On April 15, in the Juventus Arena, the Champions League quarterfinals, Juventus vs Manchester City match is about to be held.

In the entrance session before the game, on the Juventus side, some old acquaintances took the initiative to greet Lin Quan.

'Youngster' Buffon said: "Lin, let's have a meal together after the game, how about the winner treat?" ”

Lin Quan shrugged his shoulders: "If you want me to invite you to dinner, just say it, what are you doing with all these twists and turns!" ”

"Hehe, that's not necessarily, this is the Juventus Arena, you can't win us!"

Buffon originally wanted to keep Lin Quan clean up with domineering ruthless words, but after thinking about it for a while, he forgot it.

Because he was a little vague about the clean sheet Lin Quan, he felt unsure.

After Buffon, Pirlo also walked up and talked to Lin Quan for a while.

This should be his last season in the top five leagues, and Pirlo, who is about to turn 36, is likely to leave Europe after this season.

Therefore, the duel between these two games is likely to be the last battle between him and Lin Quan.

"If an old guy like us were to go out panning for gold, where do you think it would be more appropriate?"

Recently, several East Asian clubs have extended an olive branch to Pirlo, offering him a high salary.

Among them were the Chinese Super League and Japan's J-League, and Pirlo felt that Lin was a Chinese player and might know more about the situation in East Asia, so he consulted him.

"If you want to pan for gold overseas, New York City in Major League Soccer is good!"

Knowing that Pirlo would leave the five major leagues this summer, Lin Quan sincerely suggested to the other party, that is, not to go to East Asia!

The level of the Chinese Super League is low, there is also the problem of salary arrears, and there are too many match-fixes in the Japanese J-League, and it is easy to ruin your reputation when you go there to play.

Compared to these hidden dangers, the American major league is much better.

"New York City, the one Villa went to?"

Pirlo asked thoughtfully, the news that World Cup-winning striker Villa left Europe to join New York City last summer also caused a stir in European football.

"Yes, this is it!"

"Are they reliable?"

When you go out to pan for gold, what you are most afraid of is to encounter malicious arrears of wages like Drogba, and when the time comes, you will waste your time, but you can't get the money, wouldn't it be a loss?

"You can rest assured about this, they are very reliable!"

New York City, like Manchester City, is part of the City Group's clubs, and the two teams have a close relationship.

If you join New York City, you will also have the opportunity to play at Manchester City on loan in the future, just like Frank Lampard in the Manchester City squad.

He also went to the North American major leagues from the big five leagues to pan for gold, but only nominally joined New York City, and after some operation, he came directly to Manchester City.

In this way, Frank Lampard's family does not need to leave the UK to live overseas, and they can get the high wages offered by New York City and continue to play in the top five leagues.

For Manchester City, they only have to pay a small amount of wages, and they can borrow very useful players from New York City, which greatly reduces the club's financial expenses.

The bigger the football territory of the city group, the more operations like this will be.

At that time, as long as the Abu Dhabi consortium is willing, it is completely possible to make Manchester City's financial reports very good.

Although there is a financial fair play law on the European side, the clubs below also have a way to deal with it.

Pirlo nodded, ready to wait for the game to be over before talking to Lin Quan in detail.

As soon as he left, Juventus striker Morata ran over in a hurry, put his arm around Lin Quan's shoulders and said:

"Hey, boss, don't blame me for not reminding you, our team deputy released a word, saying that he was going to freeze you in this game and wouldn't let you score any goals!"

Team vice?

Is Morata talking about Chiellini?

Lin Quan glanced in Chiellini's direction and found that the other party was indeed staring at him with hostile eyes.

Giorgio Chiellini is one of the best defenders in the world and is very strong defensively.

Lin Quan didn't despise him, so he nodded to Morata.

In addition to Chiellini, there is another person who is hostile to Lin Quan, and that is Tevez who wears the No. 10 shirt of Juventus.

Tevez moved from Manchester City to Old Woman, and this transfer is inseparable from Lin Quan.

If it weren't for Lin Quan joining Manchester City, Manchester City probably wouldn't have expelled the Argentine so decisively and completely torn his face with him.

Therefore, in Tevez's opinion, it was Lin Quan who snatched his main position, which made him full of hatred for Lin Quan.

So, after the start of the game, Tevez was extraordinarily active, tirelessly rushing to the players with the ball in Manchester City again and again.

It can be seen that he is bent on proving his quality in the game and showing the club management how outrageous their decision was in the first place!

However, until Juventus' overall formation did not press, all of his efforts were in vain.

It would be fanciful for one person to snatch football from Manchester City.

The Manchester City players saw that Tevez was scrambling hard, so they passed all the way back and handed the ball to the feet of the defender.

The defender pulls his position wide open, attracts the opponent to come over and press, and then passes to the receiving teammate.

As a result, Tevez's aggressive pressing soon turned into a game of dog walking on Manchester City's side.

Originally, Juventus fans applauded Tevez's positive attitude, but after seeing the other party playing with him like a dog, they couldn't laugh anymore.

"What is Tevez doing? His teammates didn't keep up, so he grabbed it here alone, which doesn't make sense at all! ”

"Why don't Morata come up and grab it, don't let Tevez do useless work here alone!"

The opinions of the Old Lady fans are divided, with some arguing that they should press all over and press on Manchester City in the high post, as Tevez did.

Some people are jealous of City's counter-attacking ability and think that it should not be such a risk, and Tevez should stop his pointless behavior.

Morata symbolically followed Tevez a few times, and after seeing that he couldn't get the ball, he ignored Tevez.

If you want to rob this stupid fork, you can grab it yourself, I don't want to be used as a dog!

Alvaro Morata is a Spain international himself and of course knows how difficult it is to get the ball from a pass-and-control football, so he doesn't want to waste his energy on such a pointless thing.

After the opening, the pace of the game was not fast, and neither side invested much in the attack.

City tried to launch a couple of attacks but failed to pose a threat to the Juventus goal.

And Juventus's several counter-attacks had similar effect, and under Manchester City's active counter-attack, even the midfield was difficult to pass.

Juventus manager Allegri was very calm and did not let his players pick up the tempo from the start of the game to play against Manchester City.

He knows that the opponent is strong and conceding a goal at home is fatal for Juventus.

So he plans to control the pace of the game, test Manchester City's weaknesses little by little, find the opponent's weaknesses, and then use the thunder blow to complete the fatal blow.

Allegri's tactical ability is absolutely top-notch, and this is also the tradition of Italian coaches.

He has just taken charge this season and has yet to complete a complete overhaul of Juventus.

In terms of the tactics currently used by Juventus, Allegri is good at 4312, while Juventus played 352 during Conte's time.

At the beginning of his tenure, Allegri did not make drastic changes to the team's tactical play, but let Juventus stick to the 352 style of play.

This has the advantage of keeping Juve's overall record stable and not affecting the trust of the club and its fans.

Of course, it is not possible to continue the previous tactics, because the 352 move is okay in the league, but it has proven difficult to produce results in the Champions League.

Therefore, in the middle of the season, especially in the final rounds of the Champions League group stage, Allegri began to try to change the formation to the familiar 4312.

Just like in this game, he chose to put Vidal in front of the back, taking advantage of the good physical fitness and strong running ability of players such as Vidal, Pogba and Marchisio.

Enhanced the interception and sweeping of the midfield, and covered the two wings of the defensive range, solving the problem of wing defense during the 352 tactical period.

In addition, Pirlo is protected by people on the front and back, left and right, and his weaknesses such as his age, weak physical confrontation ability and reduced running ability can also be best protected.

Although Pirlo is 36 years old, his skills are really getting more and more demonic, and Juventus still need him to use his open vision and big picture vision at the back, as well as precise footwork to deliver lethal passes.

Although it looks like Juventus are not taking advantage of the situation right now, Allegri is not worried.

It's not yet time for Juventus to exert their strength, and when they do attack, Manchester City will be able to feel their horror!

On the other hand, Guardiola is not in a hurry.

Manchester City can win the best game in this game, and if they can't win it, it is acceptable to take away a draw.

No matter how bad it is, as long as he can get an away goal, even if he loses to the opponent, he can accept it.

Juventus should be in a hurry, after all, this is their home turf.

If they miss the chance to beat Manchester City at home, it won't be so easy to beat them when they get away!

As a result, neither side made much adjustments to their respective teams' tactical play in the first half, and the game remained evenly matched.

On the pitch, Manchester City are the dominant side.

In the first half, Manchester City completed a total of 358 passes, while Juventus only completed 220 passes, only two-thirds of Manchester City.

In terms of possession, Manchester City had 58 per cent possession, while Juventus were in their early 40s, almost two-thirds.

However, in terms of the number of shots on goal, there is a big difference between the statistics of the two teams.

Manchester City had a total of seven shots on goal in the first half with three on target.

Juventus managed only 2 shots on goal with 0 on target.

Obviously, Juventus' attacking threat didn't come through.

And the main reason for this phenomenon is the number of tackles that Manchester City leads by far ahead!

City made 11 tackles in the first half, compared to Juventus' six.

Of those 11 tackles, Kante alone contributed seven, more than the entire team.

"What kind of person is this opponent's No. 13, it's too good to grab, right?!"

"If it weren't for those key tackles he made against Pogba, once Pogba passed the ball, our attack would have been done!"

"It's not just Pogba, this guy has a lot of movement, even Pirlo, who is heavily protected, was tackled twice by him!"

"Who the hell is this man? Haven't heard of him before? ”

Juventus fans will remember the number 13 shirt in the Manchester City team, and if it weren't for his repeated interceptions and tackles in the first half, Juventus would not have had so few shots on goal.

But they were very strange in their hearts, because they knew very little about this man, and they had no idea who he was.

"This guy is a player brought in by Manchester City from a relegation team in Ligue 1 during the winter break, and he played in the Manchester derby in the last game, according to media reports in the UK, this guy is very good at stealing, he can be called the king of steals!"

Someone who regularly follows Premier League matches was quick to give Kante accurate information, but it caused suspicion among other Juventus fans.

"Is a player from a Ligue 1 relegation team really so powerful?"

"If he was really that good, then why wasn't he selected for the French national team?"

……

In a corner where no one noticed, the head coach of the French national team, Didier Deschamps, also came to the Juventus Arena and watched the game with full attention.

Clearly, Didier Deschamps is here to look at the form of his players and prepare for Euro 2016.

Next year's European Championship will be held in France, and as the host, the French team will be able to enter the main tournament without having to play in the qualifiers.

This saves them a lot of time and allows them to prepare for the competition without the pressure of results.

As a result, Didier Deschamps has been picking talented young players for some time to train through friendly matches to see if there is any malleable talent among these young players.

After losing two consecutive World Cups, France needed to rebuild.

Talented young players will be the first choice for France in the future.

At the moment, among the younger generation of players in France, Pogba and Antoine Griezmann are among the best among them.

Pogba has excellent physical qualities, delicate footwork, and can be used as the heart of the team's midfield.

Griezmann's offensive ability is outstanding, and he will inevitably be the core of the French team's frontcourt attack in the future.

As the two absolute main forces that Deschamps values the most, Deschamps is very concerned about Pogba's form.

Not long ago, in the Champions League quarter-finals, Pogba was unexpectedly injured and missed the second leg.

This worried Deschamps, so he personally checked his condition to see if his injury was serious.

However, after watching the first half of the game, Deschamps's eyes did not pay much attention to Pogba, but was attracted by another French player.

After watching N'Golo Kante's performance in the first half, Deschamps trembled with excitement.

How can we have such a defensive genius in France?

I've found a treasure!

(End of chapter)