Football’s First Defender

In the first half of the game, the Newcastle players became the winners of the half-time game by virtue of their excellent defensive performance in the half-time and Ben Arfa's extremely high ability to seize opportunities when opportunities appeared.

The 2-0 lead is still in their home court. For Newcastle fans, it seems that they have seen the hope of the team defeating Liverpool, the best performing giant team in the Premier League this season. The strikers who are feared throughout Europe will be completely restricted by Newcastle in this game.

The entire intermission, for Rodgers, was an excellent moment to adjust the mentality of the players.

The strength of Liverpool's team must be more than one grade higher than opponents like Newcastle.

So now, in the first half of the game, Liverpool played so hard.

It must be caused by many reasons. For example, away factors, physical factors after the FIFA game, and some players still have psychological factors of contempt for this game.

The combination of these incentives made Liverpool perform extremely poorly on the field.

If we talk about the physical factors after the FIFA game, Rodgers may only be able to adjust through substitutions, then some of them played unnaturally in the away game, and there is contempt before the game. Through Rodgers' speech at halftime, Liverpool players, It is still possible to complete the adjustment quickly and adjust to keep yourself in the best condition.

In the second half of the game, Liverpool did not immediately make substitution adjustments. Rodgers wanted to use his substitution quota for players with obvious physical problems, but the momentum of Liverpool players has improved.

The offensive initiative is still in the hands of Liverpool. Facing the iron barrel formation that Newcastle continues to play, although the Liverpool players are two goals behind, they still organize the offense patiently and patiently, relying on constantly moving the ball to mobilize Newcastle's defense creates opportunities to pass threatening balls.

As for Liverpool, it was not Suarez or Sturridge who first showed his excellent offensive state in the second half, but the teenager Sterling.

This small wide player who is not considered strong in stature really succeeded in using his speed on the right to forcibly tear open Newcastle's wide defense.

It's not a random bottom pass. With many defensive players in the center of Newcastle, the cross from the wing, even though Sterling's current pass is not bad, there is still no good chance to compete.

In the case that the two side kicks did not have an excellent threat, Sterling began to try to break through the side.

Play your own speed, but no longer directly accelerate to the bottom, but in the acceleration process, interspersed with emergency stops, and change direction, no longer aiming at crossing from the side, but breaking through the opponent's side defense, Going to the penalty area and causing chaos became the primary goal of the offense.

When Sterling was on the right, showing his flexibility and frequently trying to attack Newcastle's penalty area, Liverpool's overall offense was slowly revitalized by Sterling's explosive point.

Sterling's threat from the side opened up a breakthrough for Newcastle's entire defense system.

If no one defends, then Sterling alone can turn Newcastle's defense upside down, and if other players go to defend Sterling, it is like a domino. If there is a loophole in one link, Newcastle's entire defense will be the same. will crash.

The two killers on Liverpool's front line can be restricted by the opponent's advantage in numbers. Although they haven't performed very well for tens of minutes, when the opponent's suffocating defense begins to decrease in strength, then for Suarez and Stuart Here comes Rich's opportunity.

Sterling's consecutive successful wing breakthroughs forced Newcastle to change some defensive routines and try to shift some of their defensive strength to the left to deal with Sterling's approach.

Although such a defensive change had an immediate effect, after Sterling lacked enough space to hold the ball, when he tried to break through again, the ball that went out was first intercepted by the Newcastle players.

However, Sterling's growth this season is not only in terms of skills, but also the improvement of football IQ for handling the ball.

Facing the opponent's defensive changes, Sterling immediately made his own response, and the duo of himself and Glenn Johnson on the wing continued to launch a continuous attack.

Glenn Johnson was limited by his poor performance in the first half of the game. In the second half of the game, he was more defensive. On the offensive end, he just ran up and participated in the pass to Sterling.

But the two wide players are extremely calling.

Glenn Johnson is definitely not a delicate passing point, but when delivering the ball to Sterling, Glenn Johnson is definitely able to do his best.

A through ball, perhaps because he belongs to the same type of players, the ball passed by Glenn Johnson can always be controlled to the limit without hitting the bottom line, so that Sterling can have a long-distance acceleration space , After a complete acceleration, it can just be controlled to the football stage.

It was Glenn Johnson's brilliant through ball that gave Sterling a considerable boost from behind.

Sterling can fully gain the advantage in grabbing the ball in the first step, and there is naturally more room for action afterwards.

The cooperation of goals requires multiple favorable conditions to be matched together.

For Liverpool's offensive, when Glenn Johnson once again sent an over-the-top pass, allowing Sterling to get the chance to rush forward to catch the ball, Liverpool's continuous offensive finally ushered in a chance to get a goal in return .

Sterling used his speed immediately to get rid of the defensive players once again.

Although this kind of space after getting rid of is not that big because of Newcastle's retreated defense line, it is enough for Sterling to use in the game to adjust his offensive position and direction to give Newcastle other defensive players. Bring the most uncomfortable defensive experience.

This time Sterling's breakthrough, after attracting enough defensive players' attention, did not choose to pass the ball to Suarez and Sturridge, who still have considerable defensive attention, but a diagonal retreat The inverted triangle pass.

It's not that far back, nor is it a direct pass to find someone, but just chooses to pass the ball to Newcastle's defense, because the side close to Sterling is inclined, and there is an inevitable gap in the defense line.

Although in Sterling's momentary perspective, he did not find his teammates in that space, but Sterling chose to believe that his teammates, as the top players, will definitely find this opportunity this time.

As long as Sterling does his own passing work well, as for running and hitting the goal, it is completely handed over to his trustworthy teammates.

The power of the ball pass is not too great, but it is passed accurately to the empty position. For Newcastle players, even though they realize that the pass is dangerous, they want to adjust their center of gravity in an instant and reorganize. Line of defense, or complete blocking is no longer realistic.

And the moment Sterling fell to the ground after passing the ball, the expected figure in red also really appeared when Sterling fell heavily to the ground.

A not-so-tall figure quickly stepped in from the middle and rushed forward desperately, finally reaching Sterling's pass.

Henderson, in the two seasons of Rodgers' tactical system, has played many positions in the midfield, but he has worked hard, relying on his running without hesitation, and his increasingly mature passing skills, and finally got Rodgers' approval. Become an important part of the team.

In this attack in the second half, as Liverpool's midfielder, striker, and the closest player, Henderson was very free in tactics when he was attacking Liverpool's striker.

Because the characteristics of Liverpool's forward attack are strong personal ability, as well as unconstrained offensive imagination and choices, without so many dogmatic constraints. For Henderson, he can only cooperate with his teammates on the striker as much as possible.

He just needs to ensure that when Liverpool loses the ball, he can run back to the position where he should appear and complete the defense.

But this time, after Sterling made several breakthroughs before, Henderson had already read that Newcastle's defense might be empty. In this attack, Henderson boldly chose to be closer to the opponent's penalty area.

When Sterling really passed a threatening ball, Henderson ran directly to the passing point while running. Although his speed was not so fast, he was still able to match the defense when he reacted first. In the confrontation between players, occupy a priority position.

Henderson rushed to this pass. This is an opportunity for a very threatening shot in the penalty area. Although the defensive players on the side and rear have already made tackles, there are other Newcastle players who reacted in front. , is making a move forward to block.

Henderson is sure to be able to throw a kick to threaten the goal.

But Henderson's final choice was to kick the ball diagonally to the front left in a flash.

In such a fast-paced game, Henderson still made what he thought was the most reasonable way to deal with the goal in front of him.

Rather than complete a threat to hit the goal by yourself, it is better to hand the ball directly to the striker who can create a greater threat of shooting.

When Newcastle's defensive players were completely shocked by the very threatening connection between Sterling and Henderson this time, they did not expect that Henderson would have such a good offensive opportunity. Also choose to pass the ball.

And this diagonal pass accurately passed diagonally between the two Newcastle players. When Sturridge caught the ball and hit the goal, it was indeed a better and more threatening shot. door position.

"GOAL!!!"

"Sturridge..."

1 to 2, in the second half of the game, only 57 minutes later, Sturridge's goal of "averaging goals per game" was achieved again.

There is still plenty of game time. For Liverpool players, the difference of 1 goal may be a matter of an offensive round. After successfully scoring a goal and breaking the opponent's iron barrel formation, Liverpool's momentum It has been turned over.

Liverpool's offensive, after scoring the first goal, continued to maintain sufficient pressure.

And the continuous attack has also brought back greater returns for Liverpool in a short period of time.

If the Newcastle players in the first half had an aura of being barefoot and not afraid to wear shoes, then in the second half, after taking a 2-0 lead in the first half, the Newcastle players carried the burden of wanting to win and being afraid of losing. .

Although Newcastle is still quite good in maintaining their defensive formation, it's just that the players' energy and focus on defense are definitely not as good as in the first half.

And after being completely pierced by Liverpool and allowing Sturridge to score, the Newcastle players, with only a one-goal lead, felt even greater psychological pressure to win.

However, in the game, this extra pressure does not bring him much defensive focus, it just makes everything worse.

Liverpool's offense began to become sharper and sharper, and the threats created began to increase. For the Newcastle players, the defensive pressure was also increasing.

When Liverpool's offense is in good form, the defense of other teams will be in vain.

The Newcastle players were not that good defensively. After Liverpool's offensive players gradually recovered their game state, not to mention the defense of paper, but they have always been jittery.

In the 64th minute of the game, before the last goal, Liverpool scored another goal and brought the score back to a tie.

In this attack, Suarez gave full play to his role as a fulcrum. In a quick offensive and defensive transition of Liverpool, Suarez and Yang Feng completed the connection, and Suarez, who retreated, competed for the landing point of Yang Feng's long pass. Pushed the ball directly to the right belly.

Sterling performed extremely well in the second half, once again beating the opponent's left back in a 1v1 speed competition.

In the process of slanting forward after receiving the ball, Sterling, who is not very good at hitting the goal, can only choose to directly complete the goal when other supporting teammates still have a certain distance.

It's not too tricky to push the corner to hit the goal, but the victory lies in the full force, the distance is close enough, and the goalkeeper's reaction time is not enough. Sterling's kick almost flew past the Newcastle goalkeeper. , into the goal.

Although the goal was a bit thrilling, but fortunately the goal was scored. After 20 minutes of hard work in the second half, the Liverpool players finally pulled the score back. Now the two sides are on the same starting line. Liverpool, which has just scored two goals, is obviously in an absolute situation. Dominance, reversal, could happen in the next minute...