Chapter 440: The game hasn’t even finished yet, and the new king of football has already been born?
In the second half, neither side made any substitutions, but several planned substitutes began jogging, stretching and warming up on the sidelines.
The South Korean media suddenly had a collective climax, because among the three people warming up in Paris Saint-Germain, there were Asensio, the talented young player Warren Emery, and the last figure was Lee Kang-in, who was known in South Korea as being able to surpass Son Heung-min.
The Korean has had a lot of opportunities this season, especially with Neymar injured from time to time, he can play as a winger and attacking midfielder on both sides, and he works very hard on the field, often rotating with Neymar and Dybala.
South Korean media immediately issued a headline news:
"Li Gangren - Mourinho's hidden secret weapon"
"The man who will lead Paris Saint-Germain to the top of Europe is about to appear"
"Only Li Gangren can activate Mbappe"
Of course, some people also took the opportunity to tease Chen Xiaoliang:
"The real Asian No. 1 is about to appear"
Of course, even Koreans themselves couldn’t stand this news. Five minutes after it was posted, it received more than 3,000 likes and more than 3,100 dislikes.
On the field, Paris Saint-Germain, who were one goal behind, clearly stepped up their interception and pressing from the midfield.
This was also anticipated by Chen Xiaoliang. During his two years in Rome, he often fell behind in cup competitions. Once behind, Mourinho, who focused on defense, would ask the players to expand the scope of pressing and oppression, seize as much ball possession as possible and launch attacks until the score was equalized.
It was fine for others, but this made Mbappe very uncomfortable.
Neymar and Dybala were running as hard as they could on both sides, trying to cut off the passing routes of Manchester United's midfield, while Mbappe, who was at the front, was not running at all, but he was indeed running. But if you say he ran, it was no different from taking a walk.
Even the fans in the stands could see that he didn't like the feeling of running back and forth between the opposing players in possession of the ball, having the ball passed back and forth like walking a dog.
He would run frequently, and after the ball was thrown out, he would immediately change to walking mode, and his face still looked very bad.
Mourinho has no way to deal with this.
A superstar with explosive talent and numerous goals scored, but he only maintains the most basic relationship of employer and employee with the club, without any emotion or passion. Even when Ligue 1 won the championship trophy this season, he just smiled twice with his face not smiling.
Anyone with a discerning eye could see that his mind had already flown to Madrid, but his body was forced to stay in Paris because of a contract.
Of course, his dissatisfaction, at least his current dissatisfaction on the court, cannot be said to be completely unreasonable.
At halftime, the assistant coaches in the locker rooms of both teams summarized and analyzed the data of the first half. Both assistant coaches were speechless about the same data, which was the number of passes between Neymar and Mbappe.
The number turned out to be a big “0”.
Neymar always passes the ball to the front court by himself, or passes the ball to Dybala, who then passes it to Mbappe.
This brings great convenience to Manchester United's defense, allowing the defenders to only need to observe Neymar's own movements when defending him, without having to worry that he will pass the ball to Mbappe, who poses the greatest threat.
Mourinho was also helpless. The relationship between the two was originally very good, and they could be described as brothers like gay friends. But it seemed that because of the arrival of Messi, the saying "three monks can't drink water" was confirmed. Mbappe and Neymar suddenly cooled down. Mbappe, who tried hard to prove that he was the number one star among the three and the first player in the team, did many deliberate things, which eventually made Neymar a stranger to him.
It’s not that he didn’t try, but the long-standing bad relationship between the two of them was simply beyond repair.
But apart from that, there is nothing to criticize about Neymar's performance on the field.
In the counterattack goal in the first half, Neymar's retreat to receive the ball and then passed it horizontally to Kone was the most important part of the entire counterattack. His retreat not only effectively transmitted the ball, but also directly took away Timber, allowing Dybala to find a better gap.
In addition, Neymar has to take free kicks on the left half of the field.
Of course, although it cannot cure the root cause, there is still a way to deal with the symptoms, which is to let Neymar play for about 65 minutes at most. His physical strength can only last this long in high-intensity games. If there is no more obvious achievement, replace him with Li Gangren.
But just as the Korean media were happily waiting for Lee Kang-in to come on the field and score the winning goal, Neymar showed the world that his long-standing reputation as the third man after Messi and Ronaldo was not in vain.
In the 55th minute, Manchester United got a corner kick opportunity on the left side. Lima, Timber and two full-backs fell back, Casemiro stood in the midfield, and the rest of the players pressed forward to attack.
Kva took a corner kick and went straight to the middle position between the penalty spot and the small penalty area. Donnarumma relied on his 196 cm height to leave the goal line and rushed forward. After jumping up, he punched the ball with both fists and hit it far out of the penalty area.
Dybala, who was responsible for blocking loopholes and launching counterattacks outside the penalty area, received the ball. Although he and Chen Xiaoliang had not trained and played together for almost a year, he could not forget the style of the old captain no matter what.
He immediately passed the ball diagonally, and sure enough, just as it went out, Chen Xiaoliang came from behind and flew past him with a whoosh, as if he wanted to take away all the clouds.
If the pass had been delayed by half a second, it would have been blocked.
Here, Chen Xiaoliang and his teammates were retreating to defend against counterattacks, while the five defensive players in the backcourt also began to lean towards the right side.
After receiving the pass from Dybala, Paris Saint-Germain's left wingback Nuno Mendes strode forward and dribbled the ball forward without any defensive pressure.
This talented left-wing player, who was worth 65 million euros when he was 21 years old, has almost no obvious weaknesses except shooting, and like Ashraf on the right, he is also incredibly fast.
In order to shorten the distance for forward penetration, Neymar ran directly in the middle of the frontcourt. Mbappe had no choice but to run to the right. However, compared to the center forward position in the middle, he does like to launch attacks or try to shoot from the wider areas on both sides of the ribs.
Nuno Mendes was running with the ball, Casemiro approached him and pointed at Wan-Bissaka, asking him to step back appropriately, so as to avoid giving Nuno Mendes a chance to make a quick pass. The two of them could work together to force him to the wing and prevent him from cutting inside.
Then there was Casemiro's move. Although it locked Nuno Mendes on the wing, it unexpectedly led to a famous scene.
The Paris Saint-Germain left wingback pushed the ball to Neymar who was about to reach the penalty area line before Casemiro and Wan-Bissaka formed a double-team.
After receiving the ball, Neymar immediately slowed down and took two steps forward due to inertia. At this time, he was already on the left side of the penalty spot, 1.5 meters inside the penalty area line.
Timber tried to fall to the ground and stretch his legs to intercept, but due to his short height and short legs, he failed to block the ball passed by Nuno Mendes. At this time, he quickly got up and pressed Neymar again, while Lima on the other side attacked him from the front and back.
Unexpectedly, Neymar picked up the ball in the air with his toes and threw it behind himself. Then he made a soul-stirring and gorgeous turn, instantly got rid of Lima who was rushing towards him, and then adjusted his pace at an extremely fast speed, and shot the ball falling in the air with his right foot!
Lima turned around immediately and tried to stretch his legs to block the ball, but the ball had already been kicked out by Neymar. De Gea faced such a close-range shot, it was impossible for him to expect that Neymar would complete the shot in such an incredible way. He tried his best to block the ball, but the ball still flew into the goal from his left side!
"ah!!!"
"ah!!!!!!"
The Paris Saint-Germain fans, who had been frustrated in the stands for a while, jumped up, roared, punched and hugged at the top of their lungs.
Just like when England meets Argentina in the World Cup, the match between the two sides will be attached with special feelings because of the old feud, England and France fought a Hundred Years' War intermittently from 1337 to 1453, and Paris was once occupied by the British.
Although it has been nearly 600 years since then, in the hearts of Paris Saint-Germain fans, Neymar is now like Joan of Arc, a hero who led France out of despair!
Zhan Jun: "Amazing! 2 to 2!"
"Neymar, a super world wave! Helped Paris Saint-Germain equalize the score!"
"Mourinho excitedly rushed from the coaching seat to the sidelines!"
"Wembley is in the midst of a frenzy of Paris Saint-Germain fans!"
Guan Zeyuan: "I believe even Manchester United fans would applaud and admire this goal. It is really amazing."
Xie Hui: "Although this was also a quick counterattack, this goal was purely a personal ability."
Zhang Lu: "Indeed, Neymar's pass directly shook off two Manchester United defenders and made Lima spin around, but Dybala played an indispensable role in this goal. The most important thing for a counterattack is to get the ball out quickly from the backcourt. He just passed the ball without any delay."
Neymar hugged his teammates who came to congratulate him, then ran towards the camera alone, circling his hands in front of his chest, and then pointed to the upper right, making his own celebration move!
However, the camera still captured one thing keenly. When his teammates rushed towards Neymar to celebrate, Mbappe, who was running on the right flank, first opened his eyes wide and stared, obviously surprised at the way Neymar scored the goal. Then he immediately became expressionless, ran over and patted the back of Dybala who was hugging Neymar, as if he had celebrated, and then immediately turned back and ran to his own half.
On the Manchester United side, De Gea stood up helplessly, while Lima and Timber looked at each other. The footage of the two of them being shaken in an embarrassing manner had already spread all over the world.
No matter how fast Chen Xiaoliang ran, when Neymar shot just now, he only ran to the vicinity of his own defensive third zone and could not catch up.
However, the most important thing at this time is to maintain confidence and mentality. He gave Lima and Timber an expression and a shaking hand gesture, meaning that there is no need to worry about this super goal that is almost impossible to defend.
Only Neymar rushed into the penalty area alone when Paris Saint-Germain had four players guarding the backcourt. There was no problem from the number of players to their positioning to the choice of defensive methods.
This is the superstar's personal shining moment.
However, the course of the game had just changed because of the goal, but unexpectedly, one wave of troubles came after another.
In the 61st minute, Mbappe cruised to the left to receive the ball. Dybala and Neymar were advancing in the middle, and Ashraf came in from the other side.
Facing Wan Bissaka, Mbappe once again used his unreasonable one-step breakthrough, suddenly accelerated to shake off the Manchester United right-back, and forced his way into the penalty area from the bottom line.
Wan-Bissaka reached out to pull the ball outside the penalty area, but Mbappe accelerated too fast and entered the penalty area in just two steps. Wan-Bissaka had to retract his hand. De Gea blocked the near corner, Varane and Lima also surrounded him, and it seemed that three defenders and a goalkeeper were going to block Mbappe at the same time.
Mbappe knew that he had no space to kick the ball or continue dribbling, so he kicked the ball hard in the lower middle part of the ball with his left foot and passed the ball to the penalty spot!
To be honest, he didn't really look at who was standing on the penalty spot when he passed the ball. In that split second, he didn't have time to think any more. Instead, he relied on his genius subconscious to pass the ball to the place where it should go.
However, the person who caught the ball, jumped, and headed the ball was Neymar, who had just scored a goal. And Neymar, whose heading ability was very average, headed the ball too high from a very close distance...
The ball went directly over the crossbar, and it was quite a bit higher.
To make matters worse, if this was a normal collaboration between teammates, and such a good opportunity was not scored, the person who shot the goal would definitely raise his hand to the teammate who passed the ball, to express his gratitude and regret for missing the goal.
After all, opportunities are created by teammates through running and breakthroughs.
But the teammates in front of them are Neymar and Mbappe...
Neymar stood in front of the goal for a while, as if he didn't expect his header to be so outrageous, but then he turned around and ran away.
Mbappe on the other side already regretted passing the ball to Neymar. Seeing that Neymar ignored him at all, although he was not surprised at all, he still felt surprisingly unhappy.
Because this is blatantly ignoring himself as the "No. 1 in France" and "the absolute number one in Paris" in public, or in the eyes of fans all over the world.
How can we swallow such a great humiliation?
At this moment, even the most protective French media felt that if the two continued to compete like this, the situation would not be good.
But as the saying goes, good fortune never comes alone, and misfortune never comes singly, and a soap opera can never be completed in just one episode.
Six minutes later, in the 67th minute, Li Gangren, who had been warming up and waiting for a long time on the sidelines, was still wondering when he could play, and Paris Saint-Germain once again got a good opportunity to counterattack.
This time Chen Xiaoliang did not press forward but retreated to the defensive midfielder position. Casemiro pressed forward to assist and made a two-on-one combination with Luke Shaw. Luke Shaw made a cross from the bottom , Cesco failed to head it at all, but Rashford at the second point made a beautiful volley shot. Unfortunately, the ball was saved by Donnarumma, who seemed to be getting better and better.
The fans of Paris Saint-Germain had just had a false alarm and shouted "God is watching the curtain" , only to find that their own team had already started to fight back!
It was still Dybala who received Kone's long pass from the penalty area and started to advance along the middle, while Mbappe was on the left and Neymar was on the right.
On the Manchester United side, Timber and Chen Xiaoliang were at the left and right defensive midfielder positions respectively. Chen Xiaoliang took the initiative to stand between Dybala and Mbappe, and behind them were Varane and Lima.
Zhan Jun: "Paris formed a 3 vs 4 situation, and Dybala is still moving forward!"
Zhang Lu: "In modern football, the defending side must have two more players than the attacking side to be considered balanced..."
The commentator was speaking when suddenly everyone was stunned.
Guan Zeyuan: "Hmm? What's going on?"
Zhan Jun: "Mbappe stopped running! He was caught by the camera sneering and shaking his head, looking extremely dissatisfied!"
Xie Hui: "I think he was blaming Dybala for not passing the ball."
Just now, Dybala was advancing all the way, and when he saw that Chen Xiaoliang was about 5 meters away from him and blocked between him and Mbappe, Dybala immediately changed his choice and started to move the ball to the right, trying to leave Chen Xiaoliang's defense area.
Mbappe did create a large gap on the left and thought Dybala would pass the ball to him, but Dybala ended up passing the ball to Neymar on the right.
Although the choice of this ball was not very reasonable, Mourinho on the sidelines could understand Dybala's inner thoughts.
Almost every player from that Roma team regards Chen Xiaoliang as a god they met in their career.
Especially those players who participate in Chen Xiaoliang's extra training team will immediately feel the oppressive feeling when they face him.
Dybala was indeed hesitant, as he knew that if he pushed the ball to Mbappe on the left he would have a good chance to break through, but he could not ignore Chen Xiaoliang's intercepting ability.
You know, he is the interception king and steals king of the Scottish Premier League, Serie A and the Premier League. He is the man who can defend Dybala one-on-one in training and make him lose his temper.
Just like many people who have fought with Chen Xiaoliang, the best way when facing Chen Xiaoliang is to avoid him.
Moreover, it is impossible for a player to make perfect choices every time on the football field. People have emotions and make mistakes.
But in Mbappe's eyes, things are completely different.
At that moment, the balls that Dybala had passed to him before were just doing the job as per the rules, but the ball that he passed to Neymar at this moment when there was a good opportunity for counterattack was a true reflection of his inner closeness and distance.
He was already upset about losing to Argentina in the Qatar World Cup final. Not only him, but many French fans even publicly booed their own player Messi at their home stadium, the Parc des Princes, during last season's league.
In Mbappe's view, okay, you are an Argentine and a Brazilian, and the two South Americans are brothers now, right?
I just saw Neymar score a goal and felt that I am not as good as him, right?
Okay, you guys go have fun, I’m not running away.
When he stopped, Varane was stunned looking at him.
What's going on? And some people are running and not running during the counterattack?
This is the Champions League final, not team training.
But the fact is that Varane was not dreaming, and fans all over the world saw this scene clearly.
The three-line fast break was missing. The 32-year-old Neymar, who no longer had a speed advantage, failed to get past Luke Shaw, and the counterattack ultimately came to nothing.
Mourinho was furious on the sidelines. He threw the kettle in his hand to the ground and said to Forti beside him: "He wants to be the king of football? He? With his look? Don't even think about it in your next life! Fuck!"
Although his words more or less surprised the Paris players and coaches on the bench, the cold relationship between him and Mbappe has long been an open secret.
Everyone knows that the relationship between these two people is purely contractual, and each is locked in this club by a contract of his own choice.
If they were given a chance to choose again, they would definitely choose to run away and would not even want to look at each other again.
But Mourinho is not a child after all. At least when speaking to the media and reporters, he gave Mbappe very high praise.
Although he did not completely agree with what he said, this Frenchman with rare football skills always behaves like he is the only one in the world. No matter whether you are the President of France, the Emir of Qatar or the coach of Paris Saint-Germain, if you want to control me, the answer is - no way.
Mourinho really wanted to replace this giant baby who lost his temper regardless of the occasion, but his rational side told him that his time at Paris Saint-Germain might only be less than 30 minutes. He should be patient, suppress his emotions, make the most rational decision, then turn around and take the championship away, and never have anything to do with this club again.
I've been enduring it for almost a year, and these 30 minutes .
He held his temper and asked Forti to go to the fourth official to make the planned substitution.
The fourth official quickly raised the card, and No. 19 Li Gangren replaced No. 10 Neymar.
Neymar was not dissatisfied at all, as he scored a great equalizer and he also knew that his physical strength was almost at its limit. After enjoying the applause from the fans, he walked to the sidelines, shook hands and hugged Mourinho, then happily sat on the bench to drink water and rest.
Li Gangren is running into the court quickly.
At this moment, the Korean media reached a collective climax!
"Here we come! Li Gangren, Smite!"
"Kangsang Amida! Mourinho finally chose to bow his proud head to Korean football!"
"Li Gangren scored the winning goal! Tell the British who is the country that truly invented football!"
Countless Korean-style messages and comments appeared on all aspects of the Korean Internet.
But Mbappe on the field didn't care at all about who came on and who came off.
In his eyes today, the other 21 people on the field besides himself, the 90,000 people in Wembley Stadium, and even people related to football all over the world, are all supporting roles to set off himself.
He doesn't even take Chen Xiaoliang seriously, let alone Li Gangren?
Manchester United kicked off the attack and started to organize from the left.
Mbappe continued to press in the frontcourt and looked up at the big screen. The time was already 70 minutes, 2-2. Just one more goal might be the winning goal that decided the outcome.
He began to think about how to play in the remaining 20 minutes.
Just like another "great superstar" on the other side of the ocean who has to look at statistics before the game is over and tells everyone that he is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time, literally translated as "the greatest player of all times combined", usually refers to the number one person in history), Mbappe, who finished this game, won the World Cup and the treble, Messi, Ronaldo, Pele, Maradona, Chen Xiaoliang, Haaland, the only one in the world, who will be the GOAT among the kings of football in the future? !
