Chapter 226: Rome, Caesar comes back!
Çalhanoğlu saw Chen Xiaoliang coming towards him and prepared to have a one-on-one meeting with the boy from the Red Country.
Although Chen Xiaoliang has long been famous, in the eyes of older players, he is still just a fledgling sophomore.
Whether it is the Copa Award or the Golden Boy Award, they are indeed novel, but many winners have later become mediocre.
Although Calhanoglu's defensive and confrontation abilities are average, he thinks he can still take advantage of his seniority to deal with Chen Xiaoliang, who is not good at dribbling and has ordinary skills.
However, this Turk, who was nicknamed "King of Cha" by some fans, had also prepared a way out for himself in his mind. Once Chen Xiaoliang used his speed to overpower him, he would be unstoppable.
But this is in the middle lane, there is simply no space to rush past the opponent.
Chen Xiaoliang did not have as many inner thoughts as Calhanoglu. He dribbled the ball forward while observing the movements in front of him. When he came in front of Calhanoglu, he kicked his right foot and prepared to move forward to the right front.
This basic small change of direction certainly wasn't enough to get past Calhanoglu. He immediately moved sideways and blocked Chen Xiaoliang's body, apparently looking for an opportunity to steal the ball.
Chen Xiaoliang turned his back with the ball, using his back to separate the space between Calhanoglu and the ball, then turned his head to the right, and his upper body and waist also turned to the right.
Calhanoglu was afraid of Chen Xiaoliang's speed. Seeing that he was about to turn right to pass the opponent, he immediately adjusted his center of gravity to the right, preparing to move in advance to block his way.
Unexpectedly, at the moment when his center of gravity moved, Chen Xiaoliang pushed the ball to the left with his right foot, made a simple and neat turn, and put his left hand behind Calhanoglu to block the ball, immediately passing the Inter Milan midfielder cleanly.
"oh!?"
Although it was an away game, many fans in the stands couldn't help but exclaim.
Even the Roma players on the bench couldn't help but look at each other.
Just with a stop, a shake, a turn and a pass just now, the teammates who were supposed to move forward had already landed in the right positions.
Seeing Calhanoglu being passed, Barrera immediately rushed over at full speed to intercept Chen Xiaoliang.
Chen Xiaoliang had already kicked the ball to Celik, who had left Perisic behind by running without the ball.
Celik dribbled the ball forward and Dimarco blocked it.
After Chen Xiaoliang passed the ball, he immediately ran to the front left. Barrera missed his shot and quickly slowed down and stopped before running back. However, during this pause, Chen Xiaoliang had already run behind him.
As a full-back with a simple and extremely practical style, Celik is a model player who contributes as much as his ability and completes all tasks assigned by the coach without fail.
Facing Dimarco, he would never have any unreasonable thoughts, trying to rush, pass, show off his footwork, or compete in speed.
This is the most important reason why he can replace Karsdorp, who has much better physical fitness than him but always has a short-circuited brain.
Seeing that Chen Xiaoliang had broken away, Celik immediately pushed his right foot towards the middle and passed the ball into his path.
The two completed a beautiful two-on-two combination on the wing.
After receiving the ball, Chen Xiaoliang continued to dribble forward. Outside the penalty area, the only one who could defend him for Inter Milan was Brozovic.
The Croatian midfielder quickly ran over and ran to Chen Xiaoliang's left side 5 meters outside the penalty area line.
But at this time, Chen Xiaoliang's dribbling speed had already increased. He raised his left hand to prevent Brozovic from pressing on his body, and then rushed into the penalty area.
At this time, Zaniolo on the right side was cruising on the right side of the penalty area, and Dimarco, who had just blocked Celik, was guarding him;
In the middle, De Vrij and Cesco were entangled. Now all teams that played against Roma knew that sending a strong high-school defender to mark Cesco was the primary task to curb Roma's attack.
On the left, Skriniar and De Vries were keeping an eye on Pellegrini and the advancing Malasia and Veretout respectively.
Chen Xiaoliang passed both of the two midfielders with and without the ball, which instantly put all the pressure on the defense on the three central defenders and the single defensive midfielder!
Brozovic knew that he could not let Chen Xiaoliang break inside again. If he did, the central defender would have to come over to defend, because if he didn't, Chen Xiaoliang would immediately be in a one-on-one situation.
Once he gives up defending the target and starts defending Chen Xiaoliang, Chen Xiaoliang can pass the ball to the person who is left open at any time!
In short, once you are passed, it will be a disaster!
These thoughts flashed through Brozovic's mind. He knew it was too late to use his speed to block the opponent's position, so he had to reach out and grab Chen Xiaoliang's waist and pull him back hard.
“Beep!”
Chen Xiaoliang did not fall, and Brozovic tried his best to make the foul look gentler in order to reduce the penalty that would inevitably come from the referee.
The referee Osato naturally understood the players' intention. He ran over and first showed Brozovic a yellow card, and then started talking into the headset.
Before the players gathered around him, he ran out first and stretched out his hand like a traffic policeman, telling the players not to go over to argue with him.
The reason for doing this is very simple. Osatu did not see clearly whether Chen Xiaoliang was in or outside the penalty area when the foul was committed.
Time passes by every second.
42 minutes... 43 minutes...
Osatu was still listening to the words in the headphones until he made a square shape with his hands and ran towards the VAR.
It was obvious that Osatu came with a mission today.
The Italian Serie A professional league is well aware of the refereeing problems in the league, but the lack of determination and courage in reforming and the painless penalties for wrong calls have made it impossible to improve the current situation where referees make frequent mistakes.
But in such a major event that attracted worldwide attention and would affect the final championship of the league, they still sent out the best referee they could.
The 46-year-old Osato became an official FIFA referee in 2010 and has participated in officiating major competitions such as the 2012 European Cup and the 2014 Brazil World Cup qualifiers.
In the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Osato served as a video assistant referee in the 1/8 final between Croatia and Denmark.
He has been involved in the enforcement of the UEFA Champions League since the 2012-2013 season, and in 2020 he enforced the Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.
It was also because of his good performance that season that he was selected as the world's best referee in 2020 by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics.
However, it is worth mentioning that although the organization is famous, it is not an official organization under FIFA. It was founded by a German in Leipzig. Later, with the sponsorship of the UAE royal family, its headquarters was established in Abu Dhabi. It has been collecting various data .
The organization pays great attention to data. All rankings and results are based on data, but how to weight the data fairly is always a difficult problem.
There is no consensus among players and fans on this point. For example, for a striker, how should the weight of a goal and an assist be set?
If they are both 1 point, then some people would say that assists are actually much harder than goals;
If goals are set at 1 point and assists are set at 2 points, some people will also ask, why is it 2, not 1.5, not 1.3?
Because of this, many of the agency's results are only used as reference factors rather than decisive factors by some authoritative organizations.
But in any case, Osato is indeed the best referee in Italy at present.
At this moment, he would rather spend more time and stop the game for a while to figure out where the foul occurred.
Everyone knows that the media and fans will analyze the replay video frame by frame after the game. Once such a crucial game causes controversy, it is bound to stir up endless saliva and questioning.
Lou Yichen: "This ball is really hard to judge. I don't know if there are shots from other angles. I watched it many times but still couldn't see clearly whether it was outside or inside the penalty area."
Liu Yue: "The main thing is that the foul is a continuous action. If it happens when the first pull-down action is taken, it is outside the penalty area. If it is considered a foul only when the person is pulled down, it seems to be inside the penalty area."
Lou Yichen: "Seeing the head coaches of both teams putting pressure on the fourth official, you can see how important this penalty is to both teams!"
While Osato was dealing with the penalty, Calhanoglu was in a daze.
He stared at Chen Xiaoliang blankly, and couldn't help wondering:
He can dribble past someone? He dribbled past me?
Not relying on speed or strength, but relying on dribbling? !
Since being passed, Calhanoglu has been walking back at a leisurely pace, watching everything happening in front of him.
Why can a person achieve such great progress in one season?
When they first met half a season ago, he was still a young boy who didn't dare to dribble too much in attack, could only pass the ball with one foot, or pull to the wing to make a cross, and couldn't even stop a long pass. How come he has practiced long shots and dribbling well now?
Time continues to pass.
In the 44th minute, after watching the replay 10 times, Osato finally turned around and ran towards the court.
"Beep!" He made the VAR gesture and pointed to the penalty area line!
Roma was awarded a free kick on the penalty area line on the right side of the goal!
He called Chen Xiaoliang and Handanovic and explained that at the moment of the foul, the ball and the player were on the penalty area line , so even though he fell inside the penalty area, a free kick was still awarded.
However, Brozovic's yellow card was unquestionable, as it was a deliberate foul. If there had not been several defensive players behind him and the foul had not been relatively restrained, it would not have been excessive to show him a red card.
Neither of the two captains said anything else. Everyone knew very well that this was called treating the game equally, giving Roma a free kick that was as close as it could be, and allowing Inter Milan to escape a penalty.
While the three were talking, the rest of the team members came running over one after another.
"How do you kick? Do you want me to pass the ball and you shoot?" Pellegrini walked to Chen Xiaoliang, covered his mouth and asked him.
Chen Xiaoliang was thinking while observing Inter Milan's defensive arrangements.
It is difficult to shoot directly at the goal from a free kick at this distance. It is easy to miss the ball if it goes around the wall. If it does not miss the ball and wants to go over the wall, the ball has to go slower. But if the ball is too slow, the goalkeeper can easily catch it.
However, if the team cooperates and the depth is too small, and the ball is passed to an open player to shoot, it is relatively easy to fill in the defensive position as long as the opponent reacts in time.
After a while, Inter Milan's six-man wall was formed as the referee kept signaling them to retreat.
The four tall ones, Dzeko, Brozovic, Calhanoglu and Perisic, are in the middle, and the two slightly shorter ones, Lautaro and Dumfries, are on both sides.
The remaining four people each guarded the main target in the penalty area.
"Beep!" Osato blew the whistle, indicating that it was time for a free throw.
Chen Xiaoliang put his ear close to Pellegrini's and said, "Try that...", but his hand kept pointing to the upper right corner of the goal.
Handanovic, who was directing the defense from behind the wall, shouted: "Don't be fooled!"
Inter Milan players also know this.
The coaching staff had already emphasized before the game that Chen Xiaoliang and Pellegrini had deliberately misled the opposing players several times before taking close-range free kicks.
Therefore, the coaching staff particularly emphasized that everything should be carried out according to the established defensive tactics and not be disturbed by the opponent's behavior.
But the actions of the two still more or less affected Handanovic.
What if the opponent really kicks the ball into the upper corner as suggested?
He involuntarily took a half step to the left.
Chen Xiaoliang stepped aside and Barrera stared at him intently.
Pellegrini retreated six or seven meters, took a deep breath, and then took small steps to run!
Seeing him like this, several players in the human wall quickly hugged their right shoulder with their left hand, used their elbow to cover their chest and face as much as possible, and covered their crotch with their right hand to ensure that the content in the gender column would not change.
Pellegrini ran to the ball, stepped on it with his left foot, and swung his right foot with a huge amplitude!
Even at that moment, the expression on his face became extremely ferocious!
Seeing this, Handanovic immediately moved a step to the right!
At this distance, there is almost only one possible route for a powerful shot, which is to attack the other half of the goal that is not covered by the human wall!
It must be like this!
No wonder they kept pointing to the upper side of the near corner of the goal! They were trying to trick me into moving to that side so that they could kick the ball from this side!
As Handanovic was thinking, he had already prepared his hands to save the ball, ready to face the heavy blow like a meteorite.
Lou Yichen: "Free kick!"
“Great shot!!!”
"He completely fooled the defender! At the moment of shooting, he chose to use the arch of his foot to push the ball quickly to the ground!"
"The ball rolled past the feet of the jumping wall of people!"
"Handanovic had no reaction and watched the ball roll into the goal he was guarding!"
Liu Yue: "This is Pellegrini's ninth league goal this season."
Fuck!
These two guys!
On the field, Handanovic, who was watching Pellegrini rushing to the stands where Roma fans gathered to celebrate wildly, kicked the goal post next to him hard.
Still got cheated!
I pointed to the upper left corner of the goal and ran with all my strength. I thought I was going to shoot the ball towards the right side of the goal, but it turned out to be a low shot that went into the lower left corner!
In the 45th minute, Roma tied the score at 2-2!
Mourinho's brows instantly relaxed and a smile appeared on his face.
Equalizing the score just before the end of the first half would undoubtedly be a psychological blow to the opponent.
After celebrating, the Roma players slowly ran towards their own half at the urging of the referee Osato.
Lautaro kicked off, Roma defended for a while, and the 3 minutes of stoppage time ended quickly, and the first half ended.
Back in the locker room, Mourinho asked Pellegrini as soon as he entered the room: "Who the hell came up with this idea?"
Pellegrini laughed and pointed at Chen Xiaoliang.
Mourinho smiled crookedly and said to his players: "You better be careful with this guy, he has a lot of bad intentions, if he sells you out one day you will all be willing to count the money for him."
After making a joke, he began to explain Inter Milan’s offensive focus today on the tactical board.
In order to deal with the quick counterattacks that posed threats many times today, Matic was pinned to the backcourt, and could even act as a temporary central defender deep in the penalty area when necessary. In set-piece attacks outside the third zone of the penalty area, he no longer needed to advance.
In addition, Celik's side also focuses on the backcourt, and the task of attacking on the wing is mostly completed by Veretout to help Zaniolo.
Mourinho must keep all the slow players in the backcourt as much as possible to avoid the defense being completely unable to catch up during Inter Milan's rapid advancement in the front and midfield.
Mourinho did not say much about Mancini's ridiculous steal in the first half. Instead, he picked up the number sticker representing Lautaro and said loudly: "Our defense is based on blocking! Except for Dzeko, their players in the frontcourt are not too tall, but their footwork is fast!"
"Don't kick blindly, use your body to block their shooting path!"
"Especially a striker like this who can't even score an empty goal, what are you afraid of?!"
"If Brozovic didn't try to steal the ball but blocked his space, he would probably choose to cross the ball or shoot hard to get a corner kick."
"So calm down! Don't forget how to mark a player just because the defense has changed back to the original style today!"
"Maybe some of you might think that if the backcourt doesn't press forward, the frontcourt won't have time to retreat, and there will be a disconnect between the frontcourt and the backcourt."
"It doesn't matter! If we're out of touch, that means they'll be out of touch too!"
"When the three lines are close, their advantage is in the midfield, but when the three lines are far away, the advantage in the midfield will be in our hands!"
Then, he looked at Chen Xiaoliang and Weilertu:
"Run! Run at least 30% more than the opponent to make up for the disconnect between the front and back courts!"
When Weletu heard this, he couldn't help but glance at Chen Xiaoliang, thinking: The coach thinks you are crazy, don't drag me into it... You can run 16 kilometers in a game, but I have to vomit on the sidelines after running 13 kilometers...
Never mind, just do your best!
Finally, Mourinho began to summarize encouragingly:
"In 50 BC, it was on this land that the great Caesar and his old rival Pompey started a civil war over who would dominate the fate of the Roman Republic."
"The old, stupid Senate chose to support Pompey, believing him to be the rightful heir. But Gaius Julius Caesar decisively defeated Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus and pursued him into Egypt."
"Finally, Pompey was killed in Egypt by those who were intimidated by Caesar's reputation, and Caesar then marched into Asia and eliminated his last serious enemy."
"Then he sent the elders a war report with three words on it."
Mourinho paused and looked around at everyone sitting in the locker room, including players and coaches.
Everyone was quiet to hear the words.
"VENI VIDI VICI!"
"I come! I see! I conquer!"
"You should have heard of this history."
"Now, those bullshit media and those self-righteous experts all think that the two teams in Milan are stronger than us, as if it is only reasonable for them to win the league championship!"
"Guys! Act like real men tonight! Let those ladies on the other side feel the charm of a man in the second half!"
"Then with a victory, both Milan teams will be unable to sleep tonight!"
"Let all of Italy surrender to Rome!"
Chen Xiaoliang stood up and led everyone in shouting slogans.
This famous quote from Caesar was the only sentence he said to the densely packed media below the stage when he first arrived in Rome and attended his first press conference!
The entire season has reached the most critical final stage. At this moment, no words can better express the Romans' desire for victory and honor than this sentence and this history!
"I come! I see! I conquer!"
"I come! I see! I conquer!!"
"I come! I see! I conquer!!!"
