Chapter 222: In the First Knockout Match Against Paris Saint-Germain, Li Ang Wants to Make 272 Feel Desperate!

Chelsea's goal in the 36th minute of the first half caused a lot of boos in the Stadium of Light!

But the Chelsea players, who were immersed in the joy of equalizing the score at this moment, did not care about the dissatisfaction of Sunderland fans at all.

Ibrahimovic roared and rushed to the bottom line, jumped high, punched and turned around!

This was his 7th goal in the Premier League.

It was also his 12th goal for Chelsea this season!

Facing a completely unfamiliar league, Ibrahimovic used a stable enough performance to get through the adaptation period at the beginning of the season.

And if we exclude the rotation and rest matches in the previous rounds of the league, only the playing time is counted.

Then his goal efficiency is actually not much different from Cavani, who is currently ranked first in the Premier League scorer list.

Second only to Suarez, who is now crazy.

That is 11 goals in 8 league rounds, which has now strongly tied Cavani's super goal machine!

Even a proud Ibrahimovic has to admit that Suarez is currently the best striker in the entire Premier League.

But that was Suarez, who was 26 years old and at his peak.

Ibrahimovic, who is now 32 years old, can still compete with young forwards in their 20s in terms of goal efficiency.

This is already an incredible thing in the eyes of countless Premier League fans!

After venting his excitement, Ibrahimovic also laughed and hugged Li Ang, who opened his arms to him.

"Good boy! You have reached double 10 data so quickly?! You really want to go for 20+20 this season, remember to pass me more good balls later!"

Li Ang laughed so hard that he couldn't close his mouth when he heard it, and other Chelsea players also gave Li Ang hugs and congratulations.

However, this celebration did not last too long, after all, Chelsea just equalized the score, not leading.

After Li Ang sorted out his emotions, he encouraged his teammates to keep up the good work and strive to complete the goal against Sunderland as soon as possible!

Unfortunately, Sunderland coach Di Canio also quickly recognized the reality at this time.

He quickly asked Sunderland's players on the field to retreat to the half court and shrink the formation, just to hold on to the balance of this point in the first half.

Seeing this, Mourinho had a brief discussion with Holland, and then quickly made tactical adjustments, so that his disciples did not rush to attack and slowed down the pace.

So when the referee blew the whistle to end the half-time game.

Chelsea and Sunderland only tied 1-1 at the Stadium of Light, and no one could further break the balance of the game.

Li Ang, who returned to the locker room, was hugged and encouraged by Mourinho and assistant coach Mr. Holland.

Obviously, they also knew that Li Ang had just received his tenth assist of the season.

Mourinho would naturally not be stingy with encouragement and praise for his own direct disciples who are also the core of the team.

The more capable and capable players are, the more tactical privileges they can get in his team.

From Lampard in Mourinho's first Chelsea to Sneijder in the Milan era, and then to Ronaldo in Mourinho's Real Madrid.

These stars have received enough attention and tactical care from Mourinho.

Now it is Li Ang's turn. He has the flexibility to change positions on the field and has the right to independently fine-tune the team's offensive and defensive tactics on the spot.

In fact, it is the tactical privilege given to him by Mourinho.

As long as he does not make tactical mistakes frequently, Mourinho will basically not deprive him of this tactical privilege.

In the first half, Li Ang improved Chelsea's passivity on the defensive end by changing positions in time.

Mourinho was of course very satisfied with this. After all, whether from the scene or from the result, there was nothing wrong with the tactical fine-tuning made by Li Ang.

So in the second half of the game, Mourinho will not only not stop Li Ang from using his tactical privilege.

He will also encourage Li Ang to find more opportunities that can change the situation.

For Sunderland, in fact, Chelsea's coaching staff did not continue to make any tactical targeting.

Chelsea players who changed to long spikes in time only need to adapt to today's relatively slippery grass, and they can suppress Sunderland step by step.

The only thing that needs to be focused on is Sunderland's long-range shooting style for set-piece opportunities.

In the second half, when the offense needs to be strengthened, Mourinho is not in a hurry to change players immediately.

He just asked De Bruyne, who had just returned from injury, to do a few more warm-up exercises on the side of the court.

Van Ginkel performed well on the court today. Whether in organization or defense, he can help Li Ang and Matic.

As a reward, Mourinho plans to let this guy play the whole game today.

So if there is a substitution adjustment later, Mourinho will basically only let De Bruyne replace Ramirez.

At the beginning of the second half, the Chelsea players who changed their shoes were obviously more adapted to the slippery field than in the first half.

And Chelsea, who changed the offensive style in the first half and played more directly with their own advantages in long passes, quickly took the initiative in the game.

After all, Chelsea is far better than Sunderland in terms of high ball control ability in the front and back fields.

Ibrahimovic, who is becoming more and more skilled in headers, has a natural advantage of 1.95 meters in height!

With Ibrahimovic as the offensive axis to radiate the two wings, the constant ball possession allows Chelsea to play smoothly on the offensive end.

Li Ang came up with another trick at this moment. He asked Matic to follow him forward and let Van Ginkel play back to his best single defensive midfielder position.

In this way, Li Ang directly formed a super interception line with Matic in Sunderland's half!

This is simply blocking other people's doorsteps, snatching other people's ball rights, and further feeding back their own offense!

And once the position is changed, Chelsea's three midfielders are not unaccustomed to it.

Matic originally played as a central midfielder, and only became famous after transferring to Benfica.

Van Ginkel is also very accustomed to playing as a single defensive midfielder. He is versatile in offense and defense when playing as a single defensive midfielder in the Eredivisie.

Not to mention Li Ang, he has played in all positions from defensive midfielder to front midfielder, and there is no such thing as unfamiliarity!

So Chelsea immediately changed to 433.

Li Ang and Matic's defensive pressure on Sunderland's half is simply full.

In short, one sentence is highlighted:

We must press the opponent!

Di Canio was also stunned. He never expected that Chelsea, which simplified its tactical style of play, would directly press Sunderland to the ground and beat them hard!

What should we do?

They are just playing long passes with you and pressing you with their personal strength!

You can't get out even if you want to!

It's too cruel to put the interception line in the opponent's half and press them!

Di Canio watched his team being beaten by Chelsea without any ability to fight back. He was helpless standing in the drizzle and looked very pitiful.

Mourinho was very sympathetic to his colleague.

But he sat in the coaching seat, but he didn't mean to stop Li Ang and other Chelsea players from taking a ruthless approach to Sunderland.

He was still interested in observing the defensive effect of Li Ang and Matic pressing together in the opponent's half.

Many neutral fans watching this game didn't know at all that at this moment. The positioning and playing style of Chelsea's three midfielders was made by Li Ang.

They thought this was a new style of play that Mourinho had developed to torture other mid- and lower-level Premier League teams.

After seeing Ramirez and Ibrahimovic score two goals in the 20 minutes after the start of the second half.

Many neutral Premier League fans chose to turn off the TV directly.

Because watching Sunderland being beaten by Chelsea was too heartbreaking!

This made them think of the subsequent scenes when their own team met Chelsea.

Being blocked by Li Ang and Matic in the middle line and beaten by the head?

This is more than just brutality? It is simply brutality!

In the end, the brutal Chelsea took away a 4-1 victory at the Stadium of Light with satisfaction.

Except for Cech who once again did not get the zero-shutout bonus and was a little bit muttering about his luck, the rest of the Chelsea players were still quite satisfied with the result of the game.

De Bruyne, who came on as a substitute in the 74th minute of the second half, also assisted Ibrahimovic to score his third goal in this game.

Ibrahimovic, who successfully performed a hat trick, invited all his teammates to have a big dinner in London tonight as soon as he returned to the locker room.

Although the recent schedule is quite tight, Mourinho did not spoil the fun when he saw the high morale of the whole team.

He waved his hand and gave all the players a half-day holiday, which immediately made the visiting team's locker room howl with wolves and ghosts!

That night, the Chelsea team returned to London and headed to the city in a mighty manner.

In the past, Li Ang always treated guests to French food, and everyone was a little tired of it. Today, Ibrahimovic specially picked a delicious Italian private restaurant.

Don't ask why they eat French and Italian food in London but not British food.

The answer is that even Terry and Lampard don't usually touch local London dishes.

Let the players in the Chelsea team who came to London from abroad eat British food?

That's not a dinner reward, that's a torture!

After a little happy for a while after dinner, the Chelsea players didn't dare to play in the London's gold-spending cave for too long.

Before two o'clock in the morning, they said goodbye to each other and went home to rest.

Li Ang couldn't refuse his teammates' invitation today, so he went out with them to broaden his horizons.

However, while other teammates were hugging and chatting with beautiful girls, he was taking a nap in a noisy nightclub box with silent headphones on.

As expected, the next day, The Sun reported that seven or eight Chelsea first-team players were having fun in a nightclub in downtown London.

What surprised many fans was that Li Ang appeared on the front page of The Sun.

However, after reading the detailed gossip reports, they were not surprised.

Well, wearing silent headphones in a nightclub and taking the time to sleep is very Li Ang!

Mourinho didn't control the players' private entertainment activities too strictly.

After the recovery training started the next afternoon, he only looked at the training status and quality of each player.

Fortunately, the players who went to the nightclub last night also knew that they were just relaxing for a short time, and no one completely relaxed their belts.

This still made Mourinho very satisfied.

Mourinho even had the time to tease Leon with the gossip published by The Sun today.

But this was just a little spice in the tedious and repetitive training life.

Chelsea, who maintained a two-match rhythm a week, rushed to Stoke City three days later.

This 15th round of the Premier League is also a preview of the League Cup quarter-finals between Chelsea and Stoke City.

Both teams are very aware of the huge gap in strength between them.

So at the beginning of the game, Stoke City was very pragmatic and showed a posture of defending the whole game at home!

Stoke City's half-court retreat and defensive determination are a big trouble for Chelsea, who have to rotate some of their main veterans.

Considering that the team in front of them has a strong ability to bomb in the air and find threatening opportunities in set pieces.

Mourinho is not very brave to let his players press forward and give Stoke City too many counterattack set-piece opportunities.

Li Ang looked at the height of the players of Stoke City on the court.

"This is a tough league player who relies on defense and high-altitude balls to make a living..."

If Chelsea is also in its prime at this moment, without the influence of schedule fatigue, Mourinho and Chelsea's players on the field will not think too much.

But in the tight schedule, facing such a tough league team, Mourinho had to consider the consequences of not being able to attack.

After the two teams carefully tested each other in the first half, Mourinho also made his own tactical decision.

"Play it safe."

Hearing Mourinho say this, Holland immediately understood.

So Chelsea and Stoke City, who adopted a conventional style of play and were more inclined to protect the safety of their own penalty area, tied 0-0 at the Britannia Stadium.

This was Chelsea's second draw this season.

After the game, Mourinho and Stoke City coach Mark Hughes also shook hands and made peace in a friendly manner.

After this round of games, Chelsea also ushered in a precious week of rest in the Premier League.

For other Premier League teams, the last round of the Champions League group stage is more troublesome, but it is just a formality for Chelsea.

On December 11, Chelsea played at home and ushered in the challenge of Steaua Bucharest.

With the hope of qualifying within reach, the Romanian league's overlord is also trying his best to create a miracle at Stamford Bridge.

But Mourinho doesn't want to break his home record.

If this game is played at the home of Steaua Bucharest, Mourinho will just do a favor.

But at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho doesn't want to lose anyway, and a draw is just the bottom line.

With the tactical task of "at least not losing", Chelsea's young players defended very resolutely at home.

Kalas once again became the most outstanding defender of the Chelsea team.

With the explosive performance of the Czech teenager, Steaua Bucharest didn't get a chance to shoot in the Chelsea penalty area in the first half.

The second half of the game was equally boring for neutral fans. Chelsea's resolute defensive will forced Steaua Bucharest to fight for his life in advance.

But in the 78th minute of the second half, De Bruyne assisted Lukaku to score a counterattack goal that broke the deadlock.

The players of Steaua Bucharest were also discouraged.

In the end, Chelsea won a 1:0 victory over Steaua Bucharest at home.

And in the tonight's match against Schalke, Schalke 04 also grasped their own destiny, defeating Basel 3:1 at home, successfully reversing and winning another qualifying spot in Group E of the Champions League!

On December 16, the much-anticipated 2013~2014 UEFA Champions League 1/8 knockout draw ceremony was held in Switzerland.

Because Bayern Munich defeated Manchester City before and won the qualification to qualify as the first in the group, they will not directly meet Chelsea in the first round of the knockout round.

But they still drew an opponent from London.

Arsenal!

For several consecutive years, Arsenal fans have played against super strong teams in the first round of the Champions League knockout round.

And Chelsea's luck in the Champions League this year is not too good, but not too bad.

They will play against Paris Saint-Germain in the first round.

Such a contest is still quite interesting.

After watching the draw ceremony, Li Ang also showed an inexplicable smile on his face.

He could finally make some trash feel the despair on the court in person!