Southgate wiped his sweat.

Italy's fierce and fast attack had already made him feel a little bad before, and then what? Sure enough, thanks to a set-piece opportunity, Italy took the lead.

Since Pan Yi took office, set-piece scoring has become an extremely effective means of scoring in Italy, and every coach has seen a variety of free kick combinations, just to deal with all possible free kick combinations will make them feel tired, and Southgate is no exception.

In fact, in the pre-match training, Southgate also did a lot of defensive drills for Italy's free kick combination, but was still scored.

It's so hard to prevent, it's hard to prevent!

So now that you are one goal behind, then the next game may be a little difficult to play.

Launch a full-scale counteroffensive?

But Italy's lineup, although it doesn't seem to have any strikers, Chiesa Jr.'s speed in counterattacks should not be underestimated, you look at what Maguire has been tortured into......

Southgate was lost in thought.

I have to say that Southgate has made a great contribution to the renewal of the England national team - at least he will copy his homework, get all the young English players that Pan Yi reused, and then put them in the main position!

But the problem is that he has a big flaw in his tactical command on the field - after all, he didn't have a lot of experience in first-team coaching before he became the head coach of the England national team!

Well, he was just the manager of Middlesbrough before leading them to relegation from the Premier League and then being sacked.

Since 2011 he has held a number of roles in the FA, from 2013 to 2016 when he was the head coach of England's Under-21 team.

Suffice it to say, Southgate doesn't have a lot of coaching experience, especially in tournaments.

This made him a little overconfident when he had not yet faced an "old handsome" like Pan Yi; And when I really encountered difficulties, I was a little overwhelmed.

And on the field at this time, Italy certainly did not give the opponent much respite, and they continued to launch fierce attacks.

England players are still frustrated by conceding goals, and their own manager has not responded in time, which makes it easier for their own defence to crack.

So while England's midfielders are making frenzied interceptions, and while England's defenders are still desperately defending, their defence is still being torn apart by Italy.

The centre-backs who are all three of England's strengths and weaknesses are evident at the moment and the shortcomings are now being magnified.

Walker originally played at right-back, but due to his strong body and super speed, he sometimes played as a cameo at central defence.

Under Gareth Southgate, Walker has been more likely to play at centre-back as he prefers to use Kieran Trippier, who is more technically skilled and has a knack for set-pieces at right wing-back.

But the problem is that Walker is used to playing as a wingback, sometimes aggressive, and has a poor sense of position, so he is often lost by the interspersed runs of Italian players.

As for Stones, there is no doubt about his work on his feet, who has long been known in England as a "central defender", and his precise long balls from the back are often the first wave of Manchester City's attacks.

However, Stones also has a fatal flaw, that is, he is often hesitant to hold the ball, coupled with poor mental quality, which leads to his constant low-level mistakes on the court.

When the Italians attacked, he had already made a couple of mistakes at this point and was tackled, which led to a fire in front of the England goal.

Needless to say, the last centre-back, Maguire, is very physical, very, very strong.

He's 1.94m tall and weighs 100kg, making him even the heaviest player at this World Cup – well, a little heavier than Romelu Lukaku.

On the court, Maguire's body is almost crushing, and when he defends closely, the players who are being defended have basically lost the rhythm of their feet, and it is difficult to have the strength to hold the ball.

It can be said that Maguire's frontal defense, interception, and defensive high-altitude ball are top-notch, especially the ability to fight for the top can be said to be world-class.

Maguire can also be arguably one of Southgate's most relied on attacking firepower in his corner tactics, and in qualifiers and group stages, Maguire has often used his big head to grab points to score goals.

But as a traditional British tall central defender, Maguire's shortcomings are also obvious: slow turning, slow speed! The turn of the aircraft carrier is no joke.

Therefore, he needs a central defensive combination and midfield protection, such as in the current England national team, Walker and Stones, including Rice, will come to make up for Maguire's shortcomings.

But the problem now is that Italy have the upper hand on the pitch and they don't play high balls, but use quick coordination on the ground.

This prevented Maguire from taking advantage of the high ball, and at the same time, he often faced the striker Chiesa Jr., and the shortcomings of slow turning were exposed.

It can be said that Maguire at this time is really a "clumsy Maguire".

Wouldn't such a defensive line look flawed in front of Italy's attack?

Luckily, Jordan Pickford, England's main goalkeeper today, is still in good form.

He gritted his teeth and saved Chiesa's powerful long-range shot from the edge of the penalty area, then immediately got up and grabbed the ball with one hand before Chiesa Jr. grabbed the point, then he pressed the ball under him, and after a while he looked up and slowly stood up.

He made at least three good saves in that time, and the momentum of the Italian attack kept him focused on all of them, which also made Pickford feel a little struggling.

However, if it weren't for his successive saves, perhaps Italy would have extended their lead long ago.

Jordan Pickford is perhaps the most reliable player in the England backline right now.

This season, he signed for Everton in the Premier League for a £25million transfer fee, and was voted Everton's Player of the Season that year, in addition to winning the Players' Player of the Choice and Young Player of the Season awards.

His biggest characteristic is that the goalkeeper skills are balanced, the comprehensive ability is strong, there is a good long pass, and the psychological quality is also very good, the defensive command ability is very strong, and he is often seen shouting at his teammates to set up defense.

"Lift your spirits, attack well, and beat them back!" Pickford tossed the ball out, shouting.

His save really boosted the confidence of the Englishmen and they launched a counter-attack.

However, such counter-attacks are often stopped by the Italians at half-time.

A six-man midfielder, plus Chiesa Jr., is seven!

Rice was relatively quiet during this period of time, because Tonali and Barella would be pestered to the death of England every time he attacked, so that he could not play his own characteristics.

In particular, Tonali, as a good team-mate who often appeared in the midfield position when he was in York City, he was very familiar with Rice, and he used his body to physically entangle the core of the midfield of the England national team.

Even if Jesse Lingard and Loftus-Cheek kept coming over to pick up Rice, Tonali didn't care about the others just staring at Rice, cutting the England midfield pivot from the rest.

In Southgate's 3-5-2 system, the midfield three are very similar to the configuration of Pan Yi's Chelsea days, with Jesse Lingard and Loftus-Cheek roughly equivalent to Eden Hazard and B, and Rice playing the role of N'Golo Kante.

It is conceivable that if N'Golo Kante is stifled in Chelsea, there will be a lot of problems in Chelsea's midfield.

It's the same now, Rice is stared at to death, which makes him feel very helpless.

"What are you doing with me?" Rice couldn't help but say to Tonali beside him.

"You should know, boss." Tonali said with a straight face.

Although the two have a good personal relationship, Tonali obviously doesn't want to give Rice too much face at this time.

Friends off the field, enemies on the field!

At this time, in the face of the "enemy" Rice, Tonali will certainly not be merciful when he gets down.

Although Rice didn't seem to be in great shape today, Tonali still won't let up.

His task in this game is not to score goals or assists, but to interfere with the opposition defense when attacking, and to cut off the connection between Rice and others when defending - that is his biggest task.

Tonali didn't have too many complaints about Pan Yi's decision to put the burden of scoring goals on the likes of Barella and Chiesa Jr., and let himself be more involved in defense.

In the group stage, he was the heart of Italy's attack, and he has already seen it, and now he would rather sacrifice for the sake of the overall team victory.

Of course, then again, he just took advantage of a free-kick opportunity and swiped an assist...... Cough, no way, with such a set-piece kung fu, brushing data is fragrant!

At this time, Rice took a big step back and received a cross pass from Stones, but Tonali forced it up as soon as possible, and without playing anything with Rice, he leaned directly over his body and collided the two strong bodies together.

Rice's physical confrontation ability is actually very strong, but Tonali's hard work is more sufficient, and the collision between the two Rice will not make any cheap, so Rice can only pass the ball to Loftus-Cheek next to him, and then plan to run to get rid of Tonali's defense.

However, Tonali continued to follow him closely, and seeing this, Loftus-Cheek rushed forward with the ball himself and passed the ball to Raheem Sterling on the side of the ball under the interference of Barella.

The little black man rushed forward with the ball, and Desiglio immediately clung to it.

After a few strokes that could not get rid of Desiglio, Sterling opted to pass back, but Verratti stretched out his foot to cut the ball off in the middle of the game.

Break the ball in the middle and counterattack directly!

Verratti didn't waste a moment's time, and as soon as he received the ball and turned around, he immediately sent a beautiful diagonal pass!

Now, in the back position, Verratti is playing more and more handy, and in this position, he can thoroughly play his advantages of accurate long passing and strong running ability, and basically cover up his shortcomings of slow speed and average personal breakthrough ability.

If it was a bit unpleasant to play in a back position at first, Verratti has thoroughly liked it.

It's Chiesa Jr. who gets the ball again!

Maguire was taken aback and ran desperately back, but where could he catch up?

Rice, who was a little further back, also began to fill in on the right side, but after Chiesa Jr. caught up with the ball, he did not dribble the ball, but directly crossed the ball to the middle!

Barella didn't stop the ball in the middle, but sent it straight forward and played a one-two with Chiesa Jr.

Chiesa Jr. ran past like a wind, slotted Barella's through ball forward, and then raced towards the England penalty area!

Stones' risky tackle was directly passed by Chiesa, who was certainly one of the best in England's new generation of centre-backs, but his lack of consistency and occasional mistakes took its toll at this time!

His adventurous tackle didn't cut off the ball, instead giving up a large gap behind him.

Although Maguire also completed the U-turn of the carrier at this time and made up for that position, the disadvantage in speed still made him unable to prevent Chiesa Jr. from facing Pickford directly.

In the face of the attacking Pickford, Chiesa Jr. suddenly got up and fired into the far corner during the run!

But Pickford is Pickford, and he still reacted subconsciously when he was close at hand, falling to the ground and stretching his leg to block the ball!

However, the ball rolled to the side of Chiesa Jr. again, and after the shot, Chiesa Jr., who did not stop his own running, took the ball forward, dodged the angle, and then got up with his left foot to push the empty goal again!

The ball flew into the goal without any suspense!

2-0, Italy extended the score!

A set-piece after a fierce attack, a quick counterattack after a midfield tackle, Italy really took a two-goal lead!

It was Chiesa's fifth goal in this World Cup!

It also puts him in second place behind England striker Harry Kane in the current scorer list.

However, three of Harry Kane's six goals were penalties, while Chiesa Jr. scored all of them, which is more valuable than his opponents.

Besides, Italy now have a two-goal lead, and if they get rid of England, Harry Kane won't have much chance of increasing his goal tally, while Italy have at least two games left to get Chiesa to score......

In third place, there is also a favorite player of Pan Yi, that is Belgium's Romelu Lukaku, who has scored four goals.

Considering Belgium have already beaten Brazil to reach the semi-finals, Lukaku is more likely to be in contention for the Golden Boot......

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo and Russia's Cheryshev also scored four goals, but they have both gone home.

Of course, the English players on the pitch don't have time to think about the Golden Boot.

Chiesa's goal came in the 40th minute of the first half, and if they can't get a ball back in the rest of the game, then at halftime, Pan Yi, who has two goals in hand, will be able to arrange his tactics more easily.

In fact, shortly after Chiesa Jr.'s goal, Pan Yi said lightly to Evani:

"Tell the players, recycle the defense, let's save some effort...... A few minutes is enough. ”

Evani nodded, and immediately conveyed Pan Yi's intentions.

There is still a lot of time, and Pan Yi is already thinking about the way to play in the second half.

After the restart, Italy really started to go on the defensive.

England also launched a couple of attacks in the remaining minutes, but their attack was a bit disorganized, with Italy defending the edge of the box well, Barella also returning to defend at the edge of the box, and Harry Kane in the box was pestered by Bastoni, and both headers were headed high by interference.

When the referee blew the whistle for the end of the first half, Italy walked into the dressing room with their heads held high with a two-goal lead.

"Perfect first half! Two clean goals! Most of the time dominant race process! Italy is really many times stronger now than it was a year ago! ”

The Italian commentator was shouting excitedly, and while sitting not far from him, Lineker and Alan Shearer shook their heads with wry smiles.

Italy did play well in the first half, and apart from holding England down for most of the time, they didn't give England many chances defensively.

What's more, they took their chances, and the two-goal lead was real!

Pan Yi's team led by two goals into the second half, and the pressure on England and Southgate can be imagined.

Alan Shearer suddenly said: "In the first half, the Italian players were quite active, especially the players up front and the two full-backs, they ran quite a large distance, so as to suppress the England ...... in all directions"

Lineker pondered: "What do you mean......"

Alan Shearer concluded: "If Italy continue to play like this, maybe they won't be able to hold up for too long in the second half and there will be fitness problems. Maybe then, England will have a chance. ”

Lineker scratched his head: "Really? Unless Pan Yi can't see this...... Well, I'm not going to be discouraged, let's hope that's the case, we'll see you in the second half! ”

(End of chapter)