Chapter 1 The Re-start

The match restarted with Barcelona kicking off.

Napoli tasted the sweetness of scoring a goal, so they continued their tactic of long balls. This tactic wasn't very pleasing to the eye and, in the eyes of many, didn't require much skill.

But it was effective!

Otherwise, how could Napoli have equalized?

So Napoli continued to play this way, not caring whether it would make the final less entertaining. A hundred times the entertainment wouldn't be worth a championship. Any fool knew which was more important. Napoli had no obligation to sacrifice their championship glory to please the audience, especially the neutral fans. They weren't Barcelona; they couldn't play beautifully and win championships at the same time.

But this made things difficult for Barcelona.

Their attack was based on ground passing, layer by layer, emphasizing ball control. Unless they were surrounding the opponent, this kind of attack took a lot of time. The number of attacks per unit time was definitely less than Napoli's long passes…

And Napoli's midfield didn't need to organize attacks, so they put all their energy into defense. Barcelona advancing on the ground? That's exactly what they wanted!

A tight defense, entangling with Barcelona in midfield, fighting and retreating, retreating to the thirty-meter area and then stopping, defending to the death, no matter how Barcelona passed the ball around, the most important thing was not to lose their position, rather than steal the ball…

After doing this, Barcelona's attack encountered trouble—their characteristic was to use passing and running to create gaps, tearing open the opponent's originally tight defense, and then delivering a fatal blow!

But what if the opponent didn't care how you passed the ball, and there were no gaps in the defense?

In addition, Barcelona, ​​who had been equalized, was a little frustrated and wanted to score quickly to regain the lead. But things went against their wishes. The more they wanted to lead, the harder it became.

Unconsciously, they became impatient…

Napoli, on the other hand, had just equalized, and with such a beautiful goal, what's more, they equalized against the powerful Barcelona. With morale high, they were full of fighting spirit. Even if the opponent's attack was fierce and the defensive pressure was great, they didn't think it was a big deal. Everyone was determined to defeat Barcelona.

That's how football matches are. If your momentum weakens, the opponent's momentum will rise and overwhelm you, especially in a Champions League final. So you can lose the game, but you must never lose the battle and lose the momentum!

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Napoli was originally the kind of team that goes crazy when the crowd gets excited. Once the momentum is built up, it's hard to suppress, so now it seems that their attack is more threatening than Barcelona's…

"Napoli's long pass from the backcourt… They are now convinced of this method, but who told them to have Chen Hero? Hero has a very high success rate in heading the ball in the frontcourt. I just made a rough statistic. He grabbed the first point in all five headers, and his teammates controlled four of the secondary landing points, resulting in two shots, and one that, although it didn't result in a shot, still posed a huge threat to Barcelona…"

"Napoli's tactics are nothing new, but they are very targeted… Not good-looking, but very effective. I'm starting to worry about Barcelona now… This final is definitely not as easy as they thought. Previously, the Catalan media conducted a survey asking Barcelona fans who they most wanted to meet in the final. As a result, the vast majority chose Manchester United. At that time, the Catalan media interpreted it as saying that Barcelona fans didn't like Napoli and didn't want them to enter the final. And Hero said that this was because Barcelona fans were afraid of Napoli… Now, I'm more willing to believe Hero's version, because judging from the game, Napoli is a bit of a counter to Barcelona! Thinking about it again, Napoli didn't have the disadvantage in their two games against Barcelona last season. They lost 2:3 to Barcelona at the Camp Nou, but had two away goals. They scored a goal as soon as they returned to their home court. If Chen Hero hadn't been inexplicably sent off, maybe Barcelona wouldn't even have made it to the semi-finals… I now think that Barcelona may not win this championship!"

Now most commentators are starting to worry about Barcelona, ​​and the wind has changed between goals. You must know that these people were still praising Barcelona's power before, as if no one in the world could stop them from winning the championship.

Who would have thought that after Chen Hero scored a goal, everyone would lean to the other side. This world is indeed realistic…

But it is true. Napoli's performance has given many people hope. In Naples, Italy, many fans who could not go to the scene to watch the game watched the game at home, in bars, and in pizza shops. When they saw Chen Hero score, all their previous worries disappeared.

For a time, many people suddenly felt a surge of pride—what is Barcelona? We can win too!

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In the ten minutes after Chen Hero scored, although Barcelona pressed Napoli for most of the time, Napoli's counterattacks were sharper and more threatening.

This time, even Guardiola could no longer sit still on the coach's bench. Since Chen Hero equalized the score, he got up from his seat and walked to the sidelines, and has not returned yet.

His brows were furrowed, thinking about how to break the situation on the field.

From the looks of it, Barcelona's ball possession rate is still high, but what's the use of ball possession at this time? It's all thunder and no rain!

What he wants is not ball possession, but accuracy. No matter how many shots you take, it's useless if you don't score.

Napoli, on the other hand, is playing very simply, which is giving him a headache.

Alves and Abidal don't dare to attack too much now, because Pique and Mascherano alone cannot deal with Chen Hero, and Cassano and Arshavin are very fast when counterattacking. If the full-backs rush up at this time, it is likely that they will not be able to return.

But this situation cannot continue, how to solve it?

To be honest, he hasn't thought of it yet…

What if he can't think of it all the time?

Then drag it into extra time!

Guardiola made a decision in his mind. Anyway, he is very confident in Barcelona's physical strength.

Many people say that Barcelona dominates the world because they have two or thirty years of youth training foundation, a consistent football tradition, outstanding stars, excellent coaches, and a solid foundation and strength… But they have all overlooked a very inconspicuous, but perhaps very important reason. That is Barcelona's physical strength.

Barcelona's tactics require a lot of running ability from the players. They always have to keep running, passing the ball out and quickly running to the next position, even if their teammates don't pass the ball to them, they must use off-ball running to create space and provide opportunities for their teammates.

When defending, you will often see two or three of them rushing up to encircle and intercept the player with the ball. This kind of pressing is very energy-consuming.

Barcelona's football, whether it is attacking or defending, is based on running, so if their physical strength is not good, this team would have collapsed long ago and it would be impossible to win six championships in a season.

Because he is very confident in his team's physical strength, Guardiola decided that if he can't think of a way to solve Chen Hero and Napoli for the time being, he will just wait and see. He believes that Napoli's style of play is also very energy-consuming, because in counterattacks, Napoli's players always have to keep sprinting back and forth, and this kind of physical exertion is greater than Barcelona's.

In extra time, as physical exertion increases, the little remaining physical strength will not be able to support them to continue doing such piston-like running. At that time, what else will Napoli have with their weak attack? Isn't their most reliable thing now their sharp attack? Without the attack, Napoli is like a tiger without sharp teeth, just a slightly larger cat, maybe not even as scary as a cat…

After making up his mind, Guardiola realized that he had been standing outside for a while. He turned around and walked back to the coach's bench.

Assistant coach Vilanova asked him: "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Our situation is not good…"

"Yes, so you tell them to pay attention to defense."

Vilanova was quite surprised by Guardiola's words. He originally thought that Guardiola would come up with a way to solve the weak attack after thinking for a long time, but he thought of strengthening the defense… Isn't this putting the cart before the horse? What we need now is not to not lose the ball, but to score! The faster we score, the faster the initiative of the game will return to our hands…

Seeing the doubt on Vilanova's face, Guardiola tilted his head at him: "You go and do this first, and I'll tell you why I did this when you come back."

Vilanova took his orders and went to the sidelines, using his loud voice and gestures to convey Guardiola's instructions, telling the whole team to pay attention to defense and not give Napoli a chance to counterattack.

After returning, he couldn't wait to find Guardiola: "Tell me, Pep."

Guardiola tilted his head, looking at the field while explaining to his assistant coach. "It's like this, if we want to attack, Alves and Abidal must press up, and even Pique and Busquets must press up from time to time to put enough pressure on Napoli and cause their defense to collapse… But now their counterattack is very sharp. If we rashly press up, I'm afraid we will concede a goal before we score. Because of that Chen Hero… His bridgehead role is very obvious. He is like a nail, nailed to our most critical place, which makes us very uncomfortable."

Vilanova nodded, Guardiola was right, Chen Hero was indeed very important.

"But we also have an advantage, that is, our physical strength is better than theirs, because most of the time we are the ball-controlling side. We guide them, and they can only run around under our back-and-forth passing, and their physical strength is consumed faster than ours. As long as we can drag the game into extra time, I think we have a very high chance of winning this game!"

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ps, there will be five updates tomorrow!

So I'm asking everyone for monthly tickets!

Thank you very much for your enthusiastic help last month, which allowed Champion of the Strike Zone to maintain its position in the top ten of the overall list!

Let's continue to work hard this month and strive to stay in the top ten of the overall list!