Chapter 356: The final round of the Ballon d'Or, shining in front of Messi at Camp Nou
How bad the financial situation of the Barcelona club is can be seen from the fact that they are jokingly called a lever that can move the earth by the outside world. Therefore, for tonight's friendly match, they have really put a lot of thought into publicity and marketing. Messi, who returned to Barcelona, and Chen Xiaoliang, who newly put on the No. 7 jersey of Manchester United, naturally became the top priority of marketing.
Making money is not shameful.
Messi, who returned to Barcelona, put on the captain's armband again and exchanged team flags with B Fee. Players from both sides lined up to greet each other. Messi, who was the leader of the Barcelona side, walked to Chen Xiaoliang, who was standing at the last one on the Manchester United side, and patted his shoulder with a smile while shaking hands.
The good relationship between the two is well known. Although they have not shown a deep friendship, whenever the media mentions the topic of each other, the feedback they receive is very positive.
Over time, the media asked fewer questions.
The fans all understand the reason behind this. Cursing at each other from a distance only generates traffic. If you say I am good today and I say he is good tomorrow, what topic is there in this?
However, the media has recently begun to hype a topic that is gradually approaching, the next Golden Globe Awards to be held in late October 2023.
Last season at the national team level, Messi undoubtedly achieved great success. By reaching the top of the supreme World Cup, he was finally deservedly crowned the king of football in the evaluation of most players, fans and media.
But in the multi-front battle, Paris Saint-Germain only won the French Ligue 1 championship, which was no more surprising than winning it. Although Messi's stats of 22 goals and 22 assists throughout the season for Paris Saint-Germain were very eye-catching, the club's honors were still too thin.
On the other hand, Chen Xiaoliang is the complete opposite. Although he has made zero appearances for the national team so far, he won the treble with the club last season.
The performance of 36 goals and 36 assists in a season is absolutely unprecedented. It also broke the historical assist records of both Serie A and the Champions League, and also ranked second in the goal list.
He led Roma, who was only ranked 5th in the odds of winning the championship before the game, to win the Champions League. He also scored a hat trick with Haaland in the final, and before the end of the game, he dribbled past five players in a Maradona/Messi-style assist to help his teammates score the winning goal into the empty net, which became an eternal classic of the Champions League.
What's more, in addition to goals and assists, Chen Xiaoliang also ranked in the top three in the two events in terms of steals, interceptions, and average running per game. Although his defensive data dropped slightly because he no longer played as a defensive midfielder last season, he averaged 3.3 steals, 2.8 interceptions, and 14.4 kilometers of running per game. If you don't look at the offensive data, it is also the performance of a top defensive midfielder.
Both the media and the betting companies have regarded the competition between the two for this season's Golden Ball Award as the most important event in the second half of football.
The current odds are 1 to 1.5 for Messi and 1 to 2.5 for Chen Xiaoliang. Since Haaland's odds are as high as 1 to 10, which is basically equivalent to being eliminated early, it can be said that Messi's probability of winning his eighth Golden Globe is currently 60%, while Chen Xiaoliang's is 40%.
However, there is also an "assist" from Real Madrid. At the FIFA awards ceremony in the first half of the year, Real Madrid officials, coaches and players were collectively absent. The club's official account, the mouthpiece newspaper "Marca" and Benzema and others were still at full fire on the Internet, criticizing FIFA for awarding Messi the best player in 2022 as a wrong choice of "one game overshadowing an entire season."
In this regard, France Football, the Golden Globe Award selection organization, has also been under more or less pressure.
They announced in 2022 that the selection rules had been changed. The selection unit was changed to the season instead of the calendar year. Past historical performance would no longer be considered, and the scope of judges would be narrowed to journalists from the top 100 countries or regions ranked by FIFA.
Although the rules state that "only season performance is taken into consideration", the voters are still people after all, and people have subjective factors and personal likes and dislikes.
Therefore, the media and football critics currently agree that the performance of the two at Barcelona and Manchester United in the next three months will greatly affect the voting tendencies of those reporters and judges.
But overall, Messi has a greater chance of winning. After all, he has been at the top for too long, while Chen Xiaoliang has just begun to shine.
Although they were arguing fiercely outside, the two of them were actually in harmony. According to what Chen Xiaoliang himself said in an interview with the media: "That's Messi, the winner of seven Ballon d'Ors. If he wins the eighth, no one will be surprised, including me of course."
Messi responded: "It would surprise me if Chen didn't win the Ballon d'Or. Maybe next year, maybe this year. Anyway, I am amazed by his performance."
However, at this time on the field, there were three people who had "different opinions" about Chen Xiaoliang. They were Barcelona's three main midfielders, Frankie de Jong, Gavi and Pedri.
After selling Rafinha, Barcelona temporarily bid farewell to its financial difficulties, and Frenkie de Jong, who was originally put on the shelf, was able to continue to stay in the team.
After being pursued by Ten Hag for a whole year, Manchester United suddenly stopped offering him. The reason was very simple, because their Qatari owner spent a lot of money to buy Chen Xiaoliang.
Although the 26-year-old Dutch midfielder has always considered Barcelona as his first choice, he felt a special sense of loneliness when he was suddenly abandoned after being pursued for a year by his former mentor at Ajax.
The 20-year-old Pedri had the 2021 Copa Award "snatched" by Chen Xiaoliang. With a value of 100 million euros, he witnessed the rise of Chen Xiaoliang.
In 2021, when he was worth 80 million euros, he was worth 50 million euros;
When he is 90 million euros in 2022, he is 90 million euros;
In 2023, when his own salary was 100 million euros, he actually had 150 million euros.
After only three years of playing football, he is already competing with Messi for the Ballon d'Or. According to outsiders, his net worth is "riding a rocket", so what is Chen Xiaoliang riding? A spaceship with a curvature engine?
Not to mention Gavi, who will be 19 years old in half a month. He has Pedri, who is more than two years older than him, above him. Whether it is in Barcelona, in the Spanish national team, or in the Copa Award and Golden Boy Award, he is always overshadowed by this senior. He has to wait until Pedri wins everything before he can get his turn.
Why should I lose to an outsider when I am the authentic product of La Masia? But think about it, he is two years older than me, and I will have the future in two years. Besides, he is my teammate, so it can be considered healthy competition.
Now, Chen Xiaoliang suddenly appeared out of nowhere, killed his way through Rome, and even won the triple crown. The worst thing is that he is only two and a half months older than me.
Since the birth of Chen Xiaoliang, topics like "young genius", "future Golden Ball" and "the next No. 1 Middle School in the world" are almost no longer relevant to me.
Just like that, the three Barcelona midfielders had their own ideas, and this friendly match was not so friendly from the beginning.
Lewandowski was about to kick off in the center circle, and Casemiro reminded Chen Xiaoliang from behind: "Man, the three midfielders on the opposite side are looking at you in the wrong way. Be careful, especially Gavi. He plays very dirty. Don't get hurt right away."
Fat Tiger kindly reminded Chen Xiaoliang, thanking him sincerely, but also reassuring him: "If he really wants to do something bad, we will know who will die in his hands later."
B Fei, who was standing by, also heard their conversation. He didn't say anything, but snorted in his heart with disdain: "What? You still want to take on three people alone? I won't help you later. I'll see how you die."
"Beep!" The referee blew the whistle and the game began.
Lewandowski pushed the ball to Messi, and the whole stadium immediately burst into loud cheers. Countless Catalans waved flags, hands, and towels in the stands, welcoming their king back to Camp Nou.
Messi took a few steps and Chen Xiaoliang came over, but he did not step forward to press and destroy the atmosphere at the moment.
Messi raised his hand to signal to the fans, passed the ball to Balde who came in from the other wing, and then waved gently to Chen Xiaoliang to express his gratitude.
After all, he had played a game with Chen Xiaoliang before, and he knew that when this young man rushed over at full speed to press, the air around him seemed to be swept up by the wind.
Under Xavi's coaching, Barcelona has returned to playing traditional possession-based football. Last season, their average possession rate in the league was as high as 64%, tied with Manchester City and Bayern for first place in the top five leagues.
After Messi's return, he played a huge connecting role in the midfield and frontcourt, further improving Barcelona's overall ball control ability.
Manchester United, on the other hand, played a standard defensive counterattack with a 4-2-3-1 formation.
During the two weeks of training and familiarity, Chen Xiaoliang found that Ten Hag was a very pragmatic coach, but his coaching experience also combined the ideas of different tactical schools.
In defense, he did not ask for a retreat like Mourinho, but used the advantage of the number of people in the penalty area to achieve absolute defense of the minority with the majority, while at the same time luring out the deep space behind the opponent to launch a quick counterattack.
His defense emphasizes more on pressing and disrupting the opponent's midfield passes. Not only does he ensure pressure, but he also limits the opponent's passing routes through running to reduce the opponent's midfield efficiency and the rhythm of the offense-defense transition.
This actually has a strong Guardiola style. He served as the head coach of Bayern's second team in the 2013-15 season, and the head coach of the first team at that time was Guardiola.
In attack, he emphasizes the overlapping of the two wingers, fully expanding the width of the field to facilitate the transfer of the ball. At the same time, the full-backs must press forward to fill the midfield and achieve numerical advantage in the midfield. It is often seen that there are only three defenders and a defensive midfielder in the backcourt of attack, and the remaining six are all pressing forward to attack.
When playing against a team that is weaker than himself, he will ask for more ball possession to reduce the opponent's number of attacks, but he will not ask players to waste offensive opportunities in order to control the ball.
When playing against strong teams, he would take the initiative to give up some ball possession, and when the midfield was suppressed, he would frequently use the central defender's passing ability to make long passes directly to the front court.
This is also the reason why he insisted on buying Lima and Anthony and frantically pursued Frenkie de Jong when he coached Manchester United in his first season. In particular, the premium purchase of Anthony encountered a lot of criticism, because these three people 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 has undoubtedly greatly enhanced the midfield's clearing and pressing capabilities.
The footwork and technique of Barcelona's midfield combination are really amazing, but today they played in a 4-3-2-1 formation. Whether it is Pedri, Gavi or Gundogan, none of them are pure wingers. They mostly ran to the wing to open up space for the midfield to pass the ball.
Messi is already 36 years old. Although he has top-notch experience and skills, it is impossible for him to constantly use speed, changes of direction and dribbling to tear through the defense and create killing opportunities like he did when he was 26 years old.
Such a dense midfield space undoubtedly gave Chen Xiaoliang great room to play.
Whether in his second season in Rome or now at Manchester United, he has been telling people with his actions, please don't forget that I am a player who started out as a ball-stealing machine and a sweeping defensive midfielder.
In the 4th minute, after Barcelona passed the ball more than 20 times, Gundogan passed the ball to Pedri who was playing on the left flank.
B Fee stepped forward to press Pedri, but before he could get close to him, he was shaken off by the latter's cutting inside.
Pedri started dribbling the ball towards the middle, and Lewandowski in the penalty area also started running to prepare for the through ball that might come out at any time.
Seeing Lewandowski moving between the two central defenders, Pedri immediately raised his foot to pass the ball. While looking at Lewandowski and the passing route in the penalty area, he felt his feet were empty and he kicked nothing. He was startled and looked down, and found that the ball was gone!
It turned out that Chen Xiaoliang came over immediately after B Fee was shaken off. Because the formation was compressed and the distance was very close, he arrived in an instant, stepped and pulled the ball behind Pedri when he raised his foot, pushed it sideways in front of B Fee, and immediately turned around to launch a counterattack!
B Fee ran forward and grabbed the ball, but did not immediately pass it to Chen Xiaoliang who was already running. Instead, he passed the ball over the top to Anthony who was running from the right.
Anthony ran across half the court, turned around and unloaded the ball. Facing the high pressure of Barcelona's left-back Balde, his left foot kept shaking like a cramp, trying to deceive Balde's center of gravity and then move forward.
The problem is that let alone Balde, if you pick a fan named Balde from the stands of Camp Nou, as long as he watches enough football, he will definitely know that Manchester United's Anthony can only use his left foot...
If this could be deceived, then Harvey would not be interested in it.
Anthony had just dribbled a few times when Chen Xiaoliang had already run to the opponent's half and waved to Anthony for the ball.
Anthony was still "cramping" and didn't even notice Chen Xiaoliang's gesture.
"Give me the ball!" Chen Xiaoliang shouted and ran to the left front of Anthony. Anthony then reacted and seeing that he had no chance to get past Balde, he passed the ball diagonally to the left front.
Before Chen Xiaoliang received the ball, Gavi had already approached him.
He is 173cm tall and weighs 68kg. He has dark brown curly hair, fair skin, a sunny appearance and a kind smile. All of this seems like a disguise. It is hard to guess what kind of playing style this young man, who started from the youth training of Real Betis and came to La Masia in 2015 at the age of 11, has.
No matter how much description you say, it is not as direct and powerful as numbers.
He was the foul king in La Liga last season, "contributing" 2.9 fouls per 90 minutes on average, ranking fourth on the yellow card list. He received an average of one yellow card every three games, but never received a red card.
This set of data not only shows how tough his playing style is, but also reflects how "smart" he is.
He only gets a yellow card for 9 fouls in every 3 games, plus 0 red cards this season, which means that a large number of his fouls are "high-quality" fouls that are enough to delay the opponent's offensive rhythm but do not cause trouble for himself.
On the other side of the data, this 173cm tall young man ranks 9th on the La Liga foul list and 14th on the one-on-one successful list, which means that his small stature hides a "big taste" that likes tough confrontations.
At this time, he stuck close to him, and seeing that he could not stop Chen Xiaoliang from catching the ball from behind, his left hand, which was away from the referee's sight, had already tightly grabbed the back of Chen Xiaoliang's clothes, ready to commit a foul if he could not stop him the moment Chen Xiaoliang caught the ball and tried to get rid of it.
However, he underestimated the physical fitness and explosive power of Manchester United's No. 7 who was only two and a half months older than him. After leaning against Gavi with his back to stop the ball from Anthony, Chen Xiaoliang directly dribbled the ball forward with his right foot, turned his body to the left, and leaned on Gavi to accelerate forward.
Pull? Even Milinkovic-Savic, who is as strong as an ox, can't pull me, and you, with your small body?
After Chen Xiaoliang turned around, he swung his left hand backwards, broke free from Gavi's tight grasp on his left hand, and immediately rushed out.
Gavi tried his best to catch up, but he knew this. Even if he didn't watch other sports competitions, the Barcelona coaching staff told them before the game that the opposing team had a gold medalist in the 100m relay at the World Athletics Championships and an individual silver medalist... and he was the kind who just made a cameo appearance and stepped onto the podium without realizing it.
Gavi had run less than 3 meters when he was already three or four people away from him.
For a moment, Jiawei looked at Chen Xiaoliang running farther and farther away, and thought about his own body. He wondered if he had not developed well, or if the opponent had been eating Jinkela since childhood...
Facing Chen Xiaoliang who was running in at high speed, Frankie de Jong and Balde double-teamed him.
After the Champions League final, all the strong teams in Europe are no strangers to Chen Xiaoliang. It can even be said that when they made an offer to him or knew that he would definitely leave Rome, the major giants began to conduct detailed research on him.
At present, double-teaming, avoiding direct shooting opportunities, and forcing him to pass the ball to his teammates may be the most effective defensive method against Chen Xiaoliang.
At this time, Balde's double-team was to deliberately release Anthony on the right.
At this moment, Pedri and Gavi, who were chasing behind him, looked at it from their own tactical understanding and position. If they were Chen Xiaoliang, they would have three choices:
1. Pass the ball to Anthony on the right, but Anthony cannot use his right foot and has almost no ability to cross the ball. He must cut inside or rush into the penalty area to be threatening. Therefore, Balde turns around and chases back, and can still form a double-team defense with Marcos Alonso;
2. It is not impossible to break through the middle directly, but the success rate is not high;
3. Pass the ball to the left to B Fee who has reached the middle, then go into the penalty area yourself, or run outside and wait for an opportunity.
However, as expected, an accident happened. Chen Xiaoliang suddenly took a step to the left, and then kicked the ball out with his right foot before Frankie de Jong took his foot!
Xavi shouted at the moment Chen Xiaoliang kicked: "Punch zone!"
It is obvious that the two young Barcelona midfielders have not yet reached the level and vision of their head coach.
The ball flew straight to the penalty spot. It was flat and fast, but from the perspective of the shot, the speed was a little slow, and from the perspective of the lob pass, the height was a little low.
Originally thought to be passed to Rashford who entered the penalty area from the middle, but the ball drew an inward spin in the air and deviated from the direction of the penalty spot. Araujo, who was sticking to Rashford, was also puzzled. Who was this ball for?
But soon, when he turned around, he saw a red figure rushing up from behind Kounde and raising his left foot near the baseline. The ball passed by Chen Xiaoliang was like a drone returning to its position, and it stopped exactly on the inside of his left foot!
"Oh...!" All the fans in the stadium let out an involuntary exclamation. Xavi, who was once a midfield master, couldn't help but cheer for this pass in his heart.
You know, even he prefers short passes and medium-distance through passes. Long-distance passes are not his best technique. Pirlo and Scholes of a similar era may be more skilled in long passes than him.
When he arrived at Manchester United, Kwa, still wearing the No. 77 shirt, received the ball and rushed towards the near corner of the goal along the bottom line. Kounde and Marcos Alonso immediately pounced on him, and Ter Stegen also quickly moved over to prevent him from creating an angle and shooting directly into the near corner.
Kva waited for them to come over, and took two steps forward. When the three were closer, he kicked the ball towards the middle with the outside of his right foot!
Rashford suddenly started, got rid of Araujo, and headed the ball from the center!
Although today is a friendly match, the opponent is the world-famous giants Barcelona, the defending champions of La Liga, and it is also the first time that Messi has played for Barcelona since his return. Under the huge attention of the media and fans, everyone in Manchester United wants to win this game.
Hamad Al Thani, who was sitting in the box in the stands of Camp Nou, had already stood up from his seat, ready to celebrate the team's quick goal!
Rashford leaped hard and headed the ball!
Ter Stegen used all his strength to adjust his body and jumped in the opposite direction of the left center of the goal to save the ball!
As a result, Ter Stegen failed to catch the ball, and Rashford failed to head it correctly, 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 around and sat back in their chairs.
Barcelona president Laporta, who was next to Hamad Al Thani, resumed his smile, thinking it was a good thing that the goal did not go in.
Kwadwo and Rashford raised their hands to each other to apologize.
But Chen Xiaoliang in the distance couldn't help but smile slightly, and turned to look at Cesco sitting on the bench on the sidelines.
The astute Ten Hag immediately understood what he meant. The ball was sent to the bottom line of the left penalty area from the right rib 10 meters away from the penalty area line with accuracy to the millimeter. In addition to Chen Xiaoliang's superb passing ability, it was also due to the tacit cooperation between him and Kva.
This combination is a routine they have practiced countless times during extra training.
After taking a few steps after receiving the ball, Kva made a lob pass to the middle, inadvertently passing the ball to Cesco with the same strength and height as he had used during extra training.
But Rashford is 10 centimeters shorter than Cesco, and jumping for headers is not his strong point. No wonder the ball was headed over his head and eventually flew over the crossbar.
The near miss of losing the ball made Barcelona's midfield and backcourt play with full energy.
Harvey shouted to Gavi, getting his attention, then gestured to him and pointed at 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 will most likely meet them. We have to try everything we should try today and find a way to contain him as soon as possible, so that we can slow down his progress as soon as possible."
Harvey was thinking in his mind while the game on the field continued.
