Chapter 6: Nine and a Half Days

As Marcello expected, as soon as the second half began, St. Bartholomew contracted his formation and started a defensive counterattack. Pen | fun | pavilion www. biquge。 Except for the number 10 who scored a hat-trick, the rest of the players retreated to half-time. As the Brescia players pressed, 18,9 people were squeezed into one half, and it instantly became narrow.

Brescia's youth team has followed the first-team formation, with two forwards in front of the front, with the traditional tall and point-grabbing centre-forward at the front, and the slightly further behind is Italy's unique nine-and-a-half-point shadow striker. Before 2000, Brescia did not have a shadow striker tradition, and as a small club, they could not afford to play this kind of star-centric tactics, so they adopted a more traditional and simple Italian counter-attacking style of defense, with the forward midfielder responsible for organizing the attack and the two forwards responsible for scoring goals.

But Baggio's arrival changed all that, and as the superstar who pioneered the nine-and-a-half-style shadow striker play, Baggio quickly used his ability to become the heart of Brescia's attack. In his first season with Brescia, Baggio led the perennial relegation team to a seventh-place finish in the league and almost qualified for the UEFA Cup. In the following two seasons, even with occasional injury absences, Baggio managed to help Brescia stay in the middle of Serie A for three consecutive years.

The stable results of the first team have completely bound Brescia's team-building strategy to Baggio, and for the stability of the team, Brescia has also established a tactic of using shadow strikers as the core of the attack in the youth team. In this set-up, a nine-and-a-half-type striker is crucial, not only with the traditional No.9's ability to shoot and score, but also as a No.10 with the ability to organize attacks and deliver lethal passes.

And Zhang Shu, who came on as a substitute, stood in this most important position.

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Zhang Shu has not touched the ball since he came on the field, and according to his usual habits, he hides behind his team-mates in the center, slowly swimming in the gap between the opposing defender and the midfielder, waiting for the right opportunity. He is not in a hurry, the "Synchronization" skill is still active, and Zhang Shu believes that as long as he gets the opportunity, he will be able to make achievements.

The opportunity was not long in coming, and in the 7th minute of the second half, Brescia attacked from the back, and the long ball from the back was grabbed by the Brescia center. At the moment when he hit the football, Zhang Shu rushed out like a poisonous snake spitting out a letter, and came to the landing point of the ball before the opponent's back.

When the ball fell from the sky, St Bartholomew's centre-back was already pressing up from behind, and from the eyes of onlookers, the most reasonable way for Zhang Shu to do so was to pass it back to his teammates, and then run to catch the ball and reorganize the attack.

However, Zhang Shu made a jaw-dropping move.

He used his back against the St. Bartholomew's centre-back, then stretched out his right foot, and the ball slowly fell from the air and smashed onto his upturned toes, before changing direction and rolling between his legs behind him.

St. Bartholomew's central defender was firmly attached to Zhang Shu's back at the moment, and he saw the football fall from the air in front of Zhang Shu, and then his vision was blocked by Zhang Shu's body. But the football did not bounce off the turf, it should have been controlled by this Chinese at his feet. So he decided to work harder, using his body to force Zhang Shu to lose control of the football.

But when he exerted his strength, he felt a sudden lightness in front of him, and Zhang Shu wiped past him with a light turn against his body. The inertia was so great that he almost fell on the lawn. Even if he finally managed to control the balance of his body, he was no longer able to catch up with the back behind him.

The next thing was simple, the unguarded Zhang Shu dribbled the ball straight into the penalty area from the ribs, and shot easily before the other defenders surrounded him, and the football crossed a beautiful arc around the goalkeeper's ten fingers and fell into the goal.

"Beautiful!" When Zhang Shu used an imaginative move to get rid of the defender, the substitutes on the sidelines all got up from their seats. Seeing that the football finally flew into the goal, in the midst of a cheering crowd, Tinty shook his fist vigorously.

Marcello, who got up from the dugout and ran to the sidelines, turned his head to look at the face of head coach Igor, who was still sitting there calmly, but there was a flash of brilliance in his eyes.

Tinti was also peeking at Igor, and when he turned his gaze, he saw Marcello winking at him with a smile.

It seems that this time, it is stable!

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The game continued, and St. Bartholomew, who had equalised, did not change his previous tactics. Their composure paid off. Just five minutes after Zhang Shu's goal, they seized on the gap in Brescia's excitement and completed a successful counter-attack.

In one of Brescia's attacks, the ball was broken by St. Bartholomew's defender's big kick, and the ball flew over the midfield and headed straight for the touchline. Brescia's youngsters didn't come back quickly, waiting in front for the ball to go out of bounds and continue to lay siege to St Bartholomew's goal.

However, the ball was bouncing and about to roll off the sideline when a black leg stopped. St Bartholomew's number 10 came out of the slash and when he got hold of the ball, the nearest Brescia player was still 10 metres away. He sprinted from the wing, dribbling the ball from midfield to Brescia's baseline, then passing the ball to the middle, where another St Bartholomew's striker sent the ball into the net.

Igor angrily slammed the tactical board to the ground. He didn't really care about the outcome of this game. But what he showed in the goal he couldn't accept.

So when the ball rolled off the touchline again, Brescia's left-back and midfielder shrugged their heads and walked silently off the field. Igor brought on two substitutes.

There was no Zhang Shu's responsibility in this conceded goal, but he was quite unhappy in his heart.

If I equalize, you'll score another one? What does it mean?

All right! Come on! Hurt each other!

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When the game resumed, St. Bartholomew stepped up his defense against Zhang Shu, and the traditional Italian chain defense emphasizes the restriction of attacking players on a local scale. This defensive awareness has long been deeply engraved in the DNA of every Italian team. Zhang Shu found that he once again felt the same sense of restraint that he had in Milan at that time.

Because of the previous goal, the team-mates did not reject passing the ball to this future teammate. Zhang Shu can also catch the ball many times, and then rely on the advantages of the system and skills to shake off the players who mark him. But every time after passing the first opponent, a second person will come up and entangle him, and he finally gets rid of the second one, and the third one finds that he has been forced into a desperate situation.

"It can't go on like this." The continuous dribbling made Zhang Shu's breathing become more and more rapid, and the excitement of scoring before made him completely ignore his physical shortcomings. When he felt the scorching scene, he realized that his physical strength had been exhausted in the sprints again and again.

There are still so many opponents in front of him, and in the slow time and space, Zhang Shu deduced countless routes to break through, only to find that each one was faintly surrounded by the defender's system.

"There's no reason, there must be another way." Zhang Shu controlled the ball at his feet, trying his best to dodge the defender's leg that stretched out to break the ball, and looked up to observe the opponent's position.

Suddenly, in the crowd surrounding him, Zhang Shu saw a raised arm.

Tullio played a lot of depression today. As the main centre-forward of Brescia's youth team, he was not able to score a single goal in today's game. Although there was a header ferry assist, anyone with a discerning eye could see that the goal was scored entirely by Zhang Shu's personal ability. In the coach's mind, he may not have any impression of him as an "assister".

And since the Chinese kid came on the field, he almost didn't have any chance to touch the ball, as long as the ball was passed to his feet, he was bored until he was cut off, but he was still the tactical offensive core. As a high school striker, if no one passes the ball to him, he won't have any chance at all.

Turio felt more and more like a fool, constantly running into gaps, battling with the opposing centre-backs for positions, but no one ever paid attention to his efforts. Later, the opposing central defender didn't bother to entangle with him, leaving him standing alone in the penalty area with his arms raised.

"Next time, I won't run in vain like this!" Although he thought this way every time, the next time he saw a gap, Turio still inserted into the box.

And then the opportunity came without warning. When Turio saw the ball flying towards him, he flickered, but the ball didn't stop, and the ball came too close to his feet, causing him to take another second to adjust the ball to the right position.

But by the time he had done all this, the nearest defender hadn't yet run to him. So he bent his bow and arrow, and the action was stretched and easy to shoot, and the goalkeeper was helpless in the face of this burst of fire on the line of the small penalty area.

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Watching the football fly into the goal, Igor could hardly contain his excitement, in fact, when Turio received the football in the gap, Igor was already on his feet. In this goal, he saw the future of Brescia.

This future, of course, is not Turio, but Zhang Shu.

When Zhang Shu scored the first goal, Igor had already decided to sign this teenager, a young player with such breakthrough and shooting ability, and in time he will definitely grow into an excellent striker. A free signing of such a player is definitely a successful deal.

But the second goal made Igor completely excited, because he saw the untapped playmaking potential in Zhang Shu. When these abilities appear in one person at the same time, Igor's mind has only one thought: "He's a nine-and-a-half!" He can definitely be a nine-and-a-half! ”

Nine-and-a-half players are so rare, looking at the entire Italian football world, in addition to the founder of nine-and-a-half Robert Baggio, only the zebra prince Piero, and the Roman wolf king Totti can be called a qualified nine-and-a-half. Everything else is much worse. Cassano, who is known as Baggio's successor, lacks organizational skills, and Pirlo, who was still in Brescia for the first two seasons, lacks attacking ability.

However, Baggio has been visibly more and more injured in the past two seasons, and even suffered a serious cruciate ligament injury last season. Although inspired by participating in the World Cup, Baggio miraculously returned to the field after only 76 days, and even scored a brace in just over ten minutes on the day of his comeback. But the so-called miracle is something that cannot be replicated. Brescia must find a suitable successor for Baggio.

So you can imagine Igor's excitement.

But Zhang Shu didn't know that his position in the head coach's heart had risen to such a height. Even with another equaliser, he was still unhappy. He has always been angry about the fact that the opponent took the lead again with a sneak attack as soon as he scored.

You hurt me and laughed it off?

I'm sorry, I'm going to win.