Ahead of the start of the Hoffenheim vs Udinese match, the matches of several other German teams that started earlier in the same day have come to an end.

Stuttgart won 2-1 away at Bulgaria's Chalomoli, Hamburg drew 0-0 at home to Romania's Uniria and Wolfsburg won a narrow 1-0 home win at home to Romania's Bucharest.

So far, five of the six German teams that have played in the third round of the UEFA Cup qualifiers have finished the first leg with four wins and one draw.

Now it's up to Hoffenheim, the last German team, to perform.

After a debut ceremony and the captain picked the side, at 19:45 p.m. local time on September 18, 2:45 a.m. Beijing time on September 19, with the referee's whistle, the first leg of the third round of the 2008/2009 UEFA Cup qualifying round Hoffenheim vs Udinese officially began.

Hoffenheim won the kick-off, and to the excited cheers of the Hoffenheim fans in the stadium, Lu Wenbin knocked the ball to Ibisevic and then ran towards the opponent's half.

The match was broadcast live to all of Germany and CCTV-5 to Chinese fans.

After all, this is one of the few Chinese players who can play as a central player in European competitions.

Therefore, even though it is the middle of the night in China, there are still countless Chinese fans who follow the Europa League and Lu Wenbin sitting in front of the TV to watch the game.

Of course, Lu Wenbin, who has already started the game at this time, will not think about those things, he just wants to score goals quickly and help the team defeat Udinese and gain the initiative to advance to the group stage of the League Cup in the second leg.

However, after the game started, Lu Wenbin found that the opponent did not send someone to keep an eye on him like the German team he had encountered before.

This surprised Lu Wenbin and was a little happy, thinking that he would soon get a chance to shoot.

However, after 30 minutes, Lu Wenbin did not get even a chance to shoot on goal.

Not only did he not have a chance to shoot with his feet, but he didn't even touch the ball a few times. The few touches he had were forced to pass back to his team-mates.

Lu Wenbin realized that Udinese's defense was completely different from the Bundesliga team he had encountered in the league before, and Lu Wenbin also saw for the first time what Italian defense is.

In the Bundesliga, Hoffenheim's opponents basically sent people to keep an eye on Lu Wenbin, and then other players assisted in the defense to prevent Lu Wenbin from shooting with his feet or sabotage, blocking the gun's hole, etc.

However, Udinese did not do this, and did not even send someone to keep an eye on Lu Wenbin.

They worked on the overall defense.

Udinese used the chain defense and zone defense of seven or eight players in the midfield and backfield to almost cut off Lu Wenbin's connection with other teammates.

Others don't have a lot of pressure to break through and shoot.

But as long as someone tries to pass the ball to Lu Wenbin, they will find that there are always Udinese players standing between them and Lu Wenbin, and there is almost no chance for them to pass the ball to Lu Wenbin.

As long as the ball is passed, there is a chance that it will be truncated or destroyed by the opponent.

Even if Lu Wenbin ran all kinds of turnarounds and emergency stop turns, it was useless, because people did not send people to follow Lu Wenbin at all, and there was no situation where Lu Wenbin used emergency stop and steering to get rid of defenders.

The Italian team's defensive ability is indeed unique in football.

Although Udinese was playing a passive defensive counterattack, seven or eight players shrunk in the backfield to defend, and they themselves did not have many offensive opportunities, but they successfully froze Hoffenheim's first core Lu Wenbin.

This freeze is not a one-on-one man-to-man freeze, but uses the Italian team's deep chain defense and zone defense to reduce Lu Wenbin's chances of getting the ball and also reduce the threat of Lu Wenbin's kick-to-shoot on goal.

Ralph frowned as he watched from the sidelines, and the German commentators in the commentary box went from full confidence to worried.

In fact, whether it is the national team or the league, Italy is more restrained from Germany.

Judging from the historical record, at the national team level, the matches between Italy and Germany have mostly been won by Italy in recent years.

In terms of league style, the German team focuses on attack, and the Italian team focuses on defense.

If it weren't for a team like Bayern Munich, which has too many superstars who can change the game by themselves, the German team would have lost more than won against the Italian team.

Like today's game, Udinese's tactics have become quite obvious, which is to cut off the connection between Hoffenheim's other teammates and Lu Wenbin.

Everyone else can break through and shoot, but as long as they try to pass the ball to Lu Wenbin, they will be intercepted layer by layer, and it will be difficult to succeed.

Of course, the likes of Salihovic, Eduardo and others did not fail to spot this and also tried to break through and score on their own.

However, on the one hand, Udinese itself plays defensive counterattacks, and there are a lot of defensive players piled up in the backcourt, which will not create too many gaps because of their defense of Lu Wenbin.

On the other hand, the shooting accuracy of Hoffenheim's other teammates is far from Lu Wenbin.

In the first 30 minutes, Hoffenheim still had four or five shots on goal.

However, only once of all their shots hit the woodwork and were saved by a reflexive Udinese goalkeeper Samir Handanovic to fail to score.

The situation was tough for Hoffenheim, who were playing at home, and it was not as easy as the German media had commented before the game.

After watching for half an hour and finding that it was really difficult for Lu Wenbin to receive the ball to form the final blow, Ralph had to make tactical adjustments.

Taking advantage of a dead-ball opportunity, Ralph called captain Salihovic to the sidelines to deliver new tactical instructions.

Subsequently, Salihovic, Eduardo, Demba Ba and others began to increase the number of individual breakthroughs, trying to make the opponent foul and give Lu Wenbin the opportunity to create a free kick in the front court.

However, before Hoffenheim's free-kick tactics could take effect, Udinese instead scored a counter-attacking goal in the 38th minute through their number 10 striker Di Natale.

Udinese led Hoffenheim 1-0 away and scored a crucial away goal.

At that moment, the entire Karl Benz Stadium was almost silent, and only the ecstatic cheers and screams of a few hundred Udinese fans echoed through the stadium.

Lu Wenbin stood at the front of Udinese's big forbidden zone, looking at the Udinese players running wild on the field to celebrate, his eyes were full of fighting flames.

The head coach was right when he said that European competition and league are indeed two worlds, and the Italians proved that to Lu Wenbin with their excellent overall defence and lethal counter-attacks.

To win the League Cup and achieve the Triple Crown, Lu Wenbin must work harder.

PS:Today's two chapters have been updated in advance.,This is the last chapter of the public free version.,The next chapter is a testimonial.,And then it's the ten-chapter VIP chapter that broke out on the shelves in the early morning of April 1st.,Please subscribe for monthly pass support!