"Southampton's running in the midfield was very interceptive and resolute! Porto's offense was repeatedly frustrated! Ten minutes have passed since their goal, but Porto's offense has never created a threat, not even a shot!
This is astonishing!"
Amid the shouts of the commentator, Porto's offensive players were also very depressed. Their midfield engine was Moutinho, but Moutinho was obsessed with Dembele. He is a technical player.
The attacking midfielder, after being entangled by a defensive midfielder of Dembele's level, has very little room to play.
"See Moutinho's embarrassment?"
During the tense game, Noriya still remembered to educate his players, and he turned to ask Mkhitaryan.
Mkhitaryan nodded. Munitis is more famous than him and debuted earlier than him, but in terms of technical characteristics and physical condition, he is similar to him. Munitis is also a standard attacking midfielder with technical skills.
He has a good sense of the ball and can organize offense, but his physical condition is not particularly outstanding...
After being stared at by Dembele, his role on the court immediately dropped a lot.
"Try to expand your range of activities so that you can still create threats while staying away from the penalty area. The role of attacking midfielders or pure attacking midfielders will become less and less in the future football world.
Only a central midfielder can best conform to the trend of football. As a central midfielder with his own unique breakthrough and scoring ability, that is what you need to do most," said Noriya.
Mkhitaryan nodded, although he knew this was a difficult road, but there are rarely easy roads on the football field.
On the field, Porto finally created a good opportunity. After Hulk retreated to get the ball, he forcibly broke through Klein's defense and broke into the penalty area. Then after Wundt filled in, he once again spiked the ball back to avoid the shooting gap.
He took a shot from behind and the ball missed the far post and flew out of the baseline.
"It's really dangerous, but fortunately, this kind of purely personal breakthrough shows that they actually have no way to organize an attack..." Ji Ya thought silently in his heart.
His calmness made the players feel at ease. Southampton kicked off, but they did not rush to attack, but continued to maneuver in the midfield, seeming to delay time.
Porto began to press in the frontcourt, but Lallana immediately sent an overhead long pass. Southampton fired three arrows from the frontcourt, causing chaos in Porto's defense. In the end, Otamendi made a wonderful goal
Stealing the ball in the middle blocked Southampton's threatening attack.
This prevented Porto from launching an unscrupulous midfield press in the subsequent defense, and the pace of the game began to slow down.
"Southampton has a good grasp of the rhythm now. They scored early and they don't have to worry at all in the game...Although they are also good at attacking, if they let go, their offensive routine is still a little worse than Porto, and
Falcao's characteristics of scoring a lot of goals when given the chance are something Southampton's players don't have."
The commentator evaluated the current game. Nearly thirty minutes had passed in the first half. Southampton still led 1-0. Porto wanted to attack, but their seemingly invincible attack seemed to be stuck in a quagmire.
.
"This scene is really incredible... but it's not surprising when you think about it. Their 5-1 victory over Benfica was also in a stalemate at the beginning. It wasn't until the 23rd minute that Porto got their first chance to shoot.
After scoring the goal, Benfica was forced to attack, and then their continuous attacks succeeded. If you think about it carefully, Porto actually doesn't have many ways to break the dense defense."
The commentators looked at Porto's embarrassing attack and began to express their opinions one after another - sometimes, if something is said clearly, everyone will find out immediately...
Porto's offense is very strong, which can be seen by looking at the data, but there are also quite a few problems with their offense, which you really need to watch a lot of their games to see.
When there is space, they can score one goal after another and look very brutal.
When there is no space, it is particularly difficult for them to score goals.
Just like the German team in the World Cup not long ago, they beat England four times and Argentina four times in the knockout round. They looked extremely strong. However, the key reason is that the defense of these two teams is not very good, and the offense cannot suppress them.
If you live in Germany, you will be miserable and miserable.
When they met Spain, which had excellent overall defense, they were defeated - they were suffocated by their opponents 1-0.
Porto is a thing now.
Their offense is very strong, but it is based on the fact that the opponent's offense is not as good as theirs and their defense is not strong enough.
In these two points, Southampton will not be weaker than them, and can even be said to be excellent.
In fact, they have never encountered such a situation. In the second round against Sevilla, they were beaten to death by Sevilla in all aspects. If they hadn't defeated their opponent 2-1 in the away game, they would have won the home game.
A 0-1 deficit in the second round was enough to knock them out.
Now this problem has not been solved, but has become more exposed.
Boas frowned on the sidelines. He did not expect that this game would be so difficult. This was indeed something he was not prepared for before, because no opponent would be able to prevent Porto from scoring goals this season, so Boas simply did not expect it.
I didn’t consider that my team couldn’t score a goal…
Can't score a goal? Are you kidding? How is it possible?
But when this scene really appeared in front of him, he was really at a loss...
Not having a plan is a fatal thing, which prevents the coach from making a decision quickly.
Amidst Villas' hesitation, the first half of the game ended like this. Southampton maintained its lead and entered the halftime break!
"It's incredible. Porto only had two shots in the first half, and neither of them hit the goal frame! This is too rare for them who scored 17 goals in four knockout games! I watched Southampton's defense.
It’s not particularly good, how could it achieve such an effect..."
One commentator said incredulously, but it is obvious that this commentator does not watch football very much. Other commentators who have commented on Porto games this season did not show any incredible emotions towards such an ending.
Southampton fans shouted excitedly in the stands. Taking the lead in the first half is undoubtedly a good thing - if you don't lead, how can you win?
