The Spaniard is scheduled to play two warm-up games in England.
The first game was against the Saints Southampton, and the second game was against the Toffees Everton.
Everton ranked 11th in the Premier League last season. Their strength is slightly inferior to Southampton, but they are also experienced in the Premier League. Warming up with such a team is of great value to the Espanyol team.
In this game, the Spaniards still focused on fine-tuning their lineup and practicing their playing style.
The creation of the trident in the frontcourt is still the focus of the warm-up match.
In this game, Sergio put Zhao Yang on the bench and tried to use Reyes, Baptisto and Caicedo in the frontcourt.
The season is long and injuries are inevitable. Plan ahead and the Espanyol must also prepare a lineup without Zhao Yang.
Although Everton is a team in the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League and their overall strength is not as good as Espanyol, they are not playing conservatively at all.
After the game started, I tried my best to increase my speed and intensity.
Obviously, Everton studied the match between Espanyol and Southampton three days ago and wanted to use the Premier League pace to wear down the Espanyol team.
The Espanyol team is not afraid of Everton's physical confrontation.
In La Liga, where the European Latin style of play is dominated, the Espanyol team is an anomaly. They are the most physical team in La Liga and commit the most fouls.
The reason why the Espanyol team developed this style may be because their rival in the same city is the most technical team in the world. Compared with technology, the Espanyol team will never be able to compare with Barcelona.
So the Espanyol team simply went in the opposite direction and learned the Premier League's physical style of play.
Not afraid, but it is difficult for the Spaniard to gain the upper hand in the confrontation with Everton.
After the start of the game, the two sides went back and forth, and the midfield battle was very lively. No one had much advantage, and there were not many shots.
Fortunately, the fans also understand that the match between these two teams will not be very exciting and do not have too many expectations for the content of the match. Many fans came to the scene to see Zhao Yang.
Zhao Yang did not start the game, so many fans were even more absent-minded, eating snacks, drinking drinks and chatting.
In the first half, the game between the two sides was more intense than exciting, and the few shooting opportunities were not seized.
During the halftime break, both Everton and Espanyol made substitutions to continue testing their players and fine-tuning their lineups.
Zhao Yang replaced Reyes and played the second forward position.
This is also a new attempt by Spanish head coach Sergio recently.
During training, Sergio also tried to play Reyes as a winger, but found that Reyes could not keep up with his speed and physical strength. He had offensive power, but had no ability to return to defense.
For a team like Espanyol, defensive counterattacks are still basic, and they still do not have the ability to focus on offense.
As for Baptisto, his ability is not as good as Reyes, but he is diligent, has strong running ability, and is willing to defend. Sergio leaves the responsibility of scoring goals to Zhao Yang, and naturally hopes that Baptisto will do more
Share some defensive tasks.
Nowadays, the competition for the Espanyol forward line is fierce. Baptisto does not have super strength and cannot be guaranteed to play. He can only rely on his own diligence to make up for it, which is a perfect match for Zhao Yang.
The effect of Zhao Yang's appearance is still very obvious.
Reyes and Zhao Yang have similar ball control abilities, but Zhao Yang's shooting ability is much better than Reyes, so Zhao Yang's ability to attract firepower is also completely different.
With Zhao Yang in check, Caicedo and Baptisto have more space, and their shooting opportunities are also greatly increased.
However, Caicedo has not played much time in the recent warm-up matches and is in average condition, while Baptisto has limited abilities and focuses a lot of energy on defense. Neither of them seized the opportunity to shoot.
This is Everton's home court. Although it is only a warm-up match, the fans still chanted, hoping that the team can defeat Espanyol and get a good start to the new season.
The Espanyol team has no performance pressure. In the previous four warm-up matches, they achieved a record of 4 wins and 1 draw. The media and fans are very satisfied with this. The win or loss in this warm-up match is not important to them.
After entering the 70th minute, Everton attacked with all their strength, while the Spaniard took his time to shrink the formation to fight Everton's counterattack.
Everton's style of play is typical of the Premier League. Their offense is simple and crude. After halftime, there was a storm of crosses from the wing.
As the saying goes, you can beat a master to death with random punches.
The Espanyol's defense was also pretty good, but they were beaten by a fierce attack from Everton. If it hadn't been for the protection of the goalpost in the 80th minute, they might have conceded the goal.
As a La Liga team that has entered the Champions League, Espanyol will certainly not be unable to fight back.
In the 75th minute of the game, Caicedo got a chance to score a single goal, but he took the ball too far and was intercepted by the attacking goalkeeper.
After Everton hit the goalpost, they felt they were closer to scoring and were eager to attack, but were immediately counterattacked by Espanyol.
This time the passer was new aid Jurado, and the one who advanced was Zhao Yang.
The timing of this pass is very clever. If it is earlier, Zhao Yang may not be able to outrun the opponent's defender and goalkeeper. If it is later, it may be directly offside.
Sergio on the sidelines stood up involuntarily. This pass-and-run coordination made him very happy.
A month of training and warm-up paid off, and the new players finally began to integrate into the team.
Sergio sighed.
On the field
Zhao Yang dribbled the ball to the line of the penalty area, and the goalkeeper also rushed to the penalty area.
Zhao Yang is a concise and practical forward who doesn't like fancy moves when shooting. He didn't wait for the goalkeeper to pounce, pushed the arch of his foot, and the ball flew past the feet of the goalkeeper who was about to pounce, and went straight to the lower right corner of the goal.
The goalkeeper couldn't react in time and could only watch the ball flying from his feet into the net.
1:0
In the final stage of the game, the Espanyol team took the lead, and it was Zhao Yang who scored.
In the five warm-up matches, Zhao Yang scored in every game and has already scored 8 goals for the Espanyol team.
Last season, Espanyol finished third in the league, Zhao Yang won the La Liga Golden Boot, was elected the best newcomer in La Liga, and received overwhelming praise.
But there are also many people who are skeptical of Zhao Yang's ability.
These people think that Zhao Yang's success last season was because everyone was not familiar with him and did not understand him. Zhao Yang will definitely encounter the rookie wall this season.
However, judging from the warm-up match, Zhao Yang not only did not encounter the rookie wall, but became more difficult to deal with.
After the game, the English media all said that Zhao Yang could not be stopped. In the new season, Zhao Yang will still be the most troublesome forward for the top players in La Liga.
England's "Guardian" also reminded the Champions League teams to be careful. The Espanyol team with Zhao Yang may become a dark horse in the Champions League.
Naturally, there are also media outlets that pessimistically, such as Spain’s Mundo Deportivo.
"World Sports News" believes that Zhao Yang's goals every game are not very convincing because the opponents of the Espanyol team in the warm-up match are too weak. If they face the traditional giant Juventus in the next game, Zhao Yang and the Espanyol team will still have outstanding performance.
His performance shows that Zhao Yang is indeed unstoppable.