I started with Torres, to revive German football

Chapter 346: Breaking the tie and the decisive battle in the League Cup

And when the players on both wings of Manchester City began to frequently lift the ball towards Monaco's penalty area, Zhao Jinge's personal performance officially began.

Glick and Germersson did their best to interfere with Zhao Jinge, which allowed Monaco to last nearly 10 minutes longer.

These 10 minutes made Monaco fans feel like they were on a roller coaster.

Every time Zhao Jinge grabbed a point, their hearts would tremble. When Zhao Jinge hit the post in the 8th minute of the second half, many Monaco fans even covered their eyes in despair!
Amidst the screams of their companions, they dared to put down their palms, and then, like the people around them, they were thankful that their beloved team was still clinging to the tie.

But such a lucky situation ceased to exist at No. 601 minutes.

The physical condition of Manchester City players not only worried Guardiola, Zhao Jinge also gradually became anxious.

If everyone is in a normal state, then playing for [-] minutes or so is not a problem at all, but now Manchester City's players on the field are gritting their teeth and persisting.

In the first half of the game, a lot of physical energy was spent on constantly launching pressing attacks, and at the beginning of the second half, they had to attack with all their strength. This was really a test of willpower for the Manchester City players who had just finished fighting Manchester United three days ago.

At this time, De Bruyne was sitting in the backcourt organizing and dispatching, preferring to suppress the rhythm to a very boring pace rather than give Monaco a chance to launch a quick attack in Manchester City's half.

Zhao Jinge also retreated on a large scale to support his teammates, looking for weaknesses in his opponents while helping his teammates!
As time passed by, the opportunity that Zhao Jinge had been waiting for suddenly arrived.

In the 70th minute of the game, Laporte completed a steal in the backcourt, blocking another Monaco offensive. Mbappe was eaten alive by Laporte in the confrontation. The somewhat thin Frenchman was completely He was no match for Laporte, who was tall and defensive.

When Laporte stole the ball, Zhao Jinge, who was near the center line, had already realized that this was an excellent counterattack opportunity.

Zhao Jinge immediately ran towards Monaco's half. Fabinho and Bakayoko, who had just pressed forward to participate in the attack, looked at Zhao Jinge who was running wildly and immediately accelerated back to defend. However, their absolute speed disadvantage made it impossible for them to stop their crazy speed increase. Zhao Jinge.

Yaya Toure advanced with the ball and passed the ball across to De Bruyne in the center on the right as he approached the center circle.

After De Bruyne received the ball, he took a few steps forward and stopped near the midline. He looked up and saw that the very familiar blue figure was almost running to the edge of Monaco's penalty area.

De Bruyne immediately adjusted his position, raised his arms and straightened his thighs, and accurately guided the long pass across the half-court from the center line and directly to the front of Monaco's penalty area!
Zhao Jinge suddenly looked back and saw De Bruyne's pass. He caught the ball before Bakayoko and Fabinho's double-team, and stopped the ball two steps to his side with his chest.

Turning around and adjusting, the raised right leg exploded with unimaginable energy, and the straight instep slammed heavily on the lower right side of the football, an unstoppable volley!
The football shot out with a roaring wind rushed towards the far corner of the Monaco goal.

Subasic, who was guarding the near corner of the goal, did not expect that Zhao Jinge would choose to volley into the far corner.

Barely making a save, he failed to intercept the whizzing football in the middle of the goal, and could only watch helplessly as the football entered the left side of the goal along the established direction.

The goal that had held on for seven and 10 minutes suddenly collapsed!

"GOAL!!!!!!"

"Zhao Jinge! Zhao Jinge opened the scoring for Manchester City! At the critical moment, Manchester City's most reliable player is him!"

"pretty!!!"

Guardiola, like all Manchester City fans, cheered loudly for the team's goal!
However, no one expected that just 3 minutes later, after De Bruyne got rid of the ball on the left side of the front court, he dribbled the ball past Bakayoko and sent the ball into the penalty area.

Zhao Jinge used his body to squeeze away Germersson, and when the ball came, he volleyed with his right foot, sending the football into the goal that was close at hand.

Two to zero!
The Manchester City twins used their personal strength to completely defeat their opponents!
In the 708th minute of the second half, Guardiola replaced Mane with Gundogan, further strengthening the defensive capabilities of the midfield and improving the defensive mobility of both wings of the midfield.

Lemar and Bernardo Silva's two-wing push attack was immediately targeted and intercepted.

The two of them were not speed-type breakthrough players. When facing a younger, better running, and stronger opponent, the two of them who had consumed almost 10 minutes directly fell silent.

Fabinho originally wanted to take the initiative to seek cooperation with Mbappe, but when De Bruyne took advantage of the space he inserted and almost sent a one-handed ball to Zhao Jinge, Fabinho suddenly came to his senses.

De Bruyne's passing was too harsh. Guardiola didn't let him sit in the midfield just to control the ball. If Monaco dared to press forward too much, they would definitely rely on the Belgian's passing and forward penetration. Big loss.

Fabinho's hesitation cost Monaco the chance to attack at the last moment.

As a super star, Mbappe is not a super forward in the five major leagues. The pressure he puts on Manchester City's backcourt is completely insufficient. Only Falcao is still actively trying to seek cooperation with his teammates.

But Monaco is just Monaco after all, and there are not enough helpers around him. After many attempts to no avail, Falcao slowed down.

Looking at the scoreboard, Tiger could only shake his head silently.

Not only did they not win against Manchester City at home in the first round, they also gave the opponent two valuable away goals.

Judging from his many years of experience in European competitions, if he cannot completely defeat the opponent at Manchester City's home court in the second round, Monaco's Champions League this season will basically come to an end.

In terms of tenacity and strength, today's Monaco is not as good as the Atletico Madrid team he played for last season, but the Atletico Madrid team he was quite optimistic about could only end up with a complete defeat at Manchester City's home court. Monaco What can we rely on to make a comeback?

When the referee blew the final whistle, Falcao had no choice but to put his hands on his hips and looked at the Manchester City players who had gathered together to celebrate their away victory, with memories in his eyes.

However, he has been to the top of the Europa League before and has experienced many defeats, so he has long been accustomed to such results. He felt a little disappointed, but he quickly adjusted.

Looking at the Manchester City players cheering and celebrating at their home stadium, the Monaco players also reluctantly left the field and gave up the space to today's winner.

However, the Monaco fans at the scene did not buy it very much. After watching their home team lose miserably, they were unwilling to leave the field and began to use targeted boos to affect the Manchester City players and fans who were interacting and celebrating.Some Monaco fans with a bigger temper even had a little conflict with Manchester City fans, which fully showed that they couldn't afford to lose.

Faced with this situation, Manchester City players also quickly ended their celebrations and asked their fans to leave the field as soon as possible. Don't be like these Monaco fans!
The next morning, the entire Manchester City team got on a plane back to England.

With a score of [-]-[-] and a game that took the initiative, Manchester City naturally once again received praise from the media across England.

Rare calls for the next round to be equally calm were drowned out in the crowd's praise.

Zhao Jinge, who scored two valuable away goals, naturally became the darling of the media again.

But this time, compared to his scoring process, his several conflicts with Monaco players during the game obviously attracted more attention from fans.

Of course, various media reports have not affected Manchester City's training and preparations.

After returning to Manchester, the players who played in the Champions League yesterday were given a day off.

I just hope that the players can maintain their condition and perform well in the League Cup final in a few days.

Speaking of the upcoming League Cup final, we have to talk about Manchester City's final opponent Southampton.

Speaking of which, Southampton's fate is really tough. Zhao Jinge thought that in the semi-finals of the other half of the district, Liverpool, who were winning with great momentum, could steadily overcome Southampton. After all, even if they lost the first round in the two rounds, Liverpool can also rely on hard power to defeat Southampton in the second round.

As a result, Southampton, under the leadership of their new head coach Pierre, slapped countless people in the face with Liverpool's performance of [-]-[-] in two rounds, and finally successfully met Manchester City in the League Cup final!
For Manchester City, playing Southampton is naturally a good choice. After all, they just defeated Southampton in the league not long ago. They also have a relatively clear understanding of Southampton's strength, which gives them a big psychological advantage.

Of course Zhao Jinge is confident that he can win, but he still pays more attention to Southampton.

Southampton's leading forward Tadic has performed well in recent seasons.

The Serbian winger has played like a first-class star this season.

After adapting to the style and intensity of confrontation in the Premier League, Tadic has now scored eight goals and ten assists in the league. This data is already very good for a winger from a mid- to upper-tier Premier League team.

The first knockout round of the Champions League has been played, and the sixth round of the Premier League No. 20 has not yet begun. Naturally, fans in England are very interested in the League Cup final, which will start in a few days.

Although it is a pity not to see another strong dialogue between Manchester City and Liverpool, it is still quite good to watch the duel between Manchester City and Southampton.

It is not easy for Southampton to reach the League Cup final all the way, and many fans also want to see them break Manchester City's unbeaten streak this season.

Defeating the strong with the weak is always much better than a showdown with no suspense. Under the premise that fans subconsciously favor the weaker side, in many British media surveys, Southampton's support rate was miraculously tied with Manchester City. .

The support from public opinion has boosted the morale of the Southampton team.

No matter whether they beat Manchester City in the end or not, they have reached this point and naturally want to strive for the championship with all their strength. With the support of more fans, they will have a little more confidence in winning.

On February 24, both Manchester City and Southampton came to Wembley Stadium early to get familiar with the environment again.

The outside of the stadium became very lively after noon. Not only fans from both sides gathered here to wait for the game to start, but other fans in London or nearby also rushed over to join in the fun.

After two o'clock in the afternoon, Wembley Stadium had already been filled with [-] to [-] fans, and by the time players from both sides came out to warm up, more than [-] fans had already filled the stadium.

There were almost [-] seats occupied by Manchester City fans. You can imagine how many tickets were snatched from other fans or scalpers.

Although it is only a League Cup championship, and Manchester City also won it last year, hungry Manchester City fans still have great enthusiasm for this cup competition.

The more than 2 Southampton fans who came to the scene today had some complaints.

Manchester City has almost turned Wembley Stadium into their home stadium, which is naturally very unfair to the Southampton players.

But they can't stop those neutral fans, even their own Southampton fans, from selling their tickets to Manchester City. In the face of money power, too many things can be sold, so what does a mere ticket count?
The cheering momentum is not as good as that of Manchester City. Southampton fans can only hope that their own players can overpower Manchester City on the field.

After the warm-up, the players from Southampton and Manchester City returned to their respective locker rooms one after another.

The final moment of mobilization arrived. After Guardiola and the assistant coach reminded them of the key points of the tactics, they handed the stage to Kompany and Zhao Jinge.

The old captain made a rare start and encouraged the young guys in the team, hoping that everyone can safely bring the first important championship trophy of the season back to Manchester.

When Zhao Jinge arrived, he didn't make a long speech today. He just made it clear that after winning the championship, he would cover all the expenses for the team to have fun tonight!

For Sterling and these little nightclub princes, such a promise makes their blood boil more than a passionate speech.

Even Kyle Walker, who was injured and could only watch from the sidelines, cheered at the top of his lungs after hearing Zhao Jinge's words!

While everyone was crying and howling, Zhao Jinge finally called all his teammates to his side in a serious manner.

When they put their hands on each other's shoulders and turned their heads to each other, they could see familiar faces with high morale. Zhao Jinge's firm slogan made the Manchester City generals strengthen their belief in winning the championship at this moment!
The mobilization before the finals is often as simple as that. When a championship trophy is only a stone’s throw away, a speech may strengthen the team’s belief in winning.

But for today's Manchester City players, they are a team with a steely spirit. Zhao Jinge's calmness and boldness make them more confident than those long speeches.

(End of this chapter)