In the afternoon, Wembley Stadium shone a tiny yellow glow from the roof.

It was a great day for the game, and in addition to the Chelsea and Manchester City supporters, there was a large crowd of visitors gathered in the stands at Wembley Stadium today.

They come from all over the world and want to take the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the new Champions League winners.

There is no doubt that Chelsea were the absolute protagonists and focal points in today's Community Shield game.

A large number of European sports media before the game were also more optimistic about Chelsea winning their fifth trophy of the year!

After all, Chelsea have won three cups in the stadium over the past half-season.

As long as they have reached the cup final, there is no record of missing out.

Today, Wembley Stadium is also dubbed by many Premier League fans as Chelsea's "Lucky Stadium".

Whether it's looking at the winning percentage of cup finals or the record of Chelsea and Manchester City in the last two seasons.

There is no reason for journalists and fans not to believe that Chelsea will continue to be that eventual winner.

Manchester City remain a challenger.

Even if they have been strengthened in this summer window, they are further approaching Chelsea in terms of team value.

But until they really beat Chelsea to regain their Premier League dominance, they will always be the weaker side in the pitch.

Before the game officially began, the new Manchester City players – whether they started or sat on the bench – were almost all looking at Leon, who was wearing the captain's armband for the first time.

Leon was actually watching them, too.

Raheem Sterling, Gundogan, Bravo, Sane, Otamendi......

There were players he'd played against before, as well as players he'd met on the field for the first time.

But without exception, he is very familiar with these new Manchester City signings.

After taking over Manchester City for two seasons, Pep Guardiola has taken his biggest step in terms of recruitment.

This Manchester City team is also very different from last season.

Leon is familiar with these players, but his teammates are not.

After getting City's starting 11 before the game, Mourinho even wondered in the dressing room if Pep Guardiola wanted to give up the Community Shield.

After all, in terms of starting arrangements, Guardiola is very bold to use many newcomers today.

In contrast, Mourinho has only made two changes to his starting line, up front and at the back.

And for the sake of the team's stable performance, he did not dare to let Oblak start directly in the Community Shield, or reuse Cech.

Pep Guardiola has made a trial and error before, using Valdés to fail to use the previous effect at Barcelona, and now he has poached a goalkeeper Bravo from La Liga.

Buy and use, Joe Hart was once again pressed on the bench by Guardiola.

Let's not talk about whether this substitution effect is good or not, Guardiola's courage is really big anyway!

Mourinho shook his head as soon as he saw Manchester City's starting 11 list.

He didn't expect his old friend to start the new season so early.

At this time, the live broadcast commentators from various countries are also very much looking forward to introducing the new faces and players in the Manchester City first team for the fans.

Although he is very bold in terms of personnel today, Guardiola still did not directly reproduce the most convenient 433 formation he used in Barcelona at the beginning.

In the face of Chelsea, Guardiola still adopts the 4231 starting formation that focuses on midfield control.

The starting goalkeeper was Bravo.

Kolarov, Otamendi, Kompany and Jesús Navas make up City's new backline.

In midfield, Fernandinho and Ilkay Gundogan were behind in a back two, with Cesc Fabregas up front and Raheem Sterling and Silva on his left and right.

Sergio Aguero burst forward to play as a starting centre-forward.

Chelsea, on the other hand, switched to an offensive and defensive stance, taking the initiative to adopt the 433 starting formation today.

The starting goalkeeper is still the old goalkeeper Petr Cech.

At the back, Bertrand, Harry Maguire, Thiago Silva and Cesar Azpilicueta lined up from left to right.

In midfield, Nemanja Matic dragged behind, with Kroos and Leon playing as a double central midfielder.

Eden Hazard on the left, Suarez on the centre, and Kevin De Bruyne on the right.

Chelsea's starting line-up isn't much changed right now, but there are too many old faces left on the bench.

Now leading the bench are Mohamed Salah and Callas, two players who were the youngest players in the team last season.

The rest of the youngsters such as Oblak, Kieran Trippier, Gnabry and Kurt Zouma will be even more unfamiliar to Chelsea fans.

Many British media have already published articles predicting that Chelsea's results on multiple fronts in the new season will drop a lot.

However, on the main battlefield of the Premier League and Champions League, Chelsea are still very competitive with a still strong main squad.

This Community Shield may not be particularly important for the Chelsea players and Jose Mourinho.

However, in the eyes of the outside media, this is the first important test for Chelsea in the new season.

Countless eyes are on the Chelsea squad at the moment, looking for evidence of their decline in strength for the new season.

After picking sides for his team, Leon shook hands with Kompany and the referee again, handed over the exchanged flags to the touchline staff, and then trotted to his own half.

As the captain of the team for the first time on the court, his expression involuntarily became more serious.

However, he prepared well before the game, and at this moment he successfully led his teammates on the court to complete the last cheering before the game.

Terry was not selected for the 18-man squad for the Community Shield because of calf discomfort caused by physical training before the game.

At this moment, he sat in the box with Abu and other Chelsea management, watching Leon do his job well, and nodded with a smile.

Neither he nor Frank Lampard are on the pitch these days, but he has a lot of confidence in Leon's leadership.

He also believes that Li Ang can take on the responsibility of captaincy on the field very well.

It's not because of any gut feeling, but Leon has used his performances on the pitch and tenacity of mental willpower over the past two seasons to gain the approval of the Chelsea veterans.

As Mourinho praised Leon in a previous interview with the media:

'He's a natural leader and he's proven it on the pitch and he's going to be the most trusted player on the pitch if the team needs him and his team-mates need him......

The rest of the Chelsea players on the pitch have absolute trust in Leon at the moment.

When the referee blew the whistle for the start of the game, Li Ang, who got the return pass from his teammates, immediately made a tactical gesture and signaled his teammates to form a formation.

Chelsea's midfield is also in the midst of a fierce battle for possession between Leon and Manchester City.

Pep Guardiola's squad is still evolving.

They failed to win in direct talks with Chelsea last season, but there is no doubt that they have learned enough from their defeats.

Just as Chelsea have stolen some practical tactical tricks from Manchester City from time to time.

The current Manchester City team is clearly much tougher in midfield than last season.

Leon, who felt this, was very surprised.

Pep Guardiola's side are no longer as technically driven as they once were.

In other words, Gua Shuai has now been awakened by the wave of crazy tactics, and has also begun to pay attention to physical confrontation and the division and use of space.

Judging by the team's overall ability to fight, Manchester City is still not a rival in Chelsea's class.

But football has never been a sport that is simply stronger and better run than any one team's players.

There are many factors that affect the outcome of the game, such as the design of the technical and tactical framework, the restraint ability of the tactical selection, the difference in the mental strength of the players, and so on.

Manchester City remain essentially an attacking team with technical flow.

Chelsea have faced too many of these teams in the last two seasons and it won't be too difficult to beat them.

But when such a team has the courage and self-confidence to dare to show its sword to the opponent in the confrontation, and can also play "savage" football that disrupts the rhythm of the opponent's organization, they become a big problem!

"Hey! Interesting... We are cultural hooligans, and Manchester City now wants to be hooliganized cultural people, so we really have the same end! ”

Li Ang complained in his heart.

It seems that after being disgusted by Lao Muzheng's backhand for many years, Guardis has also thought it through, and he will not be a man!

With technique on the forehand, confrontation on the backhand, and plenty of fitness and tenacity as a team, Manchester City has not been able to walk the road that Chelsea has walked!

The difference may be that Chelsea are more about confrontation and movement, while Manchester City are more about technical containment.

With the right path on the right track, City will be able to catch up with Chelsea sooner or later.

It can only be said that Gua Shuai's ability to study tactics and self-adjustment is still strong!

It's a pity......

"Without Messi and De Bruyne, no matter how good your tactical thinking is, it will be difficult to find a strong enough frontcourt core to support this set of tactics and compete with us!"

From the bottom of his heart, Leon felt a little sorry for Guardiola.

Manchester City are struggling to find a strong core in current football that fits their tactics.

And in the Chelsea team that dominates the Premier League, his little lion has not stopped transforming, he is still evolving and becoming stronger!

Manchester City's crazy running and high pressing style of play in the opening game caught the eyes of many neutral fans watching the game.

Chelsea and Manchester City battled for possession in the first 10 minutes of the game.

It doesn't look like the two teams will be able to decide the winner in midfield anytime soon.

But just after Leon almost figured out the strength of the current Manchester City midfield.

He changed his previous style of sitting steadily in the middle and cooperating with Kroos to organize the ball, and suddenly began to hold the ball to try to advance!

This is not at all like Leon's previous style of play.

In the past, he had a strong ability to advance with the ball, but basically he seized the opportunity to switch between attack and defense and inserted the ball with the ball.

Taking advantage of the critical moment when the opponent was still attacking in the last second and the defense was unstable, his ability to advance quickly with the ball could often catch the opponent off guard.

It's still rare for him to try to run hard against the opponent's complete defense.

But at this moment, Leon just did it!

Manchester City's midfield defence was very intact, and seeing Leon burst forward with the ball, Cesc Fabregas directly told Fernandinho and Gundogan not to move.

He himself and Silva, who had retreated to help the defense, got past him.

According to Fabregas's understanding of Leon, in this case, Leon will at most try to protect the ball, and if it doesn't work, he will immediately choose to share the ball or even pass back.

It's too difficult to get the ball off Leon's feet and fight back, after all, Leon's steadiness is famous in football.

Cesc Fabregas was sure of his judgment, but just as he was determined to get close to Leon and interfere with his dribbling.

Li Ang broke through Xiaofa's forced defense with a smart crotch-piercing action that did not conform to Xiaofa's inherent impression of him at all!

At this moment, Silva has not had time to complete the closing defense of Leon with Xiaofa, seeing that Xiaofa has been turned into a "stake", Silva is also in a hurry, and quickly accelerates back to defense!

Cesc Fabregas subconsciously followed Silva's back steps.

But in his heart, he was still shocked by the crotch-piercing action that Li Ang confidently broke through him just now!

"Could this be a remarkable move made by Leon?! No way! When pigs fly!!! ”

Not to mention that Xiaofa was still confused at this time, countless fans in front of the TV also widened their eyes at this moment, and looked at Li Ang who was advancing quickly with the ball in the live broadcast camera with suspicion.

After all, Leon has never been a midfielder known for his breakthroughs.

Even if his dribbling ability has indeed improved a lot compared to his previous debut in La Liga, and his ball control level is quite good, I haven't seen him show off his skills!

Many fans in front of the TV are still speculating whether the smart person just now is Li Ang's shit luck.

But the tens of thousands of Chelsea fans at Wembley and the crowd were screaming and cheering for Leon's brilliant performance!

After picking up the speed, Leon's dribbling still didn't stumble, on the contrary, the ball seemed to be attached to his feet, which made his ball control push look quite silky.

It wasn't on a whim that Leon suddenly wanted to try his upper limit in terms of dribbling.

It's because now his dribbling ability has indeed grown to a level that is enough to support him to take the initiative to tear apart the opponent's defense!

After last season's game, after the first round of training in the offseason, his dribbling ability has reached 89.

Since then, he has counted his season point income, and has broken 3600 points, just enough to lock the ability value to open three diamond-level talent fragment cards.

So he drew three diamond-level talent fragment cards for bouncing, balancing and ball control respectively according to his current ability shortcomings.

Among them, he drew the peak ability value of "Ice Prince" Bergkamp, and in possession he drew the peak ability value of Ronaldinho, and the upper limit of the talent value of both is 98!

Although his extra training time this offseason is not very long, he is also seizing the time to improve his ability when he is training in the preseason.

So now his ball control ability value has also successfully increased by two points, and he has also reached the threshold of 89!

In terms of balance attributes, after he raised the upper limit of his innate ability value, his growth broke through very quickly.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he's been focusing on this aspect of training before.

After returning from training in the United States, he managed to break the 90 mark in his balance rating from 87 at the end of last season.

In other words, the three most important physical technical attributes related to his ability to dribble through the threat have now risen to 89, 89 and 90 respectively!

This well-balanced and top-notch dribbling threat stats are paired with his speed of 89 and acceleration of 91.

At this moment, he thinks that he is a first-class or top goalkeeper in today's football, is there any big problem?

Leon feels that he has the ability to try more active long-distance runs on the field, and he doesn't necessarily have to take the opportunity to counterattack.

Jose Mourinho had already seen Leon's progress in his previous training sessions and encouraged him to do the same.

Now Leon is using Manchester City as his own testing stone.

The ability of Li Ang's sudden change in painting style can be regarded as Mourinho's killer feature in tactical layout today!

Pep Guardiola watched Leon rush towards Manchester City's midfield and backfield, and somehow, his heart suddenly beat violently.

His sanity told him that Leon was playing with fire, and that he didn't need to worry too much.

But the experience of losing too many games in the past told him that Li Ang, a forced cub, must be alive again today!

Standing up from the coach's seat violently, Guardiola stared at the two backs in his backfield, hoping that they could fight for some anger and not give Leon a chance to continue to advance!

Fernandinho was not ambiguous, and the two of them pressed Leon one after the other!

They learned their lesson this time and did not wrap up Leon from the left and right sides, for fear that Leon would suddenly come and speed up again.

It would be much safer to push Leon to the sideline one after the other.

No matter who was broken through by Leon first, the other of them would be able to make up for it as soon as possible.

And there is Kolarov behind them, how do you look at it, the offensive and defensive advantages this time are on their side!

"Up!"

Fernandinho looked at Leon, who took the initiative to lower his speed and seemed to really want to compete with the two of them, he was also a little annoyed in his heart, and gritted his teeth and gave Gundogan a defensive order!

At this moment, Leon had already taken the ball to the sideline, and seeing Gundogan being the first to pounce and intercept it, he did not panic at all.

Neither accelerated to continue to go down, nor did he protect the ball and wait for his teammates to set the edge, but chose to decisively lead the ball and cut inside!

The moment he led the ball with his left foot and walked inside, the whole person's body was also very flexible to complete the center of gravity deflection!

It doesn't look like a right-footed player at all!

Fernandinho and Gundogan maintained a relatively safe distance between them, but at the moment this small space was being used by Leon.

The soccer ball and most of Leon's body had already slipped into the right-hand touchline of the Manchester City penalty area.

Gundogan turned slowly, and at this moment he could no longer make defensive restrictions on Leon, but Fernandinho was quick to confront Leon!

Leon's body advantage was fully revealed at this time, and he had already drilled into the Manchester City penalty area, and Fernandinho did not dare to make tactical fouls against him again!

The confrontation between the two seemed to have a one-sided trend, and Kolarov quickly joined the chaotic battle when he saw this.

At this time, Li Ang smashed the ball with his left foot at low speed and re-walked the outside line.

Kolarov hurriedly deflected his center of gravity to prevent Leon's low cross.

But in the next moment, Li Ang was a fake fax buckle!

The fast cadence and familiar dribbling rhythm almost instantly cut Kolarov and Fernandinho who pressed at him again!

Wembley watched Leon turn several of Manchester City's defenders to the fore, and Chelsea fans couldn't have been more thrilled at this moment!

At this time, after winning enough space for himself, Li Ang calmly hit a left-footed shot!

Bravo blocked the middle of the goal and was ready to block the far corner, but Leon's shot was off the beaten path and hit the near corner of the Manchester City goal!

At the moment when the football spun and hit the net, Li Ang also clenched his fist with his right hand, roaring passionately and running to the bottom line!

At this moment, he was greeted by the same crazy and passionate cheers of the fans at the scene!

Guardiola only felt a dizziness in his brain!

Leon's run to score a goal was wonderful!

But what makes Guardiola more concerned is the way Leon cuts inside on the right side and then shoots into the near corner of the goal, which is so similar to Messi a few years ago!

Even at a certain moment, Guardiola thought that he really saw an "enlarged version" of Messi wreaking havoc at Wembley Stadium!

Countless neutral fans in front of the TV were either excited and amazed at this moment, or watched the live broadcast in silence.

They didn't expect that in this Community Shield match, they would also see a Leon whose dribbling skills had been greatly upgraded!

In the past, Leon continued to refine his arsenal when he was fixed in the midfield position, but his growth path was relatively normal at that time.

Learn organization, improve long and short passing techniques, and slowly have a certain ability to insert assists.

But now seeing that Leon has been able to score goals in a row like a winger, many fans can't accept it!

Because they've never seen such outrageous growth talent before!

At this moment, Li Ang, who celebrated with his teammates in the live broadcast camera and made another gesture to the camera, seemed to be responding to this part of the fans.

"Don't be surprised, because I'm going to keep growing! I'm going to get stronger! ”

(End of chapter)