Champion’s Heart

Chapter 192 Stalemate

The Milan team is currently ranked first in Serie A. Although they did not perform well in the Champions League group stage, they are still very good in the league. This is why Klopp dare not underestimate this team.

Although Kaka was sent away, Milan loaned Ibrahimovic from Barcelona. The outstanding performance of the Swedish God Tower helped A Milan rank first in the league.

This is not an easy team to play against.

In any case, it was more difficult to deal with than Inter Milan, which was in disarray at the time...

Zhou Yi has fully understood this in the simulated battles many days before the game.

It is very difficult to capture Milan in the away game.

When the actual game started, the situation was similar to what Zhou Yi simulated in the virtual space.

As an Italian team, Milan is very strong defensively. On the offensive end, they have the monster Ibrahimovic, so it is still very difficult for Dortmund to play.

Defensively, they struggled to deal with Ibrahimovic, and offensively it was not easy to break through the defense led by Thiago Silva.

Throughout the first half, Dortmund was unable to break through A Milan's goal, but A Milan frequently threatened the goal guarded by Weidenfeller.

And in terms of opportunities, Dortmund did not get more opportunities than A Milan. After all, this was an away game. From the beginning of the game, A Milan took the dominant position.

However, Milan failed to blast away Dortmund's goal in the first 45 minutes.

Because Dortmund's defense performed very well.

After twenty-one games in the Bundesliga, Dortmund's defense only conceded seventeen goals. It is currently the team that has conceded the fewest goals in the Bundesliga. It is also the only team to concede less than twenty goals.

finally. The first half ended in a goalless draw.

Marcel Leif's analysis at halftime believed that after Milan failed to score in the first half, they will definitely attack with great intensity in the second half. As long as Dortmund has enough patience, that is their chance. Because if Milan, who plays home first, cannot win this game, the second round will become difficult. They must score goals on the road and at least draw their opponents. What's the atmosphere like at Dortmund's home ground? Even Inter Milan lost there without any resistance... How could Allegri pin his hopes of promotion on the away game in the second round?

So the key is for Dortmund not to rush.

Even if we go back with a 0:0 draw in the end, that's fine.

Composure is very important for Dortmund, and it is also one of the important experiences in participating in the Champions League.

Many teams performed in the group stage like newborn calves, they were very motivated and performed very well. As a result, after the knockout rounds, he turned into a raw melon and an egg, and was fooled around by experienced opponents.

Because the group stage is not a knockout round, there is no need to decide the outcome in one or two games. There are six full games to play, and the error tolerance rate is higher.

But after entering the knockout rounds, there are only two games in each knockout stage. One away game and one home game, the error tolerance rate is greatly reduced. Making a mistake in one game may lead to irreparable consequences. At this time, momentum no longer becomes important, but instead, stable performance and rich experience.

This is why the group stage and knockout rounds are two completely different events.

The Dortmund team lacks the experience to eliminate Caesar if they rush too hard. I'm afraid of failing in the knockout round. Especially when the opponent is a sophisticated and experienced Champions League giant like Milan.

What worries Marcel Leif is also what worries Klopp, who also warned his players to be patient during halftime.

"This is Milan's home court. They want to win the game more, not us. Of course, I'm not saying that we don't have to win, but we can have more patience than them, because even if this game is a draw , we still have ninety minutes to go back to the home court. So don’t be anxious, first solidify your defense in the second half, and then look for opportunities. The opportunities are not good enough. Don’t rush up, don’t have a situation where there are only a few people left in the backcourt..."

The players listened attentively and nodded.

Unlike Klopp who only used words to keep the players calm, in the A Milan dressing room, Allegri almost filled the tactical blackboard.

He is arranging each person's tasks for his players in detail, down to the specifics of how to move...

This may be a characteristic of Italian head coaches. They talk endlessly when talking about tactics.

But it can also be seen that Allegri is a little nervous.

In your own home court, with the right time and place, no goals were scored in the first half for 45 minutes. What psychological impact and implications will this have on your own players and the other players?

This is all Allegri has to consider.

He hopes to score as soon as possible in the second half, otherwise the later the time is, the worse it will be for them.

Therefore, his batch was very detailed and cumbersome. He would rather cram it all into his players than hope that he would miss anything.

He talked the most about Zhouyi.

Because he is the core of this team.

The videos of Dortmund and Inter Milan's two games in the group stage were repeatedly analyzed by Allegri. He believes that without Zhou Yi, Dortmund may be able to qualify from the group, but it will definitely be difficult to qualify as the first in the group so easily.

To defeat Dortmund's performance, we must first curb Zhou Yi's performance. As long as Zhou Yi cannot perform well, Dortmund's offensive effect will be greatly reduced.

In the first half, his players restricted Zhou Yi quite well, so Dortmund didn't have any threatening offense.

However, it was not without paying a price. Midfielder Flamini received a yellow card for a foul on Zhou Yi, which caused hidden dangers in Milan's second half.

Secondly, another midfielder, Gattuso, is 33 years old. He is too old after all. In order to restrict Zhou Yi, he kept running after Zhou Yi in the first half, many of which were sprinting up and down, which made his physical fitness better. A lot of loss. During the halftime break, Gattuso had been doing muscle-relaxing massages.

Whether Zhou Yi can be contained in the second half, Allegri is not sure now. He feels that the more important thing than containing Zhou Yi is to score goals as soon as possible in the second half. As long as the goal is scored, Milan A at home will have an unstoppable trend.

In the face of such a general trend, neither Zhouyi nor the Dortmund team will be able to stop it.

※※※

After the start of the second half, Milan A obviously strengthened its offensive, hoping to score a goal in the shortest time.

Dortmund is also well prepared and must first solidify its defense.

At the same time, if he can get the ball, even if there is no good offensive opportunity, Zhou Yi will send the football forward, and then control the football through the cooperation between two or three people, re-compressing Milan's formation. Go back and keep them out of Dortmund's box.

Defensive purposes are achieved through control and offense.

This is actually the decision Klopp made after repeatedly analyzing and comparing Zhou Yi's presence and absence for half a season.

That is, although Zhou Yi is not good at defense, it does not mean that he has little contribution to defense. On the contrary, his contribution is still great.

Directly engaging with opposing players, fighting hand-to-hand, and then stealing the ball may not be a defensive method that Zhou Yi is good at.

His defensive approach is to keep the football at his feet and the feet of the entire team. In control, keep the football away from the dangerous area, while consuming time and the opponent's fighting spirit.

Stealing the ball directly is the first half of defense, but what happens after the ball is intercepted?

Many teams choose a big kick to get the football out of the danger zone. This is certainly a method, but it is not the best, because the ball will soon return to the offensive team's feet, and they will continue to attack the defensive team without reducing the pressure. Klopp believes this is passive defense and a helpless move.

With Zhou Yi, it means that Dortmund can choose to actively defend.

After intercepting the ball, hand the football to Zhou Yi and let Zhou Yi handle the next thing. Just like humans hand over calculations to supercomputers, they save worry and effort. This is a major advancement in technology.

Dortmund are enjoying this progress now.

Zhou Yi's brain is simply a supercomputer on the court.

With the help of this supercomputer, Dortmund withstood Milan's fastest offensive.

When Zhou Yi did not need to think about how to deliver the fatal pass, but just took the football away from the dangerous area and transported it forward, Zhou Yi's super-fast thinking ability and passing ability were fully displayed.

Unless you don't let him catch the ball and knock him over before he catches the ball, but that's a foul. Otherwise, as long as the football can reach his feet, he will always quickly pass the football to where it should go. In fact, it is just a pass to a teammate. There is no exquisite movement involved at all. It is like a scalpel-like through ball. technology.

So it's very easy, but it also gives Milan's defender a headache.

After they pounced on Zhou Yi, the ball was gone. This was really a result that frustrated the defensive players and demoralized them.

They want to steal the ball. The ball is gone. What's the use of knocking Zhou Yi to the ground?

Just like this, almost half of the second half of the game was gone. In the blink of an eye, the game reached the 65th minute, the score was still 0:0, and Milan failed to break Dortmund's goal.

Of course Dortmund will not be dissatisfied with this situation, but Milan will.

Through constant observation, Zhou Yi noticed the subtle emotional changes shown by the Milan players. They became... more impatient. (To be continued.) Activate new URL

Chapter 372/1168
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