Chapter 209: The Immortal Sword Appears in the Rome Derby?!
The force of the ball passed by Chen Xiaoliang was just right, and Pellegrini took the opportunity to kick a elevator ball.
Lazio goalkeeper Strakosha did not dare to be careless. Facing the ball that was not at a big angle but suddenly fell, he moved his right foot and flew up to punch the ball out.
Sesco, who was standing in the penalty area, wanted to grab a second shot, but the ball was cleared by Lazio's 34-year-old central defender Acerbi out of the baseline.
Roma wins a corner kick.
Faced with the strong start, Mourinho was very satisfied, but he did not expect that something else that made him satisfied would follow.
Pellegrini seemed to be in good form today. He was not satisfied with the elevator kick just now, so he took another corner kick.
The ball flew out from the left side, drew an inner arc and flew towards the goal, then suddenly fell above the goal frame!
Strakosha flies to block again!
But this ball was too "sly", it was blocked but not far enough, and landed right on the stomach of Cesco who was rushing forward to compete for the header!
Cesco himself was stunned for a moment!
A few days before the game, I was watching Gakpo's videos with Chen Xiaoliang, and I was thinking about trying his unreasonable long-range shots and forced inside shots in the game.
Unexpectedly, no matter how much you plan, God disposes. After struggling with Acerbi in the penalty area for a long time, he finally squeezed in front of the goal, but the ball fell from the sky and hit his stomach and bounced into the goal...
Abraham, who was on the bench, clapped his hands in celebration while sighing in his heart: Why don’t I have this kind of luck…
Roma scored a goal in the first minute and did not play their usual counterattack after taking the lead, but instead actively launched an attack against Lazio.
The head coach’s words before the game are still fresh in our minds. If we lose this game again, not only will we fail to catch up with AC Milan, but we will also be overtaken by Napoli, Inter Milan and Juventus behind us.
Besides, for many players, the end of this season will be the end of their contract years, such as Cristante and Zalewski. If they can seize the opportunity and perform well during this period, they can also increase their bargaining chips in the subsequent contract renewal negotiations.
There are also those who may be transferred, such as Veretout, Carles Perez, and Mkhitaryan. The former is because the club may want to sell him to free up salary space. At the same time, there are also rumors that Mourinho wants to loan players who are frustrated in giants to enrich the team's midfield strength, while also paving the way for young people to rise to the top.
The list includes Manchester United's Van de Beek, Paris Saint-Germain's Wijnaldum, and even Sassuolo's youngster Fratesi.
The latter two people are simply due to lack of strength or normal adjustments due to aging.
These people also want to seize the opportunity to prove themselves and get a good price in the summer window so that they can play smoothly in the next club.
Regardless of the purpose, everyone understands that these wishes can only be realized with an outstanding result at the end of the season.
Under these psychological stimulations, the Roma players on the field were like chicken blood, and attacked the Lazio penalty area in wave after wave amid the cheers of the derby.
Chen Xiaoliang also has his own ideas.
No matter what the future holds, he must help Roma win the championship, not only for his own career, but also to repay Mourinho for giving him his first professional contract at Tottenham, which completely changed his life.
And he has a goal in mind. He is naturally very happy to win the Copa Award as soon as he arrived in the top five leagues, but he hopes to be able to compete for the final list of the top 30 of the Ballon d'Or next year.
According to the selection criteria of the Golden Ball Award, the honors won by the team in the year are very important, even more important than personal data. Otherwise, there would not be so many people speaking up for Lewandowski last year.
For this, he also has to do his best to help Roma achieve the best .
Another important factor is that, like Chen Xiaoliang and Cesco, the Italian players in the team do not have any World Cup missions this year. They can completely relax and devote themselves to the game without worrying about injuries ruining their once-in-four-year World Cup journey.
Players like Veretout, Abraham and Zalewski, who may only serve as substitutes even if they are included in the World Cup roster, must seize the last chance to perform well and win themselves a ticket to Qatar with the national team.
On the contrary, Lazio's Serbian core player Milinkovic-Savic is the kind of player who will be selected into the national team by the head coach without hesitation even if he is not in good form. Although he is still very active in the midfield, he is obviously consciously reducing the number of physical confrontations to protect himself from injury.
As for the other players, either they are like Montenegro's Marušić who did not make it to the World Cup, or they are like Pedro who has achieved success but will not be selected by Enrique for the Spanish national team due to his age. In addition, they have no desire in the league and cannot catch up with the big teams, and were eliminated in the Europa League, so naturally they are inferior to Roma in terms of fighting spirit.
The only exception is striker Immobile, who has surpassed Vlahovic with 22 goals in the second half of the league to become the current Serie A top scorer. He really wants to win the Serie A Golden Boot for the fourth time in his career, so he has been running in the frontcourt, cleverly choosing gaps and responding to his teammates.
But relying on him alone is far from enough.
The Roman offensive never stopped.
In the 10th minute, Roma defended against Lazio's attack and launched a counterattack with a long pass from Mancini from the backcourt.
Cesco and Chen Xiaoliang cooperated tacitly again. The former headed the ball back to Chen Xiaoliang in the frontcourt, then immediately turned forward and prepared to shake off the players defending him. Chen Xiaoliang received the ball and immediately passed it behind him. Cesco started instantly and left Lucas Leiva behind!
Just as Cesco was striding forward with the ball, thinking about Gakpo's shooting method in his mind, and also wanting to dodge the blockade of the opponent's central defender and shoot at the top of the penalty area, Pellegrini came up from the left front and hinted for the ball!
Because Chen Xiaoliang was assigned by Mourinho to play as central midfielder, Pellegrini sat on the bench a lot recently.
But he did not sit idly on the bench and complain about not having a chance to play. Instead, he was carefully observing the way Chen Xiaoliang played, especially the particularly tacit cooperation between him and Cesco.
In terms of defense, Pellegrini knew that it was impossible for him to catch up with Chen Xiaoliang. To put it more bluntly, in one-on-one defense, there were probably few people in the world who could catch up with Chen Xiaoliang.
论身体素质，他明白自己也略输一筹，这家伙简直就是跑车的配置却加了一个越野车的油箱。
Only in terms of offense, I have some commendable qualities, such as dribbling, shooting and various other small techniques, which are better than Chen Xiaoliang.
But the cooperation between Chen Xiaoliang and Cesco made up for this remaining shortcoming.
陈小亮拉到边路用传中找塞斯科，在后场长传打身后给塞斯科送球，或者中路断球后分边让队友找塞斯科，自己则后插上吸引防守球员注意力……
Pellegrini has been thinking about how to integrate into the frontcourt cooperation between these two people.
You know, Mourinho has actually been thinking about this issue: how to integrate Abraham into this combination.
He had England strikers play past wingers, whether on the left or right, with mediocre results;
He has played as a double center with Cesco, and the effect is slightly better, but it is still inconsistent. Sometimes the goal efficiency is good, and sometimes not only can he not score, but he also drags down Cesco's goal efficiency.
In the end, it was the goal against Celtic in the first round of the Europa League that gave Pellegrini an epiphany!
Cesco has scored 18 goals for the team in three competitions this season, making him the team's absolute top scorer. The opponents' defensive pressure on him and the defensive manpower they will invest will only increase.
At the same time, the tall and strong Cesco not only scores, but also plays the role of the team's frontcourt fulcrum.
What the auxiliary attacker needs to do is to use this fulcrum to move away from the area where the opponent's defensive pressure is intensive, look for opportunities to support, and at the same time absorb as much defensive pressure as possible for Cesco.
Instead of being like Abraham, always running into the same area as Cesco, thinking he could score.
This is easier said than done.
What needs to be changed is the players' habitual thinking, style and habits formed over time.
To put it bluntly, as the main attacker and midfielder occupying the central position, now suddenly asked to change from red flower to green leaf, give up the middle, and support around the center forward, in the ever-changing football field, it really takes a lot of effort to adapt to the behavior.
At this moment, Cesco made a run through the middle with centre-back Acerbi in front of him. He went around on the left and attracted another centre-back Luis Filipe.
The right-back Marusic, who had been moving inwards, had already run over. Seeing someone coming to make up for the defense, Luis Filipe wanted to go over and help Acerbi double-team Cesco to deprive him of space to shoot.
Pellegrini's wave for the ball at this time immediately made the two defenders around him stop subconsciously!
Sesco observed this keenly and continued to cut inside with the ball, leaning against Acerbi and squeezing in like a compass.
Seeing that they had already entered the penalty area, Acerbi did not dare to kick blindly. In addition, Cesco was 195 cm tall and his legs were too long. Although his pace with the ball was slow, his dribbling range was extremely large. If he really made a tackle, he might not hit the target.
After such a delay, seeing that Acer was struggling in one-on-one defense, Luis Felipe rushed over and prepared to double-team.
Cesco took two steps to the right and kicked!
Luis Felipe slides to block!
Sesco dribbled and passed the ball, and Pellegrini made a diagonal run to the small penalty area in front of the right!
The ball arrives and the person arrives!
Goalkeeper Strakosha rushed out and stretched out his body to block the shooting space!
Pellegrini low shot!
The ball goes in!
Mourinho raised his arms to celebrate. He was very satisfied with Pellegrini's continuous running and Cesco's final through pass!
But just when the Roma players were halfway on their way to celebrate, the linesman raised the flag, indicating offside.
Pellegrini immediately ran to the referee and explained to him repeatedly. The referee waved him away while listening to the opinions of the video referee team in the headphones.
“Beep!”
The referee finally pointed to Lazio's goal and ruled the goal invalid!
Pellegrini showed an expression of loss that was difficult to hide.
He wanted to say something else to the referee, but at this moment, Cesco beside him grabbed him and pulled him away.
"Brother! Don't worry about it! I'll pass you another one later!"
Pellegrini had no choice but to nod.
As the two were walking back, Chen Xiaoliang was standing with his hands on his hips, waiting for the opponent's goalkeeper Strakosha to kick off.
He stretched out his hand and high-fived Pellegrini, saying, "It's okay, try again."
It's Lazio's turn to attack.
For a full 10 minutes, they hadn't managed a single shot on goal.
With Roma stacked with three central defenders and two defensive midfielders in the middle, Lazio's targeted deployment before the game was flank attack.
But every time the ball came to the wing, Chen Xiaoliang would run over to assist in defense. He did not rush to grab the ball, but used his position to cut off the short pass connection between Lazio's wing players and the players in the center in front.
This results in the wing players either having to stick to the wing and force their way forward, or passing the ball back to the defenders for organization.
This kind of wing attack without support and transfer from the middle is naturally much less powerful.
Although the 35-year-old Pedro still has his footwork and techniques, his speed and short-distance burst are no longer as good as they used to be. If Immobile frequently switches positions with him, the center will lose a breakthrough point.
After moving the ball around, the ball was always passed to Felipe Anderson on the right, or Milinkovic-Savic would cooperate with him on the wing to attack.
Sarri's assistant coach Martusciello also saw the targeting of Mourinho's "weird tricks" in the midfield.
"Should we change our strategy and have the full-backs push forward? Otherwise, we don't have enough players on the wing and we won't be able to attack like this."
Sarri sniffed his fingers, thinking.
What Martusciello said was right. At the moment, it is impossible to organize a threatening attack relying solely on the midfielder and winger on one side, and Lazio's lateral transfer efficiency is not high. It is also impossible to transfer directly from one winger to the other winger who is watched by the Roma wing-back. They can only pass the ball back to the central defender for a short pass, and then the other side of the full-back will initiate the attack.
Sarri's original arrangement was to have the four defenders move inward as much as possible to prevent Roma's quick counterattack. Instead of betting on the flanks, it would be better to shrink the defense line and watch the scoring point in the middle.
But now we were already one goal behind, and if it hadn’t been for offside, the game would have almost lost its suspense.
He decided to take a gamble and nodded to Martuscielo.
Martuscielo immediately stood up and walked to the sidelines, shouted a few words to the players and raised his hand to make tactical gestures.
Seeing the head coach change tactics and order an attack, the Lazio players were cheered up.
After all, most players like to attack and press forward when playing football. The hype about passing and controlling the ball in the past decade has made many players obsessed with repeatedly passing the ball to control possession.
After all, there are only a few players who truly like to park the bus and focus on defensive counterattacks.
This is the case in Europe, not to mention the unrestrained South America.
The two sides attacked and defended for a while. In the 21st minute, Lazio's Marusic was double-teamed on the right side and chose to pass the ball back to central defender Acerbi.
After receiving the ball, Acerbi did not move to the left, but instead made a long pass behind the Roma central defender.
A blue figure rushed in at high speed and passed Smalling and Ibanez in an instant!
The two men saw that the person had slipped in before the sealed door was closed, so they quickly chased after him at full speed.
The ball fell from a high altitude, Immobile jumped forward, stretched his legs in mid-air to try to get the ball, but at this moment, his speed stopped, Ibanez caught up from behind and poked the ball, and Fuzato rushed out and knocked the ball to the ground.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
Fuzato wanted to lie on the ground for a while, but he heard Ibanez urging him in Portuguese.
He "woke up" immediately, got up quickly and threw the ball to Binya on the right.
Why the right side? Because Mourinho said before the game that the attack in this game should be more on the right side.
Although the 35-year-old Pedro has a positive attitude towards defense, his age determines that his defensive efficiency is not very high. This is one of the reasons why Mourinho let Pedro leave when he came to Rome.
For him, not only the wingers have to defend, but even the center forwards have to follow the tactics and retreat to defend when necessary. For this reason, he had disputes with Ronaldo during his time as Real Madrid coach.
In addition to Pedro's weak defense, Milinkovic-Savic, the most comprehensive of Lazio's three midfielders, is responsible for Roma's defense on the left side, and Alberto on the right side also has weaker defensive ability.
How can we let go of such a weakness?
Sure enough, Bigna and Cristante made a two-pass and easily passed Pedro. Then facing Alberto, Bigna didn't stick to the ball at all and passed it directly to Pellegrini who ran over to receive the ball.
Before the ball reached Pellegrini's feet, he made a passing gesture.
Just when everyone thought he was going to do another one-two with Binya, he kicked the ball to the right side of the penalty area with the instep of his foot!
Lucas Leiva, who ran over to defend Pellegrini, looked at the flying football and suddenly felt that something was missing around him.
In a trance, he caught a glimpse of Cesco moving towards the penalty area, saw Bigna still in front of him on the right side, and Pellegrini passing the ball in front of him.
No! Where is that person? ! Where is Chen Xiaoliang? !
The red number 33 has rushed to the right wing, and Lazio left-back Hysaj didn't notice him at all!
Lucas Leiva was startled, then relieved.
It's okay! It's very difficult to catch such a high ball in a sprint state. He remembered that Chen Xiaoliang was clearly a "rough guy" who couldn't even catch a high ball.
A second later, Lucas Leiva watched Chen Xiaoliang jump up and glide forward. He stretched out his right leg and gently hooked the ball with the same action as Immobile. Although it was not light and free, he still controlled the ball steadily!
Many exclamation marks flashed in Lucas Leiva's heart again!
As he returned to the penalty area, he thought to himself again, Chen Xiaoliang's position after receiving the ball was too close to the baseline! Lazio already had 6 players back to defend near the small penalty area. Even if he passed the ball again, it would be impossible for the receiving player to force a header among so many people!
His thought flashed through his mind, and Chen Xiaoliang immediately raised his right foot!
It’s going to be transmitted!
Lucas Leiva had already run to the penalty spot at this time, with Alberto who was also returning to defense beside him, and right-back Marusic behind him.
The only Roma players in the penalty area were Cesco and Pellegrini.
Cesco had already rushed past the goal and was almost running into the goal. It was impossible to pass the ball from this position because the goalkeeper could jump and take the ball away. He also couldn't pass the ball low across the goal. With so many people gathered in the small penalty area, anyone could block the ball with a kick. There was no way to pass the ball at all!
Although Pellegrini had a good positioning, he was surrounded by Alberto and Luiz Felipe, and he was not good at heading, so he was even less threatening!
There is no chance for this ball!
Definitely not!
And in that instant, Lucas Leiva saw a white shadow flash before his eyes!
Half-high ball?! How to head it at this height? Is it that the outside of the foot should be rotated towards the goal?!
Impossible! This ball has no curve, it's straight!
Oh no! Is that so?!
The ball passed through the gap between Sisaj, Alberto and Acerbi and flew towards Cesco!
It was impossible to block this kind of fast half-high ball by raising your legs, and goalkeeper Strakosha, who was guarding the near post, couldn't reach the ball.
Cesco, who was about to rush to the goal line, saw the ball flying towards him, and immediately took a step forward, swung his left arm outward, leaned his body to the left, raised his right foot, and with his body as if parallel to the ground, he used an extremely beautiful side hook to bounce the ball into the goal!
At that moment, countless comments of “OMG!!!” appeared on the screen of the Penguin Sports live broadcast room!
Sesco excitedly got up and rushed to the Roma fans' stands covered with red jerseys and flags to celebrate with his diehard fans!
The Roma players also rushed over excitedly!
Even goalkeeper Fuzato wanted to rush over!
Lucas Leiva, who had been imagining the whole time, didn't expect the game to have such an ending!
But even he had to say in his heart when he was frustrated:
这球太漂亮了……
He Wei, who was commentating on the game, would get inspired to write poetry at such moments:
"This wonderful goal reminded me of a scene from a fairy tale novel. Chen Xiaoliang was like a sword passer with unfathomable sword skills. His cross was like a sword sent thousands of miles away, passing through all the defenses, and Cesco was the sword receiver, soaring in the air and stabbing the flying sword into the opponent's weak spot!"
“And what was pierced in the heart was not only the Lazio players on the field, but also the Lazio fans in the stands who were as silent as death at this moment!”
"Once upon a time there was a man named Cesco, whose sword dance moved all four directions. The spectators were as depressed as the mountains, and the heaven and earth were depressed for a long time!"
Barrage:
[Is He Wei also a fan of Xianxia? ]
[This is not Aunt Gongsun, it's Gongsun Xiaoliang! ]
【With the same nine principles, how outstanding are you】
[However, I am not well-educated, so I can only say “wow” to everyone.]
