Chapter 37: The old enemy? Feng Ba appears!
Standard Liege tried to dominate the game throughout the match, but injuries to several main players in the league still affected the team's overall performance.
In contrast, the Rangers, who had a complete lineup and were in excellent form recently, relied on skillful cooperation and strong defense to always firmly grasp the initiative of the game.
In the end, they scored a goal in each half, winning 0-2 away from home and getting off to a good start.
In another match that kicked off at the same time, Benfica defeated Lech Poznan away with a score of 2-4.
However, Chen Xiaoliang had some ideas. He felt that since he could not play in the group stage, he might as well stay in Glasgow. This way he could avoid a lot of travel and save time for training.
He told Gerard about this idea, but was rejected.
In the following period, the team won consecutive victories. First, two days later, with almost no rest, they defeated Livingston 2-0, while Celtic drew with Aberdeen away. With two more games played, Rangers' advantage had widened to 10 points.
As Chen Xiaoliang did not play in the Europa League two days ago, he was the one with the most physical strength in this match. He headed and kicked, contributed 15 steals and 7 clearances, so that Livingston did not launch a decent shot in the whole game.
Thanks to his crazy performance on the defensive end, he was selected as the best player of the game for the second time.
Five days later, in the second match of the Europa League group stage, the team faced Lech Poznan at home. Although this team once cultivated a striker like Lewandowski, the overall backward level of the Polish league meant that the team was destined to be only a spectator in the Europa League.
1-0, Gerrard once again scored three solid points in the rotation.
On November 6, in the third round of the Europa League, Rangers traveled to faraway Portugal to challenge their biggest rival in the group, Benfica.
Although he knew that Chen Xiaoliang wanted to save more time on training, Gerrard still included him in the entourage.
This time, not only the other players, but even assistant coach McAllister were a little puzzled.
You know, Chen Xiaoliang's hard work in training is so hard that not only all the team members, but even Gerrard, who has partnered with countless players, said that it can no longer be described as perverted, but simply a pervert among perverts.
Who has ever seen a football player who gets up at 6 o'clock every morning and practices until 11 o'clock at night?
So the players suspected that Gerrard was worried that once he was not at home, Chen Xiaoliang would run out and have an in-depth communication with Cheryl.
The media even speculated that as long as Chen Xiaoliang travels with the team, even if he does not play, he can maintain the extremely high popularity of the Rangers in the Red Country, and at the same time, he will not breach the contract by endorsing the contract.
However, Gerrard did not tell Chen Xiaoliang his intention until the game was about to start.
Watching the players from both teams line up on the field, he called Chen Xiaoliang to his side.
“Who do you think are the top strikers in the world?”
Chen Xiaoliang was stunned, thinking that Gerrard was a little different today and even gave test questions.
"C Ronaldo, Messi."
Gerard shook his head: "Don't tell me the answer that even a three-year-old child knows. What else?"
"Mbappe, Benzema, Lewandowski."
Gerard nodded: "What else?"
"Salah, Kane, Haaland?"
"Haaland is still too young, Kane... barely counts, is there anything else?" Gerrard replied while looking straight into the field.
"Well... Griezmann, Jesus, Lukaku..." Gerrard interrupted Chen Xiaoliang before he finished speaking.
"In the Scottish Premier League, the best striker you can meet is someone like Furuhashi Kento. However, there is a Japanese striker who is better than him, Takumi Minamino. After winning six consecutive league titles in Austria, he went to Liverpool and had very few opportunities to play.
"Boss, what is the level of the Austrian league?"
"In terms of UEFA European Championship points, apart from the five major leagues, starting from sixth place are the Portuguese Super League, the Dutch Eredivisie, the Austrian Super League, the Scottish Super League and the Russian Super League, with the Austrian Super League ranked eighth."
"I see... Shit... A striker who is stronger than Gu Qiao can't even be a regular substitute?"
"In the match against Celtic, I gave you complete tactical freedom and asked you to press Kento Furuhashi throughout the game. In order to not give the opponent a chance to counter-offside, our defense line almost retreated to the goal line.
But Chen, this retro style of play is only a stopgap measure and is definitely not the trend of modern football.
I could do this because I had only been a coach for a short time and was coaching a bankrupt team that had just fought its way back from the lowest league.
To put it bluntly, face is not that important.
But if you go to other teams in the future, especially those giants, their head coaches will never do this. Even if you win the game with this method, you will be scolded by the media and fans.
I brought you here not because I was worried that you would lose self-discipline, but because I wanted you to see someone."
As he spoke, Gerrard pointed to a player in Benfica's lineup who had a bun on the back of his head.
"Do you remember what Raiola told you about brushing the data that day?"
"I remember..." Chen Xiaoliang replied, but he was thinking in his heart, it turns out that you heard the conversation that day upstairs.
"This guy is now accumulating his own data in Benfica. In one or two years, when the striker of a top club gets old and his form declines, he will transfer to that top club with a high transfer fee based on his outstanding number of goals in the past two years.
This person's future ability will definitely be better than the last three forwards you mentioned.
If you want to enter a top club one day by relying on strong defense, he will definitely be among your opponents.
Take a good look at him from a close distance!
If you are not sure you can defend him, then the Scottish Premier League is your ceiling!"
After Gerrard finished speaking, he asked Chen Xiaoliang to sit back on the bench.
What? A striker who is stronger than Griezmann, Jesus and Lukaku in the future?
Griezmann joined Barcelona for 120 million euros and Lukaku was bought by Inter Milan for 80 million euros. Will this person be worth 100 million euros in the future?
Soon, this Benfica striker No. 9 left an indelible and shocking impression on Chen Xiaoliang.
Rangers, who had conceded only three goals in 13 league games over three months, were almost turned into a sieve by the number 9 in the 90 minutes tonight, with one instigation, one assist and one goal.
Despite the team's outstanding performance, they still took the lead three times but were equalized , and ended up drawing 3-3 with Benfica away from home.
On the way back, the entire Rangers team was silent and the entire journey was dull.
Some players were blaming themselves, while others were upset. A night's efforts were turned upside down and wiped out by a 20-year-old Uruguayan striker.
Chen Xiaoliang was in deep shock.
The feeling of observing the scene up close and directly is completely different from watching a video through the screen, especially when the opponent is facing a teammate that he is very familiar with.
This striker's speed not only crushes Kento Hideo Furuhashi, but he also has super strong confrontation ability. Several times when Davis wanted to press the ball, he was directly pushed away by him with his body.
In the header, his height of 187cm and his powerful bounce made Goldson and Balogun, who were considered the masters of the back defense in the Scottish Premier League, embarrassed.
If Benfica's defense had not been even worse and various fancy mistakes had not allowed Rangers to score three goals, this game would have been Rangers' first and biggest defeat of the season.
Chen Xiaoliang opened his cell phone and carefully wrote down the name: Darwin Nunez.
