Football’s First Defender

In terms of Liverpool's style of play, Liverpool have never been a defensive team.

Liverpool also knows what their defense is like, so Chelsea scored the first goal, which did not have much impact on Liverpool's defensive system, nor did it bring too much panic to Liverpool's players.

The Red Army soldiers know that it is unrealistic to completely limit Chelsea's offense in the away game, so they just need to stabilize the situation and try to score goals earlier.

After Liverpool kicked off, they organized an attack directly.

Regardless of whether the formation changes or not, Chelsea's tight defensive line must be the best to break through on the right. After all, there is no orthodox right midfielder in front of the right back to protect. Even if there are other players to assist in the defense, relatively speaking, the three-way defense , or Chelsea's right is the most suitable breakthrough.

The left side where Riera is located has become Liverpool's key attack area. Cooperating with Insua who inserted from the backcourt, Benitez does not have too many small tactics on the offensive end, but relies on Chelsea's well-known defensive "weakness". ", to carry out a flank assault.

Although Anelka retreated to the right according to the tactics and helped Ivanovic form the first line of defense, but it is okay to let a striker act as a defensive number. I really want to limit the opponent's attack, but it is a bit difficult , after all, defensive forwards are also rare.

Insua and Riera are indeed not a good offensive combination in the Liverpool team, but Chelsea's defense on this side is also not the strongest.

It stands to reason that at this time, when the opponent launches an attack on its own right-sided defense, Chelsea's central area will find a way to call out a midfielder to help the right-sided defense, but this game, because Liverpool The central attack is also extremely threatening, especially not only to prevent Gerrard's long-range shots, but also to be careful of possible penetration passes between him and Lucas in the middle, and Lucas is sometimes on the right, sometimes Coming to the middle and handing over the right to Glenn Johnson's position also greatly restrained Chelsea's defensive strength in the middle.

Although Chelsea's defensive line on the right is not very good, relatively speaking, Liverpool's offensive combination on the left is basically the weakest link. Let the two teams peck each other on the right side of Chelsea, completely restricting Liverpool's other offensive points.

With the cooperation of Insua, it was easy for Riera to get through Anelka's defense. huge defensive pressure.

In this game, Ivanovic, who has already scored a goal on the offensive end, has to devote himself to defense at this time. Ivan understands that it is impossible for a defender to always get offensive opportunities like a striker. Defense is the real foundation of oneself.

Riera's growth over the past few years has not met the expectations of many scouts. According to some gossip, Riera is now very good at football training, but is more obsessed with poker games. He not only plays with many poker players in his spare time Party and play together, sometimes even take time off to participate in some poker tournaments.

So although Riera was indeed a Spanish international two years ago, and now he should be at his peak at the age of 28, no one knows whether his game state can be maintained at a certain high level.

This time, Riera took the ball and faced Ivan's defense directly, without too many fake moves, and with a change of direction, Riera wanted to wade directly past Ivan.

Although Ivan's turning speed is an obvious shortcoming, but if he just made a small change of direction without giving face, he wanted to go directly, but he underestimated Ivan too much.

In the past, Ivan, facing this kind of opponent, used his speed to forcibly pass the ball. If he could fight his body, he would use his body to collide to interfere with the opponent. Play the opponent's wide pass.

However, Ivanovic, who has undergone a summer of hard training, now faces Riera's straight-forward approach, and his starting speed is much faster than last season, starting directly sideways, not only under his feet The frequency becomes faster, and even the feet are more precise.

Since Riera hadn't taken the ball away at this time, Ivan leaned sideways directly behind Riera, and directly took the initiative to hand over his center of gravity, stretched out his leg and directly touched the ball at Riera's feet, and directly shoveled the ball Out-of-bounds, Liverpool's throw-in.

Liverpool continued their offensive on the left, but after seeing Ivanovic's growth, Riera did not dare to underestimate Ivan anymore. I didn't expect Ivan's defense to improve so quickly after not meeting for a few months.

Since he didn't directly pass Ivan and create the best opportunities for side assists, Riera also began to seek more cooperation with his teammates, or make more fake moves by himself to disintegrate Ivan's influence on him. defense.

Ivan has always maintained his concentration. Although it is impossible for one person to completely limit Riera's performance, he will block Riera on the side and prevent him from breaking into the dangerous area. Ivanovic Still manageable.

Riera was not only firmly stuck by Ivan to enter the inside channel, but Riera didn't do much if he wanted to have enough space to pass the ball. Every time Riera chose to go to the bottom, Ivan Always at the last moment, go straight forward and face Riera at a 45-degree side. A person, relying on his own body, can form a semi-surrounding Riera who is down to the bottom line.

It can not only effectively interfere with Riera's pass, or even block it directly, but also limit Riera's goal of seeking to smash the ball and enter the penalty area.

Riera didn't get too many good opportunities in several attempts. Instead, he kept making moves, which caused him to be a little breathless on the defensive end when Chelsea attacked, and was almost caught by Ivan on the wing. Come through.

When Ivan once again completed an excellent cross from the side on the offensive end, Riera, who was instructed by coach Benitez on the sidelines, had to invest more strength and physical fitness on the defensive end, and On the offensive end, one is to hand over to Insua, who is more physically strong, to penetrate deeply, and the other is to directly kick the ball at 45 degrees instead of consuming more physical energy. After the entanglement with Ivanovic superior.

In the final stage of the first half, Liverpool's offense began to approach the traditional British style of play. When there was a chance on the left, it was to directly kick the ball into Chelsea's penalty area. At first, it hoped to use the number of passes and the increase in the number of passes to complete it. qualitative change.

It's just that, due to the height of Dirk, combined with Torres' ability to grab points, he doesn't have such a big advantage when facing Chelsea's defense.

Still in the same man-marking configuration as last season, Terry was mainly responsible for defending Dirk Drivet, while Yang Feng was still directly facing Torres.

Torres's ghostly running position, as well as his excellent ability to jump forward suddenly, are difficult to play under Yang Feng's strict defense.

After all, Yang Feng's judgment on the flight path and landing point of the ball is really too strong. Most of the time, Yang Feng keeps following Torres closely in the penalty area, and when the ball is passed out, Yang Feng always follows Torres. Use physical confrontation at the first time to get stuck in the best top position in advance. Torres wanted to go around through the outside line many times, but Yang Feng can always protect the position of the landing point to the greatest extent. Torres went around in front of Yang Feng After that, there was no landing point at all, Yang Feng always occupied the best landing point and take-off position, and Yang Feng himself was taller than Torres, Torres had no choice but to miss it.

In the siege of Liverpool at the last moment of the first half, Insua and Riera became the busiest two in Liverpool, taking turns to take the ball from the wing, trying to deliver the ball to teammates in the penalty area.

It's just that there were a lot of passes, but except for a header that Didc Dirk was forced to fly under Terry's interference, all other passes were muddled, and there was no more.

Yang Feng became Chelsea's most solid barrier. Most of Liverpool's passes were pushed out of the penalty area by Yang Feng. Chelsea also got many opportunities to counterattack.

However, since both sides have heavy troops in the middle, it is not easy to launch a threatening counterattack.

There will always be players who, when defending face to face, use "inadvertent" "small fouls" to complete the blocking task at the first time.

Unlike the obvious tactical fouls in other situations, because the two sides are densely populated and the counterattack cannot show a threat at the first time, in the end Liverpool players were whistled for ordinary fouls, and Chelsea could only admit the loss.

Before the end of the first half, neither team had much of a way to score again, and the score of 1-0 was maintained until the intermission.

On Chelsea's side, there is no change to respond to changes, and on Liverpool's side, after deliberation throughout the first half, Benitez is also ready to take a risk in the away game.

In the second half of the game, both sides did not make personnel changes at the beginning, but on Liverpool's side, Dirk's position was slightly retracted and moved to the right, and Lucas, who played the right midfielder position in the first half, was transferred back to the center. In defense, Liverpool's formation changed to 451.

It's just that Liverpool's change of formation is not to strengthen their defense, but to prepare for future tactics.

When Chelsea once again got the ball in the middle and wanted to pass it through the four midfielders to find an offensive opportunity, Liverpool changed their previous strategy of taking back the defense and waiting for a counterattack, but directly put up the defense line. , for a midfield press.

Under the sudden press of the Liverpool players, in order to ensure control of the ball, the Chelsea players can only pass it back temporarily, hoping to be safe and reorganize the attack.

But for Liverpool's defensive premise this time, it is not a temporary idea, a whim, but Benitez's tentative defense against Chelsea's four midfield configuration.

After a wave of midfield pressing, as Chelsea passed the ball back to their own half, Liverpool did not stop as soon as it was imagined, but continued to press forward in the midfield and directly pressed high.

Deco suffered a huge defensive impact from Liverpool. Under the pressure of Gerrard, although Deco wanted to distribute the ball to several other teammates in the midfield, Liverpool's pressing this time was within the scope of the whole team. As far as the eye can see, beside Chelsea's blue players, there is at least one Liverpool player in red, defending closely.

In the absence of a support point, Deco could only choose to continue passing the ball backwards and pass it to the central defender.

With Deco's backward pass, Liverpool's defense continued to move forward, changing one by one to ensure a 1v1 defense, and there were enough players to put pressure on Chelsea's back line again.

Yang Feng did receive the pass from Deco smoothly, but after stopping the ball, Yang Feng suddenly found that there was no one in the short range to pass. Although returning the goalkeeper is a good choice, Liverpool players, in order to ensure When the other Chelsea defenders took the ball with the anti-interference, they also faced Yang Feng and the goalkeeper. When Yang Feng passed the ball to Cech at any time, they took the opportunity to find a way to see if they could catch up with the pass and complete the interception. , took advantage of the opportunity to hit the door with one kick.

Yang Feng will not take the risk of passing back to the goalkeeper. Seeing Liverpool's high-position press, Liverpool's formation has moved forward. Chelsea's two forwards have not received much defensive attention in front, and Liverpool's backcourt still has enough. In space, before Torres' defense arrived, Yang Feng made an instant decision and directly sent a long pass to Chelsea's Drogba, who was deep in Liverpool's defense. However, this ball, Yang Feng's pass passed At the feet of the Liverpool players...

It's because Yang Feng's passing accuracy is too biased, which makes Drogba's position wasted in vain. The ball is a little far from Drogba's position, so that when the penalty kick is 50-50, Liverpool's three-man team The back line instantly became 2 defenses 1, blocked Drogba, followed by football.

Liverpool's defensive choice this time around worked. Benitez is to put more pressure on Chelsea's offense on the defensive end, destroy Chelsea's rhythm of passing the ball on the offensive end, and let Chelsea continuously transfer the ball backwards. If a certain link chooses to pass the ball forward If the ball is intercepted by Liverpool, it is an excellent opportunity for Liverpool to counterattack.

And if Chelsea passes backwards for the sake of insurance, as long as the ball is transferred to Yang Feng or Terry's feet, then the ability of these two people to play the ball is definitely the weakest in Chelsea's lineup. The weak ability to play the ball also means For Liverpool, it is an opportunity to switch the possession of the ball, and it is also a good opportunity to try to block and counterattack.

Of course, with such a press, the physical fitness of the entire Liverpool team will be consumed rapidly. However, since the second half has just started, after the intermission, Benitez believes that his players can maintain this press. For a while, And during this period of time, see if you can create threatening offensive opportunities for the team.

Yang Feng's passing ability at this point, after having no teammates at close range, the problem of insufficient long passing ability is very obvious.

Obviously there were some chances in the frontcourt, but Yang Feng's pass couldn't be passed. After passing the ball directly to the feet of the Liverpool players again, Yang Feng was behind, and he simply suffocated with a big foot. It's God's will. It is better than passing to the opposing player for a counterattack.

And Chelsea's possession rate, under Liverpool's pressure, began to drop to the same level as Liverpool, and even continued to decline.