long as the ball flies into the penalty area, he will immediately jump up and knock the ball away with a single fist, and after joining Tottenham, he has used this confident hitting to resolve the danger in the air many times.
Among them, in the game against Swansea, Lloris knocked out the opponent's striker Michu, showing his domineering when he attacked.
In particular, Lloris is adept at deflecting one-on-one shots and one-on-one shots, and his good positioning and reflexes have helped him to defuse seemingly inevitable goals time and time again, and his magical performances in the Champions League group stage against Liverpool and the crucial World Cup qualifier between France and Ireland have been amazing.
With Lloris's high and low blocks, he saved 2 Villarreal's must-have goals and 5 shots from the woodwork in the first half alone, Dai Zhiwei, Castillejo and Cheryshev suffered, while Tottenham also benefited from Lloris's performance, although their own attack only blossomed, but still maintained a 0-0 balance at the end of the first half.
Back in the dressing room, the atmosphere in Villarreal was a little low, and their counter-attack was good enough, but what could they do if they ran into such an open goalkeeper?
On the one hand, the first half of the game was unlucky, encountering Lloris, who was in a state like a doping today, and on the other hand, Tottenham Hotspur also had several very threatening attacks into the yellow submarine penalty area, but fortunately, Asenjo was also in good shape.
To a certain extent, the first half of the Champions League group stage of Villarreal vs Tottenham Hotspur has become a duel between the goalkeepers of the two sides!
The first half of the game didn't look good for Villarreal, and in the second half it seemed like it was going to continue!
At half-time, the Yellow Submarine players were reprimanded by Eskriva to give their opponents a look of colour in the second half, but they forgot that this was Tottenham Hotspur's home stadium and that they would not accept a Champions League opener on their home turf.
This season, because of the construction of Tottenham's old home White Hart Lane, Tottenham Hotspur uses Wembley as the temporary home, but obviously Tottenham, like Villarreal, is a little unfamiliar with this temporary home stadium, so many Villarreal players, including Dai Zhiwei, have a feeling of playing in a third-party stadium.
At the beginning of the second half, Tottenham Hotspur continued to attack the door of Villarreal in front of the home fans.
However, he didn't expect Tottenham Hotspur's wide breakthroughs to tear through the backline, Mario Gaspar and Costa were broken by the opposing Son Heung-min and Lamela and couldn't find their way, and Villarreal was almost pinned down by the opponent in the second half.
Compared with Dai Zhiwei, who became a little silent in the second half, the performance of another Asian king was much more double-eyed.
In the 52nd minute, it was Son Heung-min's breakthrough that won a free kick for Tottenham, and then Alderweireld took a free kick into the penalty area, and Dier's header was slightly off the post, shocking Assenjo into a cold sweat!
Seeing Son Xingmin's activity on the wing, Bruno helped Costa to help defend Son Xingmin on the side, but Costa still failed to break his ball several consecutive kick tackles, if it weren't for Bruno's defense, Villarreal's side would be lost again.
Dai Zhiwei saw Sun Xingmin's flash, and his heart was unwavering, because he knew that Tottenham could not besiege like this, and his opportunity would come soon.
Sure enough, after 15 minutes of the second half, Tottenham's offensive finally slowed down.
Bruno took advantage of the defensive hardness and counter-attacking speed of the midfield strengthened by Trigueros to finally stabilize the scene.
In the 57th minute, Castillejo burst into the right side of the box and crossed, but Cheryshev's shot from far post in the small box was deflected.
Ben Davies' return pass then came close to an own goal, but the ball went just wide.
Tottenham needed to recover from the siege in the first 15 minutes, and they shrunk their defence to the Yellow Submarine, with Dai Zhiwei breaking into the box several times but unable to find a team-mate.
"You can't let me alone take on the opponent's entire backline, right?" After Dai Zhiwei was caught by three people and lost the ball again, he waved his arms and asked his teammates to actively step forward to meet him.
Trigueros followed Escrivá's instructions and immediately passed the ball to Castillejo in front of him.
Castillejo turned to break through with the ball, but his eyes did not forget to glance on the right wing, where Tottenham Hotspur defended more tightly, and Dos Santos's excellent performance in the first half allowed Tottenham to strengthen the defense on the wing.
If the right side doesn't work, then start from the left, and hopefully Cheryshev will be more consistent in the crunch time.
Castillejo only glanced at Cheryshev's position, and with a beautiful gesture of raising his right foot, the ball flew towards Cheryshev with urgency and accuracy.
Castillejo continued to move forward quickly after the pass, and his aim was to split the side and then cut forward himself to grab the spot.
This time, Cheryshev played the opponent unexpectedly, he faked the ball, maybe he had always won the ball and passed it out before, so this feint was unexpectedly effective, and he shook the opponent from the side and went straight to the bottom line.
"Here!" Castillejo raised his arms high in the middle to ask for the ball, which immediately caught the attention of many Tottenham Hotspur players.
Castillejo rushed forward and Cheryshev immediately crossed.
Castillejo got off to a late start due to Alderweireld's interference and failed to reach the ball as he watched it fly high above his head.
Just when everyone thought that this attack was about to end, Dai Zhiwei didn't know when he ran to the back point.
"Bang!" Dai Zhiwei faced the football, almost didn't have to jump, his forehead leaned forward, and the football was flying at high speed in the middle.
Lloris's previous attention was all on Castillejo at the front post, and when he saw Dai Zhiwei's header, he had no time to move to the back post when he stood at the front post, even if he flew sideways, it was only in vain.
“goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!”
Dai Zhiwei scored with a clever header in front of goal, and unlike most previous goals, this time he showed the instinct of an opportunistic goalscorer.
Villarreal withstood Tottenham's second-half onslaught, and then opened the scoring in the midst of Tottenham's cold slackness, which is the power of Dai Zhiwei as a top scorer now!
1:0!
"Whew!" Dai Zhiwei once again did his own unique blowgun celebration - if you don't pretend to be forced at this time, when will you wait?
The Villarreal players excitedly pounced on Dai Zhiwei in the frontcourt, and Escriva on the sidelines also grinned, as long as the lead is equalized, the pressure in the following games will be much less.
"Great job! I love you! Bruno happily patted Dai Zhiwei on the shoulder.
No one has been able to satisfy almost all of the Villarreal team and fans as soon as they arrived at the Yellow Submarine like Dai Zhiwei, but Dai Zhiwei did it.
"Small!" Dai Zhiwei's face was full of joy to score, naturally because this was his first goal in the Champions League!
Although he had scored three goals in the two legs of the Champions League play-offs against Monaco before, that could only be counted in his personal Champions League goals, but when judging the Golden Boot, play-off goals were not taken into account.
After leading the score, Villarreal's morale was high, and Tottenham Hotspur was forced to continue to strengthen the attack, and Villarreal also made personnel changes on the field, Escriva replaced Cheryshev with another "Soriano" of the team, Roberto Soriano, to strengthen the defense in the midfield.
After the restart, Tottenham attacked around Villarreal's half, and if you look at the top view, Villarreal was all white and yellow dots in the half, and Tottenham had only one yellow dot and two white dots in the half.
However, Dai Zhiwei soon told Tottenham that the advantage in numbers does not mean the effect of attack.
In the 61st minute, Dai Zhiwei counterattacked and broke through the cross from the right, but Roberto Soriano's final shot was blocked by Vertonghen, and Roberto Soriano, who had just come on as a substitute, missed a good opportunity to help the team extend the score as soon as he came on the field.
Six minutes later, Dai Zhiwei made a comeback.
Bruno passed the ball, and it was the extraordinarily active Dai Zhiwei who received the ball, and after a series of flashy cycling performances, he burst into the box and the ball hit Alderweireld's waist and deflected off the line.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Dai Zhiwei watched Alderweireld rub his waist and abdomen that had been rubbed by the football just now, and muttered quietly.
Immediately, a thought suddenly occurred to him: what would happen if his tiger shot hit the man's vital point?
"It's cruel!"
Villarreal then had a counter-attacking shot either blocked by Lloris or simply missed target.
However, with Dai Zhiwei's several counter-attacks to create a threat, Tottenham did not dare to invest too much in the attack, at least keeping one midfielder and three defenders in their own half.
In the 74th minute, Elkeson's pass was intercepted by Bruno, and then the captain of the Yellow Submarine launched a counterattack with a big foot.
"Good pass!" Dai Zhiwei saw Bruno's pass flying right in front of him, and immediately began to spread out and run wildly.
Dyer's defensive task was originally to follow Dai Zhiwei's side, and after seeing Dai Zhiwei unload the ball with his back, he rushed to Dai Zhiwei's back to defend.
"Someone's in the back?" Dai Zhiwei heard the sound behind him, did not turn his head, his body shook directly to the right, and then turned around in the opposite direction beautifully, and with a flick of the ball at his feet, only one coherent action resolved Dell's close pressing.
Staring at Dai Zhiwei in front of him, Dale felt a lot of pressure, the number of times the two clashed in the previous game was not small, he clearly knew the horror of Dai Zhiwei, and he was very stressed in the face of such an opponent.
Dai Zhiwei took small steps to advance with the ball, and suddenly stepped out of a bicycle with his right leg, Dale forcibly suppressed the urge to kick, and still stood firmly in front of Dai Zhiwei, but he didn't expect the opponent's body to suddenly start suddenly, and the continuous feints were shaking.
Dale dodged and blocked the route of Dai Zhiwei's breakthrough and successfully stopped Dai Zhiwei's breakthrough.
Dale excitedly wanted to shout out, but before he could be happy, Dai Zhiwei changed direction 90 degrees in the opposite direction and broke through from the other side of Dell successfully!
Right-angle prosthesis!
"Stay!"
Alderweireld saw that the ball was kicked a little further after Dai Zhiwei broke through Dyer, and he tried to disrupt the attack first.
But just as he was about to kick out, he only heard a loud shout in his ear—
"Get out of here!"
Alderweireld was dumbfounded, he didn't expect Dai Zhiwei to overtake within two steps, relying on his physical fitness, and stabbed the football first.
"Damn it!" Alderweireld cursed in his heart, and reached out to pull Dai Zhiwei down.
However, Dai Zhiwei had no idea of continuing to break through at all, and the frequency of his feet was extremely fast, and he made a curling ball with his right foot.
Tiger shot?
No, it's a curved shot on the run!
He was worried that the Tigers' shot from outside the box would be saved again by Lloris who opened today!
This is also the first time that Dai Zhiwei has tried to shoot in a curve in a sports game, and he is not sure of this kind of shooting even in training.
However, as soon as the ball was kicked out, he felt that the ball was there!
Lloris moved quickly in front of Tottenham Hotspur, and after the football flew into the penalty area, he flew up immediately, his body stretched out in an instant, and his long arms went straight to the flying football.
"Get in!" Dai Zhiwei roared silently in his heart.
"Bang!"
The ball arcs dramatically through the air, followed by a faint sound followed by a crunch hit the neutral post, before bouncing off into the net.
“goooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!”
2:0!
Dai Zhiwei stood in place, his index finger pointing at the brightly lit rainbow bridge over Wembley Stadium.
At this moment, this night, he is the star of the stars, shining incomparably!
Dai Zhiwei's goal completely killed the suspense of the game, and although Tottenham scored a face-saving goal for the home team in the 84th minute, it was difficult to recover the loss of the game.
The score of 2:1 is the final score of this game, with Dai Zhiwei's brace, Villarreal successfully won the Champions League main match start, and also laid a solid foundation for qualifying for the group stage.
(End of chapter)