In the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, Valencia faced Chelsea at home.
This was the first time Ranieri returned to the Mestanha Stadium after leaving Valencia. Valencia fans specially welcomed a tinker before the game, but when it came to the game, neither team showed any signs of it.
Keep your hands.
Before the game, Chelsea management offered a huge winning bonus of up to 600,000 pounds, which greatly stimulated the morale and fighting spirit of Chelsea players. After all, this is already a quite huge reward.
The absence of Duff and Gallas still has a certain impact on Chelsea.
Ranieri arranged a 442 formation in this game. The goalkeeper is Ambrosio, the defense is Bridge, Terry, Desailly and Melchiot from left to right, and the midfielder is Gigi.
Lenchard, Makelele, Lampard and Parker, the double forwards are Good Johnson and Crespo.
In addition, the Blues also have famous European players such as Veron, Gremi, Joe Cole, Hasselbaink, Mutu and others sitting on the bench. This team is not only in terms of the strength of the lineup, but also the thickness of the bench.
All quite outstanding.
Valencia was also affected by injuries, with Aimar absent.
Benitez formed a four-three-three formation, with three midfielders in the midfield.
The goalkeeper is Canizares, the defense is Carboni, Pellegrino, Ayala and Curro Torres, the midfield three is Baraja, Mohamed Sissoko and Albelda, and the frontcourt
It is a combination of Vicente, Soudong and Rufit.
Whether it's Ranieri's 4-4-2 or Benitez's 4-3-3, we can see the tactical intentions of the two coaches.
Ranieri plays with two defensive midfielders, and is obviously cautious in away games, trying to maintain stability.
Although Valencia was playing at home, Aimar's absence prevented the team from finding a suitable replacement. Benitez simply played with three midfielders, obviously wanting to stabilize the defense first.
In home games in the Champions League knockout rounds, the first priority is to hold the goal and not concede away goals.
After the game started, the intentions of the two head coaches were basically continued.
Valencia did not attack at the beginning, nor did they adopt a high defense. Instead, they wanted to penetrate the midfield through short passes to control the ball and the rhythm of the game.
Chelsea know this very well. Ranieri is still very familiar with the technical capabilities of the La Liga team. They do not plan to compete with Valencia for midfield control, but adopt active pressing and pressing tactics in the midline area to let Valencia's
It is difficult for pass penetration to pass through the center line, making it difficult to create an offensive threat in the frontcourt.
But even so, Valencia still carved out a gap from the wing.
…………
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Su Dong turned his back to the goal and carefully observed the situation around him.
Desailly and Terry were both at the end and never left his side, especially Desailly.
The captain of Chelsea and the champion central defender of the French national team, although he is already thirty-five years old, his power is still there.
Su Dong did not dare to be careless with him.
When he saw the midfielder passing the ball back and forth and Albelda finally found a gap, Su Dong suddenly turned around and sprinted forward quickly. Even without looking back, he could feel Albelda's long pass flying in the air.
But at this moment, the referee suddenly blew his whistle.
Su Dong was forced to stop as soon as he picked up speed. He turned his head and saw the referee indicating offside. Then he looked at the linesman and saw that the flag was indeed raised. This made Su Dong feel puzzled.
When I started just now, I didn't get ahead of Desailly and Terry.
Or perhaps, when he started, the two of them moved forward at the same time, creating an offside trap.
Walking back with his head lowered, Su Dong noticed Desailly's playful eyes.
Soon, you won’t be able to laugh anymore!
Su Dong felt secretly resentful.
…
A minute later, Valencia created another offensive.
This time, the ball was transferred to the left through a pull pass from the midfielder.
Vicente dribbled the ball along the left wing and forcefully broke through Melchiot. He dribbled the ball straight to the baseline and suddenly passed the ball back into the penalty area through an inverted triangle.
Su Dong deliberately lagged behind Vicente, and when the time was almost right, he suddenly accelerated and rushed forward.
This slow and quick move caught Desailly off guard and intercepted him immediately.
Vicente's pass came to Su Dong, but Su Dong did not stop the ball and volleyed directly with his left foot.
After Su Dong's shot was fired, Desailly's kick came to Su Dong.
The ball went straight to the left side of Chelsea's goal like a cannonball, forcing goalkeeper Ambrosio to fly to the rescue.
There was a burst of warm applause at the Mestanha Stadium!
Although the ball didn't go in, it created a threat.
Desailly got up from the ground, stared fiercely at Su Dong who turned around and walked back, gritting his teeth secretly.
This kid is so damn fast!
Even though he was paying great attention, he was still half a step away from him. Then he received Vicente's inverted triangle pass back. He didn't even hesitate, and without stopping the ball, he volleyed directly with his left foot.
, which shows that you have full confidence in yourself!
The right foot will be so troublesome and the left foot is so troublesome!
Desailly frowned and looked at Melchiot beside him, indicating that he wanted to control Vicente's cross from the side.
Su Dong is too difficult to deal with. If the winger is allowed to continue passing the ball like this, Desailly is not sure that he can completely defend it.
This guy really deserves his reputation!
…
Valencia's next attack still wanted to penetrate the left wing.
Vicente's performance this season is very eye-catching. He can be said to be the best player in the Valencia team after Sudong.
This also allowed Benitez to place high hopes on him on the offensive end.
With Aimar absent, only Vicente can cooperate with Su Dong in the team.
But after Chelsea paid attention, when Vicente tried to break through from the left, Melchiot made a fierce shovel. The ball missed, but Vicente was knocked to the ground by the opponent and fell out of the field.
, hugging his legs and wailing.
The referee blew the whistle and gave Melchiot a yellow card.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Such a penalty does not satisfy Valencia. Everyone knows that this is a test by Chelsea.
Premier League teams are always very aggressive in their actions, and this time they were testing the referee's standards.
However, the referee still upheld the original decision.
This really boosted the actions of Chelsea players.
Subsequently, the two teams made endless moves on the court.
First, when Valencia was defending a corner kick, Ayala pulled Desailly's jersey from behind, which made the French captain very dissatisfied and protested to the referee for a while.
But soon, he changed colors.
Valencia got a frontcourt throw-in opportunity and quickly threw it to Vicente, who dribbled the ball diagonally into the penalty area.
When everyone's attention fell on Vicente, Desailly in the penalty area first put his hand on Su Dong's shoulder. When he saw Vicente breaking through with the ball, he suddenly hugged Su Dong with force.
Su Dong's neck almost fell to the ground.
Su Dong was caught off guard at first. After being sneak attacked by Desailly, he quickly reacted and took action to break Desailly away. Unexpectedly, after breaking free, the French central defender turned his elbow back and hit Su Dong directly.
On the nose, he was knocked backwards and fell to the grass.
The nose was suddenly attacked. Su Dong was so painful that he almost shed tears. He slapped the grass with both hands. When he saw Desailly innocently raising his hands as if nothing happened, Su Dong immediately became furious and jumped directly from the grass.
He rushed up and waved his fist towards Desailly, trying to kill this dirty thing.
At the critical moment, Vicente reacted very quickly. He rushed over quickly, hugged Su Dong, and stopped him firmly.
"Calm down! Calm down, Sue!"
Desailly also heard the noise and turned around, but did not hide away. Instead, he looked at Su Dong provocatively, as if to say, come on, come and fuck me!
"F*****!" Su Dong pointed at Desailly and cursed angrily.
Chelsea players also realized the problem. Terry immediately stood between Desailly and Su Dong, separating them.
He saw the whole process of what happened just now. Desailly's actions were indeed over the top and too dirty, but they were his teammates and Su Dong was his opponent.
The referee also ran over and quickly raised the yellow card towards Su Dong and gave him a warning.
Su Dong was like an annoyed lion. He pointed at his red nose towards the referee, roared and asked: "Why did he put his hand around my neck and hit my nose with his elbow? He is fine. I
Want a yellow card?"
He was really angry!
It’s not like he hasn’t encountered dirty tricks before, but Desailly’s two mean tricks in a row, especially the subsequent elbow strike, were too much!
The referee said that he did not see Desailly's actions, but he saw Su Dong almost rushing over to hit someone.
"Calm down, Su!" captain Alberda also ran over to persuade. At the same time, he was also protesting to the referee, thinking that Chelsea played too dirty tonight. This was mainly because the referee's enforcement standards were too low.
"Many of their actions are totally worthy of cards, or even red cards!" Albelda was also full of anger.
The referee said that he would pay attention to controlling the scale of law enforcement, but Su Dong had to calm down.
Gradually, Su Dong woke up, took a deep breath, and felt a burning tingling sensation in his nose.
When he looked at Desailly again, Su Dong's eyes no longer showed respect before the game, only deep contempt.
He didn't expect that Desailly would be such a player!
"Tonight, you will definitely pay the price! I will kill you!" Su Dong said through gritted teeth.
Honest people are often more energetic when they get angry.
After listening to Su Dong's words, Desailly did not make any further provocation. He even began to wonder whether it was a wise choice to provoke him.
…
The rest of the game basically went on smoothly.
Neither side takes risks easily, and both are waiting for their opponents to make mistakes, but neither side makes mistakes easily.
Just before the end of the first half, during a midfield pass from Valencia, Mohamed Sissoko got tangled up with Makelele, and the ball went out of bounds.
When they separated, Makelele took the initiative and slapped Mohamed Sissoko on the face provocatively. As a result, the angry Mohamed Sissoko slapped him directly on the back of the head.
This slap was not actually captured, but Makelele was stunned for two seconds before decisively falling to the ground, rolling and wailing.
