Chapter 153: Protecting Four and Fighting Three
Just as Dai Zhiwei was full of joy and anticipation of the Champions League semi-finals, the 32nd round of La Liga kicked off, with Villarreal hosting Alaves, and Escriva continuing to field the starting line-up that beat Borussia Dortmund 3-1 in midweek.
Before the game, there was a news that did not make Dai Zhiwei happy, in the previous round of the game, Atletico Madrid with Carrasco's brace and Felipe Luiz's icing on the cake, 3:o defeated Osasuna, three points ahead of Villarreal, who had one less game, and temporarily ranked third in the standings.
Sevilla were not very aggressive, O:O was held to a draw by Valencia, and they are still two points behind Villarreal with a game in hand.
Villarreal's 3-1 win over Borussia Dortmund in their last game managed to maintain their form until this one, and although there was only three days between the two games, both games were played at the Love Song Stadium, and the yellow submarine fighters without the fatigue of the car and horse did not have the slightest problem in terms of physical strength.
At the beginning of the game, Villarreal took the lead, after intercepting an aimless pass from Alaves, Ruiz in the back suddenly sent a through ball, seeing that Camasala wanted to grab the ball, the captain of the yellow submarine Bruno received the pass in a sprint, and turned around to shake Camasala like a stake.
Bruno has been very happy this season, he has never felt so strong in his years at Villarreal, not only in the league against Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, but also in the knockout rounds of the Champions League.
Facing Alaves midfielder Llorente, Bruno gave the ball to Roberto Soriano on the left side after a duffle, Alaves right-back Kico stepped forward to press, but unexpectedly Roberto Soriano picked up his left foot, the football flew over Kiko's head, and Roberto shook Kiko with an acceleration.
Dai Zhiwei did not hesitate to rush to the Alaves penalty area, and central defender LaGuardia hurriedly shouted to his teammates to come over to help defend.
In La Liga, all teams realise that one defender simply can't defend Dai Zhiwei, even if that defender is Ramos or Godin, the top players in La Liga.
Roberto Soriano sent in a quick cross and Dai Zhiwei grabbed the first point in the three-man scramble with Alaves.
The opposing three pressed tightly, Dai Zhiwei could not shoot sideways with his right foot, so he could only pick it up with the outside instep, and the football flew high over LaGuardia's blocked right foot and flew straight over the head of goalkeeper Pacheco.
“gooooooooooooooooooooa1!”
1:o!
The Villarreal fans at the Love Song Stadium are almost used to Dai Zhiwei opening the scoring for the Yellow Submarine, but at this moment they are still frantically shouting Dai Zhiwei's name, and Dai Zhiwei is also interacting with the fans in the stadium, and he also shouted to Messi with this goal that made him dominate the top scorer list again-
If you want to win the La Liga Golden Boot this season, no way!
Although Dai Zhiwei was in a hot state in this game, he did not continue to score in the next games.
Since joining Villarreal, Dai Zhiwei has greatly reduced the playing time of other strikers in the Yellow Submarine team because of his outstanding ability to seize opportunities and play an obvious role on the field.
In this kind of difficult and unimportant game, in order to save the state for more crucial games in the future, rather than exhausting it all at once, Dai Zhiwei only played the first half, and was replaced by Rafael by Escriva shortly after the start of the second half.
Villarreal broke the deadlock again in the 73rd minute when Fernandes kicked the ball wide and Bakambu burst into the right side of the box and fired into the near corner from 1o yards out facing Alaves full-back Theo Hernandez.
2:o!
This is Bakambu's 1o goal in La Liga this season, and it is his outstanding performance this season that has relieved a lot of pressure on Dai Zhiwei!
Two minutes later, Bakambu came back with a direct pass from dos Santos and seemed to be trying to prove that he could also carry the Yellow Submarine's goal, but his shot from a tight angle on the right side of the box was denied by Alaves goalkeeper Pacheco.
In stoppage time, Alaves capitalised on a corner and scored with a header from centre-back Rodrigo Elie.
In the end, Villarreal won 2:1 at the Love Song Stadium and swept Alaves, the opponent of the future match, cleanly, and Villarreal surpassed Atletico Madrid again on goal difference and regained the third place in the standings!
Sevilla, on the other hand, are five points behind Villarreal and Atletico Madrid after this round, and with only six rounds left in the league, there is already a tendency to withdraw from the Champions League competition.
A day after the match against Alaves, Dai Zhiwei and his team-mates went to the club's screening room to watch the draw for this season's Champions League semi-final live.
In the previous knockout rounds, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Villarreal and Juventus won two legs to eliminate their respective opponents to form the final four of this season's Champions League.
There are no seeded teams in the semi-finals and there is no evasion with the Football Association, which means that Villarreal and the remaining three teams could meet.
Real Madrid defeated Bayern 2-1 away in the first leg at the Allianz Arena in Munich and returned to the Bernabeu home stadium to lose 1-2 in 9o minutes and go into extra time with an aggregate score of 3-3. Real Madrid scored three goals in extra time to win the second leg 4:2, and the aggregate score of the two legs was 6:3 to stop Bayern from the semifinals and advance to the semifinals for seven consecutive years.
Atletico Madrid won 1:O at home in the first leg, drew 1:1 away from Leicester, and eliminated their opponents 2:1 on aggregate to reach the semi-finals for the third time in four years.
Juventus beat Barcelona 3:O at home to Turin last week, and went to Camp Nou to continue strongly, O:O forced their opponents to draw and finally eliminated Barcelona 3:O on aggregate to advance to the semi-finals.
Borussia Dortmund lost 2-1 at home and 3-1 away to Villarreal after being hit by a bus explosion in midweek, and were beaten over two legs with an aggregate score of 2-5. Villarreal, who defeated Dort twice and advanced to the semi-finals, has become the biggest dark horse in the Champions League this season.
The draw was presided over by UEFA Deputy Secretary General Marchetti, and Welsh football legend Ian Rush was the first to draw defending champions Real Madrid, and then drew his city rivals Atletico Madrid to Real Madrid, with Villarreal and Juventus automatically becoming opponents in the other semi-finals.
Real Madrid and Villarreal, who were the first to be drawn in the two sets, will play home and away.
This is the second time the Madrid duo have met in the knockout stages of the Champions League after the 2014, 2o16 and 2015 quarter-finals, with Real Madrid winning the previous three times.
The semi-finals between Villarreal and Juventus can be called a collision of "spear" and "shield", Villarreal has scored 124 goals in all competitions this season, of which Dai Zhiwei has contributed 53 goals in official club matches, and his attacking firepower is the top five European leagues.
Juventus, on the other hand, managed to limit Barcelona in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, winning 3:o on aggregate.
After the draw was announced, Juventus big man Khedira wrote on social media: "Villarreal are a very strong team with a lot of extremely talented players, especially Day, who has been impressive this season. We need to be mindful of our opponents, but our goals are clear. ”
The draw that followed revealed the Europa League semi-final match-up, with Ajax meeting Lyon, while La Liga giants Manchester United will face La Liga side Celta Vigo and Celta Vigo at home and away.
The two-legged semi-finals will be played on 2-3 May and 9-1o local time, while the final will be played on 3 June at the National Stadium of Wales in Cardiff City.
Although Juventus is not a weak team, which of the Champions League semi-finals is easy to deal with?
And compared with his old rival Madrid, Dai Zhiwei is more curious about Juventus, which has never played against.
Can Juventus' shield resist his razor-sharp spear?
This is also the question in his mind.
Before the first leg of the Champions League semi-final against Juventus, Villarreal still have three La Liga games to play, against Leganes, Atletico Madrid and Sporting Gijón.
Among them, the direct dialogue between Atletico Madrid and Villarreal in the 34th round of La Liga is undoubtedly the most important match, as it is likely to determine which team is third in La Liga this season.
In the 33rd round, Atletico Madrid played recklessly, defeating Espanyol 1:O away - in the 73rd minute, Saul's shot from the edge of the penalty area was blocked in a corner kick melee and then deflected, and Griezmann volleyed into the upper left corner of the small penalty area.
Villarreal then came on and with Atletico Madrid winning, they couldn't afford to lose this game!
In this game, Leganes adopted a high-pressure midfield pressing strategy against Villarreal, trying to cut off Villarreal's attack in the midfield, and then suppress Villarreal's counterattack.
From the first minute of the game, the battle between the two sides in midfield was extremely fierce, Bruno relied on his relentless running and good defensive awareness to constantly impact Leganes' attacking players, while Rodrygo used his skillful ball control and attacking awareness to destroy the nerves of Leganes' defenders.
In 1o minutes, Villarreal, under the leadership of Bruno, faced Leganés at home with a completely crushing posture, which made Leganes coach Mauricio Pellegrino a little uncomfortable.
The Yellow Submarine had the all-round upper hand, with multiple shots on goal coming just a fine line away.
In the 11th minute, Castillejo's 45-degree diagonal adjustment in the right corner of the penalty area hit the penalty area, and Dai Zhiwei's header was full of momentum, and the football flew out of the bottom line tightly against the crossbar, missing the best opportunity to break the deadlock after the opening.
With more than ten minutes of attack, both sides lowered their tempo and began a tepid mutual attack and defense, but at this stage, the role of the star began to come to the fore.
Dai Zhiwei suddenly opened his bow and shot from a distance of 4o meters from the goal, and the football flew between the legs of Leganes defender Insuya!
This Tiger shot was full of power, and it was very hidden, very sudden!
Just as Dos Santos and the other yellow submarine soldiers were ready to celebrate, Leganés goalkeeper Ererin was in a very accurate position this time, and he used his fingers to save the ball off the line.
Dai Zhiwei's sudden cold shot made Leganes break out in a cold sweat, and Mauricio Pellegrino roared loudly on the sidelines, very dissatisfied with the loss of his defenders just now.
But Theowas, who was reprimanded by the head coach, also couldn't say it, Dai Zhiwei got rid of it very quickly just now, and he didn't have time to tackle the ball at all.
If you wait until Dai Zhiwei passes and then let go of the shovel, then the foul of the shovel behind is obvious, and the referee will definitely show at least one yellow card.
Besides, Siovas didn't expect Dai Zhiwei's long-range shot 4o meters away from the goal to have such power!
Theoas looked at Dai Zhiwei with a dark face, and the latter didn't know what was going on, and nodded politely.
This is, of course, a small episode for Dai Zhiwei.
Soon, the Yellow Submarine scored, and by this time Bruno had already rushed to the heart of the penalty area with the ball, and Theoas had to give up Dai Zhiwei, who was about to pull to the side, and rushed towards Bruno bravely.
Siovas didn't go up and tackle like a stupid big man, which also gave Bruno time to hit the ball.
Seeing that Siovas was still hesitant, Bruno alertly poked the ball forward.
The result was this unconventional action, quickly tearing apart the defensive area of Siowas, and Dai Zhiwei, who was pulling the edge, ghostly returned to the middle of the penalty area, directly reversed a straight stopper, and handed the ball to Bakambu, who had been waiting in the penalty area for a long time.
Siowas, who was chasing back, had a bad pre-cold, and the wind was blowing at his feet, running back with his life, even if he couldn't block Bakambu's shot, he had to rush back to protect the second landing point.
One of the reasons Bakambu has been able to secure Villarreal's second striker is because he is a diligent runner and has an excellent nose and shooting skills in front of goal as a striker.
After Bakambu stopped the ball, he struggled to squeeze away from Insuya's close defense, turned sharply at his feet, and immediately pulled out his foot and shot angrily after dodging the gap, Insua only had time to raise his foot to block, but unfortunately the passive defense finally made him a beat slower, allowing Bakambu's shot to dodge.
The football does not seem to have much power, but Hererin, who has always been on high alert, knows in his heart that Bakambu's kick does not rely on strength, but to turn the angle, and with a slight arc at such a close distance in front of the goal, the football can bypass the goalkeeper's fingertips and hit the goal.
Although Erelin had a judgment in his heart, Bakambu's shot was too close to the goal, and he could only look at the ball and sigh.
1:o!
The yellow submarine opened the record!
After the first half, the scene was uneventful, with only three fouls and the referee not even carding.
At the start of the second half, Leganés stepped up his attack, but the effect was not obvious and there was little threat to Fernandes.
In the end, Villarreal won 1:O against Leganés.
Dai Zhiwei's goal was a little bit of a stop, but a subtle assist still satisfied him, and what made the Yellow Submarine soldiers even happier was that Villarreal remained in the top three of the table after this round.
And the next one is their direct conversation with Atletico Madrid!