Chapter 70: The Community Shield
The Football Association Community Shield is an annual tournament hosted by the English Football Association (FA) to match the Premier League champions against the FA Cup hosts. The match is played as the opening match before the start of the season each year, and the opponents can change six men, and the draw will be decided by penalty kicks within 90 minutes. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info The predecessor of the event was the Charity Shield held in 1908, in 2002, the FA was unable to fully operate the event in accordance with the provisions of the British Charity Law, so it was renamed the Community Shield, and the ticket revenue of the game was all used for charitable purposes, and the donation object was designated by both parties, under the vigorous running of Lamb, Chelsea generously agreed to donate the ticket proceeds to the Haoxue Foundation's request, and the tickets for the 2017 Community Shield will be used for the Haoxue Foundation's Chinese Poor Mountain Football Program.
The game was still held at Wembley Stadium, except for the manager and player representatives Vallejo and others who went to attend the official press conference of the new Premier League season, the Villa team did not go to London a day earlier, but chose to take the bus on the same day. It's not exactly a friendly affair either, and the competition has become more intense in recent years, with City having been extremely cautious in both Community Shields since returning to the FA Cup in 2011, with Roberto Mancini using just three substitutions to prevent too many substitutions from disrupting his rhythm. It is also interesting to note that the last three Community Shield titles have been won by FA Cup winners, and if Villa beat Chelsea, this will continue to be the case.
After all, this is also a championship, both sides have sent out the main lineup, and the seventh round of the Premier League will meet the two teams in a narrow way, which is also an opportunity to test the strength of both sides. Villa has been away from the Premier League for a year, and now it is almost a brand new team, among all the Premier League teams, he is the most mysterious and the most expected, and there are also a lot of melon eaters in the Premier League stands, Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, Klopp, Sampaoli......
Conte lined up the 343 formation he was most accustomed to last season, with goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, a back three Cahill, Luiz, and Cesar Azpilicueta, four midfielders, Alonso, Nemanja Matic, N'Golo Kante, and Moses, and a front three of Hazard, Costa, and Pedro. Chelsea's Antonio Conte, Tottenham's Pochettino, etc. love this kind of three central defenders plus wingbacks to advance tactics, now the era of wingers cutting in, fullbacks are no longer only responsible for defense as before, they need to be more involved in the attack, to fill the vacancy left by the winger inside, wingbacks also came into being, in fact, it is the evolution of fullbacks, so their most basic task is of course to defend the opposite winger. Villa also has such two in the team, Amavi and Henrichs, of which Amavi is faster than Alonso and has better physical fitness, Li Haolong also wants to play such a tactic very much, but the time is not yet ripe, in fact, with Villa's current configuration, Amavi is even a variant wingback, and even gradually has the saying of the Amavi corridor. The newcomer Henrich has been decent for the time being, but because of the large number of in-cut Dembele, he actually has such space, which needs to be refined slowly over the course of the season.
The Villa team still lined up 4231 and were in a-for-tat matchup, with Jordan Pickford, Amavi, Van Dijk, Vallejo, Henrichs, Nzunzi, Weigl, Isco, Antoine Griezmann, Dembele, and Alario. When the audience saw that the captain's armband was actually worn on the arm of a young man with blond curly hair, they all let out a sound of surprise, this club that does not follow the conventional path is really special, and even the captain is so different.
Chelsea's right-hand winger is former winger Moses, who has been converted into wing-back by Antonio Conte, and his skills, fitness and defensive prowess have given him a rebirth in this new position last season, and his confrontation with Amavi will be Mars against Earth. Left wing-back Alonso also performed well last season, in addition to defensive solidity, the offensive side has also been excellent, the only drawback is a little slow, Cahill behind him is also lacking in speed because of age, Li Haolong's breakthrough is precisely this, which is also the only relative weakness he has found after observing Chelsea throughout the year, and Villa just has such a hammer on goal--- unreasonable Dembele, including Henrichs also has a strong breakthrough ability.
In the pre-game arrangement, Li Haolong also deliberately asked Weigel on this side to strengthen the defense of Hazard, this and Isco are also a superstar with short legs, with faster speed, sharper passing, stronger scoring ability, as the king of the British and the king, he often plays a dragon, has a good sense of rhythm, is good at continuous and fast and slow rhythm changes, the ability to combine people and balls is the strongest in the world except for Messi, because he has a very low center of gravity, it is difficult to prevent him, today Weigel, Henrichs, Vallejo The task is very difficult, His connection with Costa is Chelsea's most important attacking tool, and how to cut the link between the two is the most important thing today, with Virgil van Dijk close to Costa and Vallejo anticipating the passing lane. Another dangerous opportunist, Spaniard Pedro, will be handed over to Nzunzi and Amavi to deal with the three central players up front, a twelve-point mentality that is even more dangerous than Manchester United's front, and the Villa team is currently the strongest attacking line.
Clattenburg, the former first referee, left Saudi Arabia because he was dissatisfied with the way the "Professional Match Referee Co., Ltd." operated, and interestingly, he rejected the 1 million pounds of the Chinese Super League rookie and accepted the Saudi Arabian 500,000 pounds. Therefore, this game was punished by the "red card emperor" Atkinson, Atkinson is also famous for his multi-scale strict cards, the number of red cards is the most in the Premier League in recent years, the more strong the dialogue scene, the stronger his desire to play the card, and he also likes to punish big cards, Ferguson and Wenger have clashed with him.
At the beginning of the game, as Li Haolong expected, the Villa team was able to control the ball in the midfield, especially Weigel and Isco, who almost did not concede a goal in the first 10 minutes. According to the designed script, as soon as the opening was launched, the right side of the onslaught was launched, and Dembele also opened the F1 formula mode, just like a sports car that has soared to the limit, the impact of Chelsea's right side is embarrassing, especially the emergency stop and quick turn to cut inside, Matic, Alonso, Cahill are frequently following behind to eat ashes, relying on Kante and Luiz to barely hold on, and what is even worse is that Henrichs also began to exert force, unlike Dembele's internal cut, Li Haolong specially asked him to go straight up and down to strengthen the bottom, As long as they burst through, whether it was a cross or an inverted triangle backpass, they could find the connecting point, and Alario and Griezmann contributed three shots in just five minutes, including Griezmann's very unfortunate hit on the post.