In the early morning of February 23, Beijing time, the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals was played twice. Chelsea beat Lille 2-0 at home, with Havertz and Pulisic each contributing. In another match, Juventus was forced to draw 1-1 away from home by Villarreal, Vlahovic scored in the opening 32 seconds of his Champions League debut, and Parejo scored for the "yellow diver".
Did your home team win?
Chelsea 2:0 Lille
With topical figure Lukaku in the snow, Chelsea beat Lille 2-0 at home to win the first leg of the Champions League knockout stage. However, the Blues also had two main players injured in the game, which cast a shadow over their League Cup final against Liverpool at the weekend.
Chelsea boss Tuchel put Romelu Lukaku on the bench in this game and did not let him play. Chelsea's forward line was replaced by Havertz in the middle, with Ziyech and Pulisic separated. In the end, all three scored goals or assists, with Havertz and Pulisic scoring one goal each in the first half and Ziyech providing an assist for Havertz in the first half.
Just eight minutes into the opening, Ziyech drove a corner kick from the left and Havertz scored with a header from inside the box to give Chelsea the top spot. The Blues did not take advantage of the chase, and Tuchel's side patiently sought the opportunity to extend the score while firmly controlling the situation. So that Chelsea, sitting at home, the 9 shots in the whole game were obviously overpowered by Lille's 15 shots, but in terms of offensive efficiency, Chelsea far exceeded the Ligue 1 powerhouse, and half of their 4 shots were converted into goals, while Lille's 15 shots were only 2 shots.
However, Chelsea still felt The threat of Lille's attack around half-time. Fortunately, veteran Thiago Silva stepped forward at this time, and after the game, he also received unanimous praise from the media and fans. BBC chief football correspondent McNotty said Silva seemed to be the protagonist of the Blue Bridge that night: "Thiago Silva's performance tonight can be described as unparalleled, he put his on-field experience, as well as the perfect prejudgment and sense of position to the fullest, quietly defusing Lille's attacking threat into invisibility. In addition, when you need him to chase back, you will be surprised to find that the 37-year-old Brazilian veteran is not behind in front of the opponent's young players. Thiago Silva is really the kind of defensive leader at the highest level, and his form and performance continue to improve with age, which is simply terrifying. ”
In the 63rd minute, after receiving Silva's pass at the back, Kante turned around and pushed the counter-attack all the way to the left side of the front, he took the time to hold the ball firmly under the siege of Lille's defenders, patiently waiting for his teammates, and finally delivered the ball just right to pulisic's feet inserted from the left. The American star fired a shot straight into the far corner of the goal, extending the score to 2-0!
In the end, the Blues defeated Lille in the first leg with a set-piece goal and a classic counter-attack goal. Chelsea women's football star Carney, who worked as a commentator at the BBC that day, pointed out that the second goal highlighted the DNA of the Blues: "You can see the speed of the counterattack in Chelsea's second goal, the player's solid footpan belt technology, the penetration of the whole team to tear apart the opposing defense in the shortest time, this is the most perfect counter-attack football." And Kante's assist is the key to this goal, he took the ball at the back and single-handedly created a direct shooting opportunity for Pulisic to face the goalkeeper, in the whole process of his counterattack with the ball, The Lille players were trying to create tactical fouls, you can see the players behind Kante tried to force him to lose people several times, and the two defenders in front of him brewed several times and did not find the right opportunity to grab it. It wasn't that they missed the plane defensively, but that Kante's grasp of the rhythm even made it difficult for opponents to get a chance to foul in close quarters. ”
The only thing that worried Chelsea fans that day was that Mateo Kovacic and Ziyech both with injuries in less than 10 minutes of the second half. After the game, Tuchel also blamed himself for not being able to avoid injury to the players through substitutions, after all, the team's next game will be against Liverpool in the League Cup final: "I really should have replaced Kovacic at half-time. I haven't learned about Ziyeh's injury with the team doctor yet, and now I can only hope that his injury is not so serious. It's still Tuesday, so we're in time for Sunday, and there are still plenty of days to get the players back, hopefully they'll be able to play on Sunday. ”
In the Champions League knockout round, MVP four consecutive strikes, Kante attacked and defended the whole field
No front vs no front, how many teams in Europe can walk a few rounds at chelsea's feet? In the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals this morning, in the Battle of Stamford Bridge, facing the starting snow hiding the old centre-forward Irmaz, the Blues, who had regained the main tactics of last season's Champions League knockout rounds, found the familiar full control. But in addition to the goalscoring of Havertz and Pulisic, Kante, who is the most comfortable with the non-frontal play, has been elected the official best in the official game in four consecutive Champions League knockout matches since last year's Champions League semi-finals.
Compared with Chelsea, Lille coach Gulvin Nekbu is "off the beaten track": the midfield showdown between Sanchez and Kante, which fans are looking forward to, is rare because the former is more active on the wing, but the giant midfielder Amado Onana has met Kante several times, which also makes Kante's little and fast play more room. Although in the first half, Lille relied on a large number of co-defenses and local intensive, so that Chelsea's advance was not smooth, but after reading the opponent's position at the beginning, Kante began to try to advance with the ball more around half an hour after the game, which also laid the groundwork for Lille's physical decline in the second half.
In the face of an opponent who changes defense indefinitely, Tuchel's solution strategy is that Pulisic has repeatedly withdrawn the ball to assist Kante and take the opponent's defensive position away, which also makes Kante, who has been blocked in the previous several advances, have more opportunities for trial and error. In the 63rd minute of the match, Kante, who received a pass from Thiago Silva in the middle circle, began to drive straight in, and Lille, who was unable to organize interceptions along the line, could only sit back and watch the Frenchman complete a B2B breakthrough and finally split the ball to Pulisic on the left rib, who easily pushed into the net, and the suspense of the game was gone.
2 months have elapsed since 2022, but the Blues have delivered three assists in all competitions in midfield, tied with Mount as Chelsea's most assisted player of the year. With the "Prince" continuing to suffer from injuries since the end of last year, Kante has become a new booster for the Blues. After all, the Frenchman's assists in 2022 have equaled the sum of the past two years, and in the past two years, Kante has played 75 games in all competitions and only delivered 3 assists.
"He was everywhere from start to finish, snatching the ball back, winning a one-on-one confrontation and then assisting pulisic to score the team's second goal. In a high-intensity match, he gave an excellent performance. The UEFA Technical Observation Team's post-match review of Kante was enough to confirm kante's decisive role in the second half: the Frenchman started and played 90 minutes, with 68 touches, 3 dribbling 2 successes, 53 passes and 48 successful passes, a pass success rate of 91%, 2 key passes, 1 assist. He didn't succeed on 1 cross and 4 on 5 long passes, creating 1 major opportunity. In terms of confrontation, Kante has been successful in 6 of the 11 ground confrontations, 2 unsuccessful aerial confrontations, 10 times lost the ball, and only 1 foul. Defensively, Kante contributed 2 interceptions and 4 tackles, only 2 were passed, almost filling the data bar.
"I remember at the time that Thiago Silva gave me a good pass, and then I turned around and there was room left in front of me, With Havertz running on one side and Pulisic running on the other. I passed the ball to Pulisic and he managed to beat the goalkeeper to give Chelsea an important two-goal lead. After the game, the unspeakable Kante talked about assists, still taking the lead to his teammates. Speaking of the second leg away, the French midfielder remained as humble and low-key as ever: "The game is not over yet. We were facing a difficult team and the second leg was important for Chelsea. ”
But what fans care more about than Kante's performance in the second leg is obviously the Frenchman's question of leaving. At present, the contract between Kante and Chelsea expires tomorrow summer, and the media has revealed that many teams interested in Kante are paying attention to his and The Blues' contract renewal negotiations, and are ready to match the Blues offer, although they are no longer young, but the more they go to the key occasions, the more brilliant, who dares to give up Kante who is completely out of age?
Villarreal 1:1 Juventus
After 90 minutes, Villarreal and Juventus still have not decided who is the "big package" of this round. The first two teams in their respective leagues are ranked 6th and 4th, and it doesn't seem like the gap is particularly obvious either, but Juve have what Villarreal doesn't have: a strong striker.
A first European match of my career, the first Champions League, how long does it take to score a goal? For Vlahović, it only takes 32 seconds. At Villarreal's ceramic stadium, Vlajovic received a long pass from teammate Danilo as soon as he opened the field, and in the penalty area, he turned around and shot with his right foot in the face of the two men, and the ball went straight to the back corner of the goal, and Villarreal's three defenders looked at each other and were out of reach.
Vlahović may have been born for the record, the first goal in the Champions League broke the record for the fastest goal scored in the Champions League debut set by Andreas Müller in 1995 (37 seconds), and at the age of 22, there are more possibilities waiting for him to write in the future. But he still failed to break another Juve record, and many fans remember that Piero scored a goal in just 20 seconds against Manchester United in 1997, and that goal was by no means below Vlahovic. Vlahović on the "young and promising" this item also failed to beat Piero, Juve team in the history of the Champions League debut record is also created by the former Zebra Prince, only 20 years and 308 days, Vlahović a post-00 and then Piero can only bow to the inferior.
However, Piero, who happened to be the commentator on the spot, did not let Vlahović be affected by the media praise: "I think it is better not to compare, everyone has their own characteristics, I wish him better, even when he can't score." He will have a great future. "But Vlahovic is different from the average young player, he can always easily turn pressure into motivation. After scoring the goal, he made a "shut up" celebration and seemed to be responding to some of the doubts about him. However, he said after the game: "I don't understand why there is controversy, I have done this action before, I don't read the newspaper, I just want to do my best to make progress, down to earth, this action is for a family member." ”
Controversy arose from the previous match, when Vlahovic played For Fiorentina and Juventus against Torino centre-back Bremer for 2 months, only to be completely locked up, and it seemed that the tough-line top-up defender was the most difficult type of player for Serbian strikers to deal with. Taking a statistic, Vlahovic scored only 4 of the current 45 goals in Serie A, or 9% of them, and as a tall center, this proportion is still low. I once interviewed Vlahović's enlightenment coach, Ristich, who once said that because Duchamp has had amazing talent and technology since he was a child, he has become accustomed to solving battles without physical contact with his opponents, and he lacked systematic training for the head ball as a teenager.
As far as the current technical characteristics are concerned, Vlahović's role in counterattack is much greater than that of positional warfare, which is very similar to Ibrahimovic's early style of play, but Vlahović is still very young, and the future is time to improve his various abilities. From this season alone, Vlahovic has improved his technique in adjusting his one-and-a-half-turn shot and his non-habitual right-footed shot, which is exactly what this goal reflects.
Vlahovic has long been aware that as his goal count continues to climb, opponents will also target him, but he is also learning to handle side-to-goal or back-to-goal. In the second half of the game, Villarreal did increase the ferocity of the body and tackles, and also achieved some results, Juve conceded the ball from the opposing defender's midfield interception. But Vlahović still used sporadic opportunities and small spaces to create a threat, and in the second half, he turned around and hit the goal and almost broke through the opponent's city.
Maybe the Champions League can really become the stage for Vlahović, in addition to the big heart mentioned earlier, the Champions League team is stronger and more active against Juve, so that the Bianconeri will also get more opportunities to counterattack. Vlahović's goal in this campaign was the same as his first league goal for Juve, except that the passer at that time was Dybala, and Dybala was absent due to injury, presumably Alegri developed a special tactic for Vlahović. Isn't that what a strong striker does? Simple, efficient, and less expensive for teammates.
But Juve still failed to keep the victory, and Allegri said before the game: "Usually it is a good result to get a draw in the first leg of the road. "He did. When keeping the away goal system, returning to the home court with the first leg away 1-1 is a relatively large advantage, but now without the away goal system, Juve have to start all over again at home, the risk is increased than before, and Allegri's attitude is still conservative.
At the last moment of the game, Allegri took off his coat again and threw it on the ground, although it was not captured by the picture, Piero at the scene saw it and imitated it "with bad intentions". Allegri explained after the game: "I picked it up later, it had nothing to do with the tension, when our defence was torn open by two big slits and it was dangerous. ”
In this game, Juve is more missing, Chiellini and Dybala can return is more critical, watching McKenny also face a long-term injury, Villarreal may welcome back the main striker Herard Moreno. In short, the second round is still open, and everyone has a chance to advance.
Wen | Liu Chuan Yang Jian Xiao Wu
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