Football: The butcher in the midfield at the start, the magic bird stunned

How bad the financial situation of the Barcelona Club is, we can know from the fact that they are dubbed by the outside world as a lever that can move the earth. Therefore, for tonight's friendly match, they really spent a lot of thought on publicity and marketing, returning to Barcelona Messi and Chen Xiaoliang, who is wearing the Manchester United No. 7 jersey, naturally became the top priority of marketing.

Make money, not shabby.

After returning to Barcelona, ​​Messi put on the captain's armband again, and exchanged team flags with B Fei. The players from both sides lined up to greet each other. He smiled and patted him on the shoulder while shaking hands.

The good relationship between the two is well known. Although there is no deep friendship shown, as long as the media mentions each other's topic to the two, the feedback they get is very positive.

Over time, the media asked less and less.

Fans understand the reason for this. Only by cursing and cursing in the air can there be traffic. Today you say I am good, and tomorrow I say he is good. What is the topic of this.

However, recently the media has begun to hype an approaching topic, the new Golden Globe Awards selection to be held in late October 2023.

At the level of the national team last season, Messi undoubtedly achieved great success. By virtue of reaching the top of the World Cup, he was finally crowned the king of the generation in the evaluation of most players, fans and media.

However, in the multi-line battle of Paris, in the end, they only won a Ligue 22 championship that was more surprising than winning. Although Messi's 22 goals and [-] assists in the entire season in Paris are very eye-catching, but the club Honor is still too thin.

Chen Xiaoliang on the other side is the complete opposite. He has played 0 for the national team so far, and achieved the triple crown with the club last season.

The performance of 36 goals and 36 assists in the season is absolutely unprecedented. At the same time, it broke the historical assist records of both Serie A and Champions League, and ranked second in the scoring list.

Leading Rome, which was only ranked fifth in the odds of winning the championship before the game, won the Champions League. In the final, it also had a hat-trick against Haaland, and before the end of the game, he passed 5 players in a Maradona/Messi style. The assists helped his teammates hit an empty goal to achieve a lore, which has become an eternal classic in the Champions League.

What's more, in addition to goals and assists, in terms of steals, interceptions, and average running per game, Chen Xiaoliang is also in the top three in the two competitions. They all contributed 3.3 steals, 2.8 interceptions, and 14.4 kilometers of running data. Regardless of the offensive data, it is also the performance of a top midfielder.

Whether it is the media or the spinach company, they have regarded the competition between the two for the Golden Globe this season as the most important issue in football in the second half of the year.

The current odds are Messi 1 to 1.5, and Chen Xiaoliang 1 to 2.5. Since Haaland’s odds are 1 to 10, it is basically equivalent to being out early, so it can be said that the probability of Messi winning the eighth Ballon d’Or Temporarily it is 60%, while Chen Xiaoliang is 40%.

However, there are also "assists" from Real Madrid. At the FIFA awards ceremony in the first half of the year, Real Madrid officials, coaches and players were collectively absent. On the Internet, it was full of firepower, criticizing FIFA for awarding the best player in 2022 to Messi as a wrong choice for "one game covers a whole season".

In this regard, the Golden Globe selection agency "French Football" has also been more or less under a lot of pressure.

They announced in 2022 that they had changed the selection rules. The selection unit was changed to the season instead of the natural year.

Although the rules say "only refer to the performance of the season", after all, the voters are still human, and human beings will have subjective factors and personal likes and dislikes.

Therefore, the current media and football critics agree that in the next three months, the performance of the two in Barcelona and Manchester United will greatly affect the inclination of those reporters and judges when voting.

But overall, Messi's chances of winning are still greater. After all, he has been at the top for too long, while Chen Xiaoliang has just started to shine.

There was a lot of quarreling outside, but the two of them were on good terms. According to what Chen Xiaoliang said in an interview with the media: "That's Messi, the winner of seven Golden Globes. If he wins the eighth, no one will be surprised. Of course including me."

And Messi's response was: "Chen will surprise me if he doesn't win the Ballon d'Or. Maybe next year, maybe this year. In short, I am amazed by his performance."

However, on the field at this time, there are three people who have "different views" on Chen Xiaoliang, and that is Barcelona's three main midfielders, Frankie De Jong, Garvey and Pedri.

After selling Rafinha, Barcelona temporarily bid farewell to financial constraints, and Frankie De Jong, who was originally on the container, was able to stay in the team.

After being chased by Ten Hag for a full year, Manchester United suddenly cut off their offer for him. The reason is also very simple, because their Qatari boss spent a lot of money to buy Chen Xiaoliang.

Although the 26-year-old Dutch midfielder has always regarded Barcelona as his first choice, he was chased for a year and suddenly abandoned. He is still his old mentor at Ajax, and he also feels a different kind of loneliness in his heart.

The 20-year-old Pedri was "robbed" of the 2021 Copa Award by Chen Xiaoliang. He is worth 1 million euros and has witnessed Chen Xiaoliang's rise.

When he earns 2021 million euros in 8000, he earns 5000 million euros;
When he earns 2022 million euros in 9000, he earns 9000 million euros;
When he was 2023 million euros in 1, he turned out to be 1.5 million euros.

He has only played football for 3 years, and he is already going to compete with Messi for the Golden Globe Award. According to the outside world, he said that his worth is "riding the rocket", so what is Chen Xiaoliang sitting on?A spaceship with a curvature engine?
Not to mention Garvey, who will be 19 years old in half a month. Originally, there was Pedri who was more than 2 years older than himself. Tong award, I will be overwhelmed by this senior brother, and it will be my turn only after he has won everything.

It is obvious that I am the La Masia product with a strong root, so why should I lose to an outsider?But think about people who are more than 2 years older than me, wait for me to "grow" two years, the future will definitely be my own, let alone teammates, it can be regarded as healthy competition.

Fortunately, Chen Xiaoliang was killed halfway out of nowhere, and after a random killing in Rome, he even killed a Triple Crown. The most terrible thing was that he was only two and a half months older than himself.

Since having Chen Xiaoliang, topics like "young geniuses", "future golden balls" and "the next generation of No. [-] middle school" have almost disappeared from me.

In this way, the three Barcelona midfielders have their own ideas, and this friendly match has not been so friendly from the beginning.

Lewandowski was preparing to kick off in the middle circle, and Casemiro reminded Chen Xiaoliang behind his back: "Man, the three midfielders on the opposite side look at you wrongly, be careful later, especially that Garvey, kick the ball It's not ordinary dirty, don't get hurt if you don't come up."

Facing Fat Tiger's kind reminder, Chen Xiaoliang thanked him sincerely, but also reassured him: "If he really came to hack, whoever dies will know later."

Fei B, who was on the side, also heard the conversation between the two of them. He didn't move his mouth, and snorted disdainfully in his heart: "Why, do you still want to [-]v[-]? I won't help you later, let's see how you die .”

"Beep!" The referee whistled and the game began.

Lewandowski pushed the ball to Messi, and there was a huge cheer immediately in the audience. Countless Catalans waved flags, hands, and towels in the stands to welcome their king back to Camp Nou.

Messi took a few steps, and Chen Xiaoliang greeted him, but he didn't step forward to force him to destroy the atmosphere at the moment.

Messi raised his hand to signal to the fans, passed the ball to Bard who was on the other side, and then waved to Chen Xiaoliang to express his gratitude.

After all, he had played against Chen Xiaoliang before, and he knew that when this young man charged forward at full speed, the air around him seemed to be blown up by the wind.

Under Harvey's guidance, Barcelona has returned to the traditional ball possession and infiltration football. Last season, the league's average ball possession rate was as high as 64%, tied with Manchester City and Bayern for the first place in the five major leagues.

After Messi's return, he played a huge tandem role in the midfield, which improved Barcelona's overall ball control ability by one step.

On the Manchester United side, they played a standard defensive counterattack with a 4-2-3-1 team formation.

During the two weeks of training and familiarization, Chen Xiaoliang found that Ten Hahe is a very pragmatic coach, but because of his coaching experience, he has both different tactical schools of thought.

In defense, he does not require a retreat like Mourinho, and uses the advantage of the number of people in the penalty area to achieve absolute defense against the few. At the same time, he draws out the deep space behind the opponent for a quick counterattack.

His defense puts more emphasis on pressing and destroying the passing of the opponent's midfielder. It not only ensures the pressure, but also restricts the opponent's passing route through running positions, so as to reduce the efficiency of the opponent's midfielder and the rhythm of offensive and defensive transitions.

This point actually has a strong Guardiola style. He served as the head coach of Bayern's second team in the two seasons from 2013 to 15, when the head coach of the first team was Guardiola.

In the offense, he pays attention to the overlapping of the two wingers, fully widening the width of the court to facilitate the transfer of the ball. Three defenders plus a midfielder, the remaining six are all attacking in front.

When playing against a team with lower strength than himself, he will require more possession of the ball to reduce the number of opponents' attacks, but he will not ask players to waste offensive opportunities in order to control the ball.

When playing for a strong team, he will take the initiative to give up some ball possession, and when the midfield is suppressed, he will frequently use the central defender's ability to deliver the ball to the forward field.

This is also the reason why when he coached Manchester United in the first season, he strongly advocated buying Lima and Anthony, and frantically chasing Frankie de Jong, especially the premium purchase of Anthony, which encountered a lot of criticism, because this The three have already understood his tactical requirements, and can also help other players integrate into the tactical system as soon as possible.

The arrival of Chen Xiaoliang undoubtedly greatly strengthened the sweeping and pressing ability of the midfield.

There is nothing to say about the footwork and skills of Barcelona's midfield combination, but today they are playing in a 4-3-2-1 formation, whether it is Pedri, Gavi or Gundogan, they are not pure wide players. Most of them ran to the side to open up space for the pass of the midfielder.

Messi is already 36 years old, and his experience and skills are already top-notch, but it is impossible for him to constantly use speed, change of direction and dribbling to tear apart the defense line to create murderous intent like when he was 26 years old.

Such a dense midfield space undoubtedly gave Chen Xiaoliang a lot of room to play.

Regardless of the second season in Rome or coming to Manchester United at this moment, he has been telling people with his actions, please don't forget that I am a player who plays a ball-grabbing machine and sweeps away the midfielder.

In the 4th minute, after Barcelona passed the ball more than 20 times, Gundogan passed it to Pedri, who was active on the left rib.

B Fei stepped forward to press Pedri, but before he could touch him, he cut in and shook him away.

Pedri began to dribble the ball in the middle, and Lewandowski in the penalty area also started running to catch the through ball that might come out at any time.

Seeing Lewandowski moving towards the middle of the two central defenders, Pedri immediately raised his foot to pass the ball. Looking at Lewandowski and the passing route in the penalty area, he felt that his feet were empty and he didn't kick anything. He was shocked and bowed his head. At first glance, the ball is gone!
It turned out that Chen Xiaoliang made up for it immediately after B Fei was swayed away. Originally, because the formation was compressed and he was very close, he arrived in a blink of an eye. Xiang pushed in front of B Fei, immediately turned around and launched a counterattack!
B Fei ran forward to catch the ball, and instead of passing it to Chen Xiaoliang, who was already running, passed the ball over the top to Anthony, who was plugging in from the right.

Anthony ran across the half court, turned around and unloaded the ball. Facing the high-pressure Barcelona left-back Balde, his left foot continued to shake like a cramp, trying to trick Balde's center of gravity and push forward.

The problem is not to mention Balde, just find a fan with the same surname Balde from the stands of the Camp Nou. As long as he watches enough football, he must know that Manchester United's Anthony can only use his left foot...

If this can be deceived, it will not be able to catch Harvey's eyes.

Just after Anthony shook a few times, Chen Xiaoliang had already run to the opponent's half, beckoning to Anthony for the ball.

Anthony was still "cramping" there, and he didn't see Chen Xiaoliang's gesture at all.

"Give the ball!" Chen Xiaoliang yelled, and ran towards Anthony's front left. Only then did Anthony react, seeing that he had no chance to pass Bald, he passed the ball diagonally to the left front.

Before Chen Xiaoliang received the ball, Garvey had already posted it.

173 height, 68 kg, dark brown curly hair, fair skin, usually sunny appearance and kind smile, all these are like camouflage, people can not guess that this player started from the Real Betis youth training, in November 2015 What kind of playing style is the guy who came to La Masia when he was young?

No matter how much description is said, it is not as direct and powerful as numbers.

He was the foul king in La Liga last season, with an average of 90 fouls per 2.9 minutes, tied for fourth in the yellow card list, with an average of one yellow card every three games, but no red card.

This set of data not only shows how aggressive his playing style is, but also how "smart" he is.

3 fouls every 9 games, only one yellow card, plus 0 red cards in the season, means that a large number of his fouls are "high-quality" fouls that are enough to delay the opponent's offensive rhythm without causing trouble for himself.

At the other end of the data, this 173-foot-tall guy ranks 9th on the list of being fouled in La Liga, and 14th on the list of successful one-on-one duels, which means that his small stature hides a love for tough confrontation The "big taste".

At this time, he stuck it up. Seeing that Chen Xiaoliang could not catch the ball from behind, his left hand, far away from the referee's sight, had tightly grabbed Chen Xiaoliang's back clothes. hinder.

However, he underestimated the physical fitness and explosive power of the Manchester United No. 7, who was only two and a half months older than him. Turn, rely on Garvey to move forward and start speeding up.

pull?Milinkovic, who is as strong as a cow, can't pull me, just your small body?

After Chen Xiaoliang turned around, he swung his left hand back, broke away from Garvey's grasping left hand, and rushed out immediately.

Garvey chased desperately, but he knew this. Even if he didn't watch other sports, the Barcelona coaching staff told them before the game that there was a gold medal in the [-]-meter relay and a silver medal in the individual at the World Athletics Championships... It's still the kind of ticket to go to the cameo and get on the podium without paying attention.

Garvey ran less than 3 meters away, and was pulled away by three or four people.

For a moment, Garvey looked at Chen Xiaoliang who was running farther and farther in front of him, thought of his own body, and wondered whether he hadn't developed well, or the person opposite him was Jin Kela...

Facing Chen Xiaoliang who was plugging in at high speed, Frankie de Jong and Bald double-teamed him.

After the Champions League final, Chen Xiaoliang is no stranger to the strong teams in Europe. It can even be said that when they made an offer for him, or knew that he would definitely leave Rome, the major teams began to pay attention to him in detail. Research.

From the current point of view, the most effective defensive method for Chen Xiaoliang is to double-team, avoid frontal leakage of shooting gaps, and force him to pass the ball to his teammates.

At this time, Bald's double-teaming was to deliberately release Anthony on the right.

At this moment, Pedri and Garvey, who were chasing behind, looked from their own tactical understanding and the perspective of their position. If they were Chen Xiaoliang, then there were three choices before them:

1. The right side is assigned to Anthony who is in the middle, but Anthony can't use his right foot, and he has almost no ability to pass from the bottom to the bottom. He must cut inside or rush into the penalty area to be a threat, so Bald turned around and chased. Can also form a double-team defense with Marcos Alonso;

2. It is not impossible to directly attack in the middle, but the success rate is not high;
3. Distribute to the left to the B fee who runs in place in the middle, and then insert himself into the penalty area, or run outside and wait for the opportunity.

Unsurprisingly, however, an accident happened. Chen Xiaoliang first adjusted a step to the left suddenly, and then kicked the ball out with his right foot before Frankie de Jong stepped down!
Harvey shouted the moment Chen Xiaoliang stepped out: "Restricted area!"

Obviously, the two young Barcelona midfielders have not yet reached the level and vision of their coach.

The ball flew straight to the penalty spot. The ball was flat and fast, but from the point of view of the shot, the speed of the ball was a little slower, and the height of the ball was lower from the point of view of the lob.

Originally thought it was passed to Rashford, who inserted into the penalty area in the middle, but the ball drew an inward spin in the air and deviated from the direction of the penalty spot. Araujo, who was close to Rashford, was also puzzled. Who is this for?

But soon, when he turned around, he saw a red figure rushing up from behind Kong De, raised his left foot near the baseline, and Chen Xiaoliang passed the ball like a drone returning to its position , landed on the inside of his left foot exactly and stopped!
"Oh...!" The fans in the audience exclaimed involuntarily, and Harvey, who used to be a midfielder, couldn't help applauding this pass in his heart.

You must know that even he is more short-distance and short-to-medium-distance in passing. Long-distance and long-distance passing are not his top skills. Pirlo and Scholes of similar eras may A little more coquettish than him.

At Manchester United, Kova, still wearing No. 77, received the ball and rushed along the baseline to the near corner of the goal. Comte and Marcos Alonso immediately rushed towards him, and Ter Stegen also quickly moved to prevent him from pulling away. One step angle directly hits the close angle.

Kewa waited for them to come over, took two more steps, and when the three got closer, he kicked the outside of his right foot and threw the ball to the middle!
Rashford suddenly started, got rid of Araujo, and headed the goal from the center!

Although today is a friendly match, the opponent is the world-famous giants Barcelona, ​​who is also the defending champion of La Liga, and it is the first time for Messi to play for Barcelona after his return. Under the huge attention of the media and fans, Manchester United wants to win this game Contest.

Hamad Al-Thani, who was sitting in the box of the Nou Camp stands, has stood up from his seat and is ready to celebrate the team's blitz goal!
Rashford made a leap and headed the ball!
Ter Stegen tried his best to adjust his body and jumped in the opposite direction of the center of the left goal to save!
As a result, Ter Stegen failed to catch the ball, Rashford failed to head straight, and the ball flew over the crossbar!

"oops!"

Ten Hag on the sidelines and Hamad Al Thani in the box clapped their hands regretfully at the same time, turned their heads and sat back on their chairs.

Barcelona chairman Laporta next to Hamad Al-Thani returned to smiling, thinking it was a good thing he didn't make it.

Kwa and Rashford raised their hands at each other in apology.

But Chen Xiaoliang in the distance couldn't help but smiled slightly, and turned his head to look at Sesko who was sitting on the bench beside the court.

The keen Ten Hag immediately understood what he meant. The ball could be delivered to the bottom line of the penalty area on the left from the right side of the rib 10 meters away from the penalty area line. Ball ability is the tacit cooperation between him and Kwa.

This coordination is a routine they have practiced countless times in extra training.

After catching the ball and taking a few steps, Kewa made a pass in the middle, and inadvertently sent the ball over according to the strength and height passed to Cesco in the extra training.

But Rashford is 10 centimeters shorter than Sesco, and jumping for a header is not his strong point. It is no wonder that the ball was pushed on top of his head by him and finally flew out of the crossbar.

Almost conceding the ball made Barcelona's midfielder play 12 points.

Harvey shouted at Garvey to attract his attention, then gestured to him, and pointed to Chen Xiaoliang.

"With this kid, Manchester United will definitely be more difficult to deal with in the future. If they want to go far in the Champions League this season, they are very likely to meet them. Today we have to try everything that needs to be tried. Find a way to contain him earlier, and we can also be able to deal with him sooner. Slow down his progress."

Harvey thought about it, and the game continued on the court.

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