Chapter 408: Britain’s New King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table!
Chen Xiaoliang quickly entered full offensive mode.
In fact, the whole team knows that the best way to prevent the opponent's midfielders and backcourt players from pressing forward is for Chen Xiaoliang to keep wandering around and moving.
The tactical signal of raising his fist and patting his head just now not only tells his teammates that he will be responsible for the main attack, but also lets his teammates know that he will not retreat deep to participate in defense.
At least before Chen Xiaoliang learned the shadow clone skill that only exists in fantasy football, it would be impossible for him to create threats in the frontcourt and defend in the backcourt at the same time.
At this point, he and Ten Hag thought of going together.
Replacing Milinkovic-Savic, who is good at everything but doesn't get an A+ in any subject, with Timber, who is better at defense and interception, is to increase the defensive strength of the midfield and make up for the inevitable reduction in coverage area due to Casemiro's physical exhaustion.
The back door was closed tightly so that Chen Xiaoliang could free up his hands to attack with all his strength.
Suddenly, Arsenal felt unprecedented defensive pressure.
In the 69th minute, Chen Xiaoliang dribbled the ball forward on the left side of the rib, Rice followed closely, and midfielder Amadou Onana and right back Ben White took position outside the penalty area line, ready to form a double team.
Chen Xiaoliang first accelerated and broke through from the outside, and then when Rice sped up to chase him, he changed direction and walked towards the top of the arc inside.
Amadou Onana and Odegaard came over to double-team, but Rice was still chasing him closely. Chen Xiaoliang saw that he was being double-teamed by three opposing midfielders at the same time, so he decisively swung his right foot back, as if to force a long shot.
Rice made a pulling motion from behind, Amadou Onana and Odegaard fell to the ground and stretched their legs to intercept at the same time. Chen Xiaoliang gently rubbed the ball and passed it to B Fee who was coming inward from the right. The latter shot powerfully from 1 meter outside the penalty area!
But tonight, after conceding two goals, Ramsdale's reaction nerves seemed to be stimulated, and he blocked Bruno Fernandes' powerful volley with both palms.
Manchester United takes a corner kick from the right side.
B Fee took the ball and Maguire was marked by Ben White and Saliba this time, but the mantis stalks the cicada, while the oriole is behind. Cesco and Casemiro attacked the middle at the same time, forcing the Arsenal players to follow the two towards the goal.
Casemiro on the right side of the small penalty area jumped and headed the ball. Cesco pretended to jump but did not move. The ball flew in front of the penalty spot. Chen Xiaoliang jumped with all his strength, pressed Rice under his body, turned sideways and headed the ball with the left side of his forehead. The ball went straight above the center of the goal!
The distance was too close, Ramsdale subconsciously reached out, but failed to reach the ball!
Xiao Wang: "It's in! Xiaoliang! That's awesome!"
"I didn't expect Xiaoliang to score so quickly after moving forward. He is truly a man of both literary talent and martial talent. He is so versatile!"
"Eh? Not right? What's going on? Why do the players look weird? The Arsenal players are all surrounding the referee to complain."
Just now, Rice saw that Chen Xiaoliang had taken the initiative to jump, and he couldn't reach the ball even if he jumped, so he simply let Chen Xiaoliang hit his body and fell backwards.
His original intention was to leave a foreshadowing, but he didn't expect the ball to actually go in, so he immediately rushed to the referee David Cooper, and other teammates also surrounded him when they saw him.
Sometimes, some situations are bound to be judged by three people. David Cooper himself did not see clearly what happened just now, but he saw Rice fall to the ground. So he did not point to the center circle at first, but stepped back, asked the Arsenal players to be quiet, and then asked the video referee team through the headphones.
The referee Jared Gillette from the video referee team was a cunning old man. In such a world-renowned game, if there was a mistake, he would inevitably be drowned in saliva after the game, and might even receive a soft punishment from the English Football Association. So he made a "back pass" and told David Cooper that the two did have physical contact, but whether it was enough to constitute a foul, he was not on the sidelines and could not see clearly, so David Cooper had to watch the VAR himself.
David Cooper was very angry, but there was nothing he could do since he was the referee.
The referee is not like those officials in the Football Association who let their subordinates handle things first. The word "referee" in his name means that he has to make the decision on everything himself.
He had no choice but to make a square gesture and run to VAR to watch it.
Passing by the sidelines, Ten Hag shouted a few words at him, saying that it was extremely absurd and ridiculous to have to watch VAR for such a ball.
Arteta on the other side didn't let it go. While shouting at the referee not to interfere, he raised his right hand and made a shut-up gesture to Ten Hag.
At this point, the fans behind the two head coaches started to curse at each other.
There was constant shouting, booing and jeers.
The referee is also a human being. All the huge noise turned into pressure and all focused on David Cooper.
He watched it over and over again. Chen Xiaoliang did obviously touch Rice after jumping, which affected his jump. However, the replay could only show the process but not the strength. Moreover, there were other players on the side, which also obstructed his vision.
He knew that no matter how the ball was judged, the party that got the advantage would not thank him, but the party that suffered the loss would definitely curse him to death.
At this time, the referee can only choose the safest option, which is what was mentioned earlier, even if he is scolded to death by the fans, he cannot be punished by the Football Association.
We are all workers, so we have to keep our jobs.
“Beep!”
He turned around and ran back to the field. When the whistle sounded, he gestured and pointed his right hand towards Arsenal's goal!
Xiao Wang: "Did I see it right? The referee actually called a foul on Xiao Liang? Is this still a Premier League referee, guys? This is the NBA refereeing standard, right? Body hair is a foul."
Since it was Hong Guo’s live broadcast room, almost everyone supported Xiao Liang, and they immediately echoed Xiao Wang’s words, which triggered a barrage of curses.
But that was not the case on the scene. The Arsenal half excitedly celebrated with each other, while the Manchester United half pointed at David Cooper and cursed him.
All the ugly dirty words in the world seemed to gather together at that moment, merged into noise, and poured into the ears of the poor referee.
Chen Xiaoliang quit.
"This is a foul? Are you sure?!"
He was originally quite confident because based on his experience in Serie A, this level of confrontation in the penalty area would not be penalized, let alone in the Premier League where the standards are relatively more relaxed.
But this time, he really didn't expect it.
David Cooper explained it to him and then gestured to him to press his hands down and calm down.
Chen Xiaoliang couldn't hide his mocking expression and asked, "Let me ask you one question. If the other party bumps into us like this later, will you blow it or not?!"
Casemiro came over to pull him away, while B Fee and several others went to argue with David Cooper on his behalf.
Casemiro: "Chen! You have to calm down! He has already blown the whistle, it is impossible to change it because of your few words. You are an experienced player, you know this!"
As they were talking, David Cooper showed a yellow card to the lingering Bruno Fernandes, who spread his hands, shook his head helplessly and smiled.
He received this card on behalf of Chen Xiaoliang.
The two veteran players did this to protect their own trump card, and then put sufficient pressure on the referee to make him realize that he was in the wrong.
As for the yellow card, it is not a big deal for a role player to receive such a yellow card in the final. He just needs to be careful next time.
Chen Xiaoliang appreciated their kindness, but when he saw Rice high-fiving his teammates on the other side, he completely gave up his original plan of not targeting the England midfielder who had been sent off in the previous game.
In the last game, I got him off the court by using the change in the rhythm of dribbling to lure him into fouling me, but today, he used his "acting skills" to deceive the referee's decision.
After all this commotion, the game kicked off in the 73rd minute. Ramsdale kicked a low ball to Saliba, and Chen Xiaoliang immediately rushed up to press the ball. Cesco, who was nearby, and Rashford and B Fee on the two wings also started running and blocking.
Saliba didn't dare to stick to the ball in front of Chen Xiaoliang. Seeing that all the nearby passing points were blocked, he kicked the ball forward. Rice wanted to receive the ball, but Casemiro rushed up, jumped from behind and overpowered Rice to head the ball back into Arsenal's half.
Rice was hit by Casemiro behind him and fell forward immediately. The collision was quite strong, but when he raised his head to protest the foul to the referee David Cooper, he didn't expect that David Cooper had already turned his head to look at the front court without any expression.
Several famous players in the Sky Sports live broadcast room immediately pointed out that the referee was trying to find a balance. Casemiro was very experienced in this move and fully took advantage of the referee's psychological changes to give Rice a warning.
B Fee ran to the middle to receive the ball, turned to face Odegaard, and passed the ball to Luke Shaw who came in from the left. Although the latter has not fully recovered yet, he is about 80% back to form.
After making a one-two with Timberlake to get past Saka who was chasing back, he rushed forward and after Rashford's running took away Ben White, he made a direct cross with his left foot.
It's a pity that the ball was passed a little short and was headed out by Saliba before it reached Chen Xiaoliang's range.
In the following time, Chen Xiaoliang started a crazy pressing in the frontcourt, and soon his physical strength reached the critical value and automatically recovered to full.
In order to cooperate with his high-pressure defense, Ten Hag replaced the young Ganacho and told him to run more and steal more in the frontcourt.
In this way, Chen Xiaoliang brought Cesco, B Fee and Ganaocho, three players who came on in the second half, and the energetic Tinber in the midfield. These five people kept running back and forth, cutting Arsenal's defense as if the game had just started.
After conceding two goals in the first half and finally scoring a goal in the second half, Arsenal players have been defending until now. Seeing that the time has entered the 80th minute, they dare not waste any more time.
It's difficult to pass the ball from the backcourt, so let it be. Players like Martinelli and Nketiah, who just came on, should just turn into defensive players and retreat to the half court to defend.
If we can hold on for another 10 minutes, the championship will belong to the Emirates Stadium!
When Manchester United saw that Arsenal had simply retreated, they didn't care whether they would be counterattacked or not. Timber retreated, Maguire pressed forward, Luke Shaw made a forward run, Casemiro was the only defensive midfielder, and the four of them, Timber, Lima and Wan-Bissaka, were responsible for defense. The others all pressed forward to attack, and Maguire basically became a temporary center forward, cruising in the Arsenal penalty area, ready to bomb with headers at any time.
Manchester United fired 6 shots in 8 minutes, including long shots, crosses, headers and penalty kicks, but they were either blocked desperately by Arsenal players or saved by Ramsdale who became more and more nervous.
In the 88th minute, Casemiro and Wan Bissaka also went on, leaving only Lima and Timber, a pair of old teammates from Ajax, in the backcourt.
Arteta no longer followed any moral principles at this time. He replaced Nketiah, who had just come on the field, with Thomas, and even comforted him with words when Nketiah left the field.
However, the players also know the current situation on the field. With 5 minutes of stoppage time, they will win if they defend. As long as they can help the team win the championship, they will accept it even if they are substituted in and then taken off.
Not only the head coaches but also the players of both teams stood in the command area on the sidelines and watched the game nervously.
At 89 minutes and 13 seconds, Luke Shaw took a corner kick from the right side. Wan Bissaka missed the target and headed the ball to the middle. Rice jumped and headed the ball out of the penalty area. Timber received the ball, withstood Saka's harassment, and passed it back to Luke Shaw who was retreating.
Luke Shaw passed the ball again, and this time Ramsdale rushed out, ignoring Cesco's head-on header, and desperately punched the ball out of the penalty area again.
At this point in the game, in the Wembley stands with a capacity of 90,000, except for the celebrities in the VIP area who forcibly controlled their hips to maintain the demeanor of British gentlemen, almost all the other fans stood up to watch the game, and exclaimed "Ah!" "Ah!" and "Oh!" with every header, shot and save.
The palms of Ten Hag and Arteta were full of sweat, and their hearts began to beat faster with nervousness.
Even though the League Cup is not a very important cup championship, it is a precious opportunity to win the championship for Premier League teams where the competition is fierce and cruel.
What's more, for the two young teams, only by winning one championship after another, accumulating little by little, and finally building a tower, can the gene of glory be engraved in the team's blood again.
In the 91st minute, the game reached its climax.
Ganacho received the pass from Bruno Fernandes on the right side of the penalty area, and Rice blocked him.
Because Chen Xiaoliang was already in the penalty area, Amadou Onana and Martinelli, who were taller and stronger, were defending him, and Rice was still responsible for the area on the penalty area line.
But at this time, Rice had fought with Chen Xiaoliang all night and his physical strength was severely depleted. He could no longer keep up with the young Ganacho.
Ganacho paused for a moment, then dribbled the ball with his right foot, bypassed Rice and rushed to the edge of the penalty area.
After just two steps, he had already passed Rice cleanly.
At this time, including goalkeeper Ramsdale, Arsenal had 9 players standing inside the penalty area line to participate in the defense. Ganacho ran to the half of the right side of the penalty area and kicked a cross directly!
But the ball was passed too far, and when it was halfway through, Ganacho covered his face with his hands, feeling that the ball was about to go out of the baseline.
However, the young Argentine was disappointed at the ball point, but an older Brazilian rushed to the baseline and refused to give up!
Xiao Wang: "Casemiro went to the back post!"
"Header..."
"middle……"
"I... drift..."
"Wow!!!"
"Piollion! Brothers!"
"Barb! Barb!!!"
“Equalizer!!!”
Xiao Wang, who is not a professional commentator, was like countless other fans who were "so excited that they couldn't speak!" All that was left were interjections and shouting!
Even Ferdinand in the Sky Sports live broadcast room burst into a gorilla-like sharp cry of "Ah! Ah! Ah!"
Henry put his head in his hands and could only sigh.
This action was also seen by countless Arsenal fans at Wembley Stadium.
In the second half, the two sides changed sides, and this side of Arsenal's goal was just below the Manchester United fans' half.
Suddenly, Chen Xiaoliang was surrounded by explosive cheers.
In the previous shot, the ball flew to the baseline, Casemiro jumped high and headed the ball back from the baseline. This action was beyond the expectations of most people, especially Arsenal players.
After all, even Ganacho, who passed the ball, thought that it was too far and he would be out.
Amadou Onana next to Chen Xiaoliang, Ramsdal on the goal line, and Gabriel blocking the goal, the three of them made almost no defensive moves to Chen Xiaoliang's left-footed hook in the small penalty area, and they didn't even react.
Xiao Wang: "3 to 3! This is definitely one of the most exciting games of the season!"
After scoring the goal, Chen Xiaoliang rushed towards the fans and performed his signature celebration move after jumping. However, at the initiative of the fan organization, at the moment of punching, the original shouting of "Yeah" turned into a unanimous shout of "KING".
After landing, Chen Xiaoliang immediately turned around and hugged his teammates who came over, especially thanking Casemiro who never gave up and gave him a fatal assist.
Chen Xiaoliang: "The game isn't over yet! We won't play overtime !"
In the 92nd minute and 45 seconds, Arsenal kicked off.
Arteta, who had already used up his quota of substitutions, could only yell at his players to maintain the score, and then adjust the attack after the regular time ended and before the start of overtime.
After all, he replaced all the forwards, but the score was not maintained.
However, Manchester United tonight was not really prepared to play overtime. In everyone's eyes, Chen Xiaoliang's tactical gesture of passing the ball to him was like a stamp of thought, making them unwaveringly try every possible way to do this.
At 93 minutes and 24 seconds, Luke Shaw intercepted the ball to Saka and kicked it towards the Arsenal penalty area.
Sesco went for the header, but was blocked by Thomas and his header went straight up and down. Sesco tried to get into position again and wanted to jump to head the ball, but Ramsdale attacked and punched the ball out of the penalty area.
B Fee retreated two steps, Timber controlled the ball and passed it to him. After turning around, Rice was defending three meters in front of B Fee.
Rice knew that breaking through at high speed was not the Portuguese midfielder's strong point, so he just had to block him in front to prevent him from shooting directly.
Unexpectedly, the option of shooting did not even occur to Bruno Fernandes' mind. We all had only one thought - find a way to pass the ball to Chen Xiaoliang, he would definitely help us score a goal!
B Fee only saw someone recruiting someone from the far left side out of the corner of his eye. He didn't see clearly who it was, but the tacit understanding developed during extra training made him realize that that was a person he could definitely trust. So he rubbed the ball with his right foot, and an inward-spinning arc ball flew to the back point!
It seemed like the same routine as before, but this time it was Maguire who was fearless. He jumped from the left sideline of the small penalty area, and headed the ball back while Ben White in front of him only had Chen Xiaoliang in his eyes and did not look back at him!
When Ben White discovered that the ball was headed by Maguire and turned around to look before attacking, the ball had already passed over his head and landed in front of Chen Xiaoliang who had rushed into the small penalty area and was almost at the goal line!
Ramsdale tried his best. He used the most standard movement of a goalkeeper to cross his body on the goal line to expand the interception area, but Chen Xiaoliang pushed the ball to the right side of the goal with the arch of his right foot. How could Ramsdale's body completely intercept such a big goal?
Xiao Wang: "A sure kill! Xiao Liang has it! Brothers!"
"Leave the murmurings to London and bring the trophy back to Manchester!"
"It was Maguire who assisted the attack! Hahaha!"
"I'll just shake my head and see if anyone dares to call me a poor Maqui in the future!"
“We must clear Ma Kui’s name in the next video, hahahaha!”
"Xiao Liang scored two goals in overtime. Let's talk about it. We want to be low-key, but is it okay or not? Our strength doesn't allow it, right, brothers!"
"Write Xiao Liang's awesomeness on the public screen!"
Just as the fans were celebrating, Chen Xiaoliang rushed to the stands, jumped high, and threw his jersey into the stands with countless fans shouting "KING"!
After landing, he raised his angular and strong muscles, kept patting his chest, and then punched and shouted to the fans.
This battle was won through hard fighting and the perseverance of all team members. There were no fancy moves or acting skills; it was all about strength and persistence!
Seeing Maguire running over, Chen Xiaoliang grabbed him and pointed at him to the fans.
It has been a long time since Maguire has been treated like this in front of Manchester United fans. Although only he himself knows how it feels to sit on the bench, train hard and try to lose weight over the past year, this moment has turned all the bitterness into sweetness!
Ten Hag also applauded the group of players after excitedly hugging assistant coach Van der Gage.
Chen Xiaoliang received a yellow card for taking off his clothes.
Since the clothes were thrown into the stands, the prop manager quickly brought Chen Xiaoliang a spare jersey.
By the time the game resumed, it was already 95 minutes and 49 seconds.
Referee David Cooper added a little more than two points and didn't blow the final whistle until the 97th minute.
Arsenal's mentality was completely broken. They failed to organize any shooting opportunities in this period of time. Finally, after the whistle sounded, many young players sat directly on the grass, covered their eyes and cried.
Of course, Rice is also involved.
But when the director pointed the camera at him and the big screen in the stadium showed the image of him with red eyes and tears, what was heard was a unanimous booing.
Justice is in the hearts of the people.
However, the commentators are no longer interested in commenting on the moments in the process. They are all praising the never-give-up Red Devils spirit represented by Ferguson's time in the past, which has now returned to the team.
Although both the equalizing and the winning goals were scored by Chen Xiaoliang, if any one of the passers-up Ganacho, Casemiro, B Fee, Maguire, Cesco, Luke Shaw, Wan-Bissaka, and defenders Lima and Timber were missing, these two goals might not have happened.
This is an honor for the whole team.
Gary Lineker, England legend and former Barcelona and Tottenham player, said:
"I seem to see King Arthur returning to Britain tonight."
"If Chen is King Arthur, then these fearless teammates around him are the great Knights of the Round Table!"
"Casemiro, B Fee and Maguire are Percival, Galahad and Lancelot beside King Arthur..."
"I saw in them a noble sense of honor and pure ambition. Everyone gave their all for the trophy."
"Congratulations to Manchester United, they have found their new king. Every time we hear their fans shouting 'KING' in the stadium, it means they have taken a step forward in their journey to conquer England and even European football."
"I hope all the fans realize that maybe we are witnessing another great career, like the ones experienced by the kings of the football world before!"
