Chapter 21 Ugly Football
Chen Xiaoliang seldom participated in , but his teammates were pleasantly surprised to find that his heading accuracy had improved significantly.
This makes him much more reassuring when defending high balls.
However, when the frontcourt is under siege, Chen Xiaoliang will still stay behind with the two central defenders, while Davis will move forward and serve as the passing hub of the central axis.
Under the siege of Rangers, Dundee United soon became overwhelmed.
In the 13th minute, captain Tavernier made a two-pass combination with Hagi on the right side and broke through to the bottom line to cross the ball. Midfielder Aribo headed the ball, but it was saved by the Dundee United goalkeeper. Kent, who was lurking at the back post, took advantage of the opportunity and shot the ball into the net.
The score is 1 to 0!
For the next 17 minutes, Rangers maintained their siege on Dundee United, but after 30 minutes, due to the decline in physical strength, the two sides' ball possession rate gradually became closer.
Dundee United once had four consecutive corner kick opportunities, but they were all destroyed by Rangers' impenetrable defense.
In the 39th minute, as the first half of the game was about to come to an end, Dundee United winger Chalmers received a through ball and left Barisic behind.
Chen Xiaoliang, who had anticipated that Barisic would be out of position, started early and caught up with him in the side of the penalty area.
Chalmers knew that the Red Country boy in front of him had extremely strong defensive abilities, so he passed the ball back to the full-back Nelson behind him without any hesitation. Nelson's cross was too long and was confiscated by Rangers goalkeeper McGregor.
McGregor was eager to launch a counterattack, but when he looked up, he saw that the Dundee United players had blocked the ball receiving routes of several key players of the Rangers while returning to defense.
However, forwards Haji and Kent were too far away, and it was not always possible to pass the ball to them accurately.
Perhaps because he noticed that Rangers' attacks were never initiated through Chen Xiaoliang, McGregor discovered from the corner of his eye that no Dundee United player was within ten meters of Chen Xiaoliang .
The opportunity cannot be missed. If we hesitate for a moment, once all the Dundee United players run back to the half court, the chance to counterattack will be missed.
McGregor threw the ball directly to Chen Xiaoliang in front of the penalty area. Chen Xiaoliang was also stunned, but the ball had already been thrown towards him and he had no time to hesitate.
He just stopped the ball with his chest about three meters away, but fortunately there was no one around him. Others thought he was passing the ball to the front court to leave space for himself to sprint.
At this time, Barisic, who had just lost his position, had already moved forward at high speed. Chen Xiaoliang thought that with his passing attribute of 5, plus the extra 4 points of tacit understanding with Barisic, which was full, he would have a passing ability of 9 points.
Although it is still not high, it does not mean that you cannot give it a try.
He made a long pass in the direction where Barisic wanted the ball, and the ball flew straight to him.
Chalmers and Nelson, who had just launched an attack in Rangers' half, had just run to the center line and had no chance of catching up with Barisic.
So Barisic received the ball and went to the baseline without any defense. After a fake cross to deceive the defender, he broke into the penalty area and passed the ball to his teammate Morelos who was in the middle.
Morelos blocked the ball with a pass and the Dundee United goalkeeper lost the ball.
2 to 0!
The Rangers players gathered around to celebrate, and Morelos saw Chen Xiaoliang coming and excitedly hugged him.
"Chen! This ball is thanks to you!"
Chen Xiaoliang also laughed and said to Barisic: "Give me half of your assist bonus!"
Barisic touched his head and said, "After the game, I'll take you to a 'good place' to have fun?"
Chen Xiaoliang shook his head. He didn't want to give up his first time so soon.
In fact, at that moment, he imagined a scene in his mind.
Because of the perfect tacit understanding, when they were in the "good place", he could clearly sense what Barisic was doing in the next room...
Oh shit!
nausea!
The first half ended quickly.
Back in the locker room, the data analysis team gave the statistics for the first half.
Among them, Chen Xiaoliang ranked first in running distance and steals, 6.6 kilometers and 5 times respectively.
At this pace, he will run about 13 kilometers throughout the game. Assistant coach McAllister asked him how he felt. Chen Xiaoliang said that with Dundee United's current offensive intensity, he should have no problem playing until 70 minutes.
On the Red Country network, due to an exclusive broadcasting agreement, the Fighting Cats App can no longer broadcast any Rangers matches.
All the previous viewers also went to Penguin Sports’ live broadcast platform to watch Chen Xiaoliang.
Since 15:00 in the afternoon in Glasgow is exactly 22:00 in the evening in the Red Country, and today is Saturday, the live broadcast room has already been flooded with 700,000 viewers.
It was so popular that it even squeezed the live broadcast room offline.
During the half-time break, the screen was replaying highlights from the first half, especially Chen Xiaoliang's steal and long pass, while the barrage of comments was constantly refreshing.
[I thought he was only good at defense, but I didn’t expect he could pass the ball so accurately]
[That's not the case. The next move is calculated from the moment the ball stops.]
[Those players of Dundee United were so arrogant that they ignored such a threatening player. If I were the head coach of Dundee United, I would definitely assign someone to guard Chen Xiaoliang.]
[I heard that the local media compared the Celtics' Japanese striker to Chen Xiaoliang. Does anyone know about this? ]
[What are we comparing? There is nothing to compare. When Rangers meet Celtic, Chen Xiaoliang will definitely shut them out.]
After 15 minutes, the second half began.
Gerrard made no adjustments to the leading Rangers side.
Dundee United replaced winger Chalmers with Powis and changed their position, with Powis directly facing Chen Xiaoliang.
During several scrambles, Chen Xiaoliang clearly felt that Bovis's movements were very big. Even if it was a header that he could not win, he would deliberately jump and crash into himself.
After he snatched the ball, Powis would block him immediately. No matter whether it was a person or a ball, he would not be satisfied until he kicked one of them.
After a foul, the referee warned Bovis a few words, and Barisic walked to Chen Xiaoliang and reminded him: "Chen, this guy is obviously coming for you, you have to protect yourself ."
Chen Xiaoliang nodded.
The teammates seemed to have discovered Dundee United's intention. For a period of time afterwards, the attack was transferred to the right side of captain Tavernier.
Even if the ball is passed to the left, try to avoid Chen Xiaoliang.
After all, every opponent is unfamiliar to him and he needs to spend time adapting on the field. Passing the football to other places can also keep Bovis away from Chen Xiaoliang.
No matter how rough a player is, he cannot openly invade his opponent without the ball .
However, something Chen Xiaoliang did not expect still happened.
In a positional attack in the 59th minute, Barisic received a pass from Kent and was about to take the ball to the middle to find an open space. Bovis ignored Chen Xiaoliang who stayed in the backcourt to assist in defense, and went straight towards Barisic.
Seeing someone rushing towards him, Barisic quickly passed the ball to Morelos in the middle, but it was headed out by Dundee United's central defender and the ball returned to Barisic.
He jumped up to fight for the ball, but Powis, who was rushing over at high speed, headed the ball and hit the back of Barisic's head with his forehead. Barisic fainted immediately and collapsed to the ground.
The referee immediately stopped the game, and Tavernier immediately called for the team doctor to come in. Davis rushed forward and pushed Bowes hard, but Bowes was not to be outdone, spewing all kinds of human tissues while rushing forward to hit Davis back.
The players from both teams immediately gathered together, some swearing at each other, while others tried hard to pull the two apart.
Finally, amid the huge boos from the fans in the stadium, medical staff carried Barisic off the field on a stretcher, and after leaving the field, he was taken directly to the hospital in an ambulance.
Powis touched the ball first, but because of the physical conflict with Davis, they each received a yellow card.
