Football’s First Defender

After experiencing a league that was almost reversed by an underdog at Stamford Bridge at the weekend, Chelsea players are preparing for this Champions League second-leg match against Liverpool with the most vigilant attitude!

Winners will never change their lineup easily. In this game, Hiddink continued to use his winning lineup from the previous game, only replacing the Brazilian defender Alex who was suspended due to accumulation of yellow cards. Captain Terry! The other starting positions are exactly the same as the previous game!

On the other hand, Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard also watched this game from the sidelines, but the main defensive midfielder Mascherano, who was suspended due to accumulative yellow cards in the first round, can be lifted and come back, which is equivalent to adding a new force, which can be strengthened Look at Liverpool's midfield defense!

And Benitez also made personnel changes on his left side, replacing Riera, who had a mediocre performance in the previous game, with Benayoun, who has a better offensive ability, to play the left winger position and try to attack. Defense on Ivanovic's side! The rest of the positions are still the same lineup as the first round!

Both sides gave a 433 formation in this game, the tip of the needle against the wheat!

At Stamford Bridge, this time, the game started under the fans watching the game in blue as the main color, amidst the cheering sound of Chelsea team anthem!

As a guest of Liverpool, the only way to attack this game is to get out, there is no other choice! And what they have to face is that it may be the best defense in Europe, or in an away game, and they must score at least 3 goals before they can advance!

In the survey of all neutral fans by the British media before the game, less than 3% of the fans believed that Liverpool may complete a shocking reversal in the away game! The reasons they gave were surprisingly consistent, "Since Liverpool once created a miracle in Istanbul, let's do another miracle at Stamford Bridge. After all, Liverpool have a full 90 minutes this time!"

"At the beginning of the game, Liverpool had possession of the ball and wanted to rely on possession to make a difference on the offensive end!"

"However, the Blues, Chelsea, who sit at home, may not have deliberately given up possession of the ball to use their best defense, kill Liverpool's desire to attack, and play Liverpool's counterattack safely!"

"We can see that the Liverpool fans who were away from the expedition gathered together at the beginning of the game and sang their team song "You will never walk alone" very solemnly."

"And the Chelsea fans at the scene kept quiet during this time, waiting for the end of this song!"

"Today is a sad day for Liverpool fans, as today marks the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy where as many as 96 Liverpool fans were trampled in the FA Cup final 20 years ago. accident, and died in this accident, which created the largest fan tragedy in football history! Although the British government has not yet made a final judgment on this incident, the delayed progress of the official investigation does not hinder all Premier League players. Fans, come and sympathize with the 96 fans who lost their lives in that accident!"

"In this game, Chelsea fans also automatically kept quiet at the beginning of the game, expressing respect for the deceased!"

"Although the hope of Liverpool's reversal in this game is very slim, but on this special day, I believe they must be very eager to use their outstanding performance to create miracles and revive their European glory!"

"As the singing of "You'll Never Walk Alone" ended, the fans of both sides returned to the hostile state of the game, cheering and cheering for their respective home teams!"

At the beginning stage, Liverpool's offense was more likely to be tried. After all, whether it was active or passive, both sides had personnel changes in this game, which also made Liverpool want to try. The newly replaced Bernard Yong, whether he can pose a greater threat to Ivanovic's defense on the left side, and Alex, who is also new on Chelsea's side, can he fulfill the defensive role of Terry in the last game!

For the first attack, Liverpool transferred the ball to Benayoun on the left. Under the pressure of other players, Benayoun was given 1v1 space on the side. However, Ivanovic's frontal defense ability is still Excellent, like Riera in the last game, Benayoun tried a frontal breakthrough, and after finding that there were not many opportunities, he signaled to his teammates that the attack on this side is best to give him a pass or a through ball And so on, it is convenient to directly hit the pass behind Ivanovic!

And before Liverpool regained the ball and tried Alex's defensive state again, Alex himself almost made a big mistake in Chelsea's defense!

When Chelsea was passing the ball in the backcourt, Yang Feng passed the ball to Alex who was in a horizontal position before Torres came up to press. He didn't choose to play the ball at the first time, but swung back, trying to get rid of the entanglement of Dirk Dirk!

However, this kick made a fatal mistake. Alex used too much force and pushed the ball a few meters away. Use your explosive power to chase football!

Seeing that the ball turned into a 50-50 knife mountain ball, even though the ball had already rolled into his own penalty area, Alex directly chose to shovel, even with the ball and others shoveling to the ground!

Fortunately, this tackle Alex touched the football, the referee was also aware of the details, and there was no misjudgment. The ball was tackled out of the baseline by Alex, only giving Liverpool a corner kick!

After Alex got up, he expressed his apology to his teammates immediately after getting up. After all, he almost gave an own goal and gave Dirk a one-handed goal with an own goal just now!

However, Yang Feng, who watched Alex playing with fire from a close distance, was even more frightened. If the tackle by Alex just now had been so fast, he would have kicked the football away and prevented Alex from shoveling the football. This is a foul action with a red dot, so the team may get a goal back at the beginning of the game, and they will also face the situation of playing one player less, and Chelsea's advantage may be gone!

Yang Feng can only be thankful that Alex successfully tackled the ball, but he also has a hunch that this game will not feel peaceful!

And Hiddink on the sidelines, seeing Alex playing with fire at the beginning, also began to doubt whether his choice of employing people was right! And immediately gave Terry a resentful look. If Terry didn't apply for a yellow card in the last game, how could he worry so much now!

"Alex played with fire in the defense just now, and almost gave a big gift to Dirk. Will Alex, who has been out of the game for a long time, become Chelsea's breakthrough point in this game?"

"Liverpool's corner!"

"Aurelio takes the left corner!"

"For the first corner kick in the opening game, due to the absence of Terry, a central defender with excellent header ability, Liverpool began to receive less attention from set kicks, and began to try to find players in the penalty area directly!"

"It's just that the quality of this corner kick is not too high. Not to mention the speed of the ball is not fast enough. It is still within the control of Chelsea goalkeeper Cech. Cech directly jumped high and took it off firmly in the air. football!"

"Chelsea's chance to counterattack! Cech throws the ball directly to Ashley Cole on the left! Ashley Cole dribbles the ball forward quickly!"

Chelsea's core tactic in this game is defensive counterattack, and it is also the tactic they are best at under Mourinho in the previous seasons!

Hiddink is a pragmatism-oriented head coach. He doesn't care about the legacy of the previous head coach, nor does he particularly care whether his so-called football philosophy can be fully displayed in the game, just like the first game, infinite Just like using Ivanovic's height advantage to create opportunities, in Hiddink's eyes, a winning tactic is a good tactic!

So in this game, under the specific tactical environment of Hiddink leading by a big score and holding three away goals, he did not hesitate to pick up the so-called "dross" of the past few seasons, which has already made Chelsea fans a little bit aesthetic Tired defensive counterattack tactics come!

In this level of competition, there has never been a so-called fixed tactic, only the most suitable tactic. Hiddink's only goal is to lead the team to move forward, try to touch the Champions League trophy, and win the game. It is Hiddink's greatest pursuit!

"Before encountering the opponent's block in front, Ashley Cole directly chose to make a long pass to find his teammate Malouda who had already run to the front!"

"Malouda is galloping forward at full speed, and Abeloa is closely following beside him!"

As an old opponent who has fought many times this season, Aveiroa knows that Malouda's physical strength is not comparable to his own!

So this time, Aveiroyan would rather lean a little to the outside to give full play to his speed advantage, instead of taking the most direct route to give Malouda room for physical confrontation!

And this time, Ashley Cole's pass did not control the force and the accuracy of the landing point during the running process. The distance allows Abeloa to sprint with all his strength!

"Abeloa, sprinting at full speed directly from the outside, overtaking from the outside, directly shoveling the ball out of the sideline!"

"Chelsea's counterattack opportunity, this time did not pose a substantial threat!"

"Malouda sent a throw-in to Lampard who responded. After receiving the ball, Lampard tried to take a few steps in the middle, but faced Mascherano's defense, he did not directly break through. Opportunity!"

"Lampard chose a long pass to the right and passed it to Kalou, who is close to the right line, so that he can open up Chelsea's attack space!"

"However, Kalou made a low-level mistake in stopping the ball this time, stopping Lampard's transfer ball directly out of bounds, and returning the ball directly to Liverpool!"