Fox in the Penalty Area

Chapter 1760: Less scolding

Tatsuya Sugiyama stood on the court with his hands on his hips, breathing heavily and motionless.

In his field of vision, the players of Madrid Pirates were celebrating their advance to the knockout rounds of the Champions League.

After defeating Vesseldorf 2:1, Madrid Pirates have already qualified from the group two rounds ahead of schedule.

The only suspense now is whether they can get first place in the group.

But in fact, this suspense is very small - in another group match that ended at the same time, Insoubre defeated the Lyon Lions 2-0 at home and now has six points, also six points behind the Madrid Pirates.

Unless the Madrid Pirates lose all the remaining two rounds of the group stage and Insubre win all, they will be surpassed by Insubre and become second in the group.

This may be too small...

Therefore, the Madrid Pirates not only qualified from the group two rounds in advance, but also basically won the first place in the group two rounds in advance.

The defending champions are still going strong in this season's Champions League.

They are still the favorites to win the championship according to various bookmakers.

Vesseldorf lost to such a team, what else is there to say?

Even looking at the results of these two games, one is 0:8 and the other is 1:2, you will feel that Vesseldorf played very well in this game.

In fact, regardless of the score, Vesseldorf did play well.

This game was finally a normal game.

Hu Lai also only scored one goal in this game.

His aggression in the game was obviously not as good as in the last game.

This made Tatsuya Sugiyama confirm his previous idea - if he hadn't asked Hu Lai to go all out, Hu Lai might not have scored six goals in that game.

Although some media analysts later believed that the reason why Hulay pursued goals so frantically was because he wanted to catch up with Celine Montiel's scoring record.

But in Sugiyama Tatsuya's view, if Hulay really wants to catch up with Celine Montiel's record, then there is no need for him to directly tie the record in this game. At that time, he was only six goals away from the record. With normal people's thinking, it would be easy for Hu Lai to tie or even surpass this record. There was no suspense. It was only a matter of time.

Even if he doesn't tie the record in the game with Vesseldorf, he can do it next.

There is absolutely no need to be so anxious during a game.

So the reason why he was able to score six goals in a single game was really because he had to let Hu Lai go all out...

Sugiyama Tatsuya did not make excuses for himself on this issue.

With this mentality of atonement, he worked very hard in today's game.

Especially in defense, he has repeatedly positioned himself in the penalty area to assist in defense.

This will of course affect his performance on the offensive end, but his defense really helped the team, and in the end he only conceded two goals...

The home fans did not boo them anymore.

Throughout the game, the fans stood unswervingly on the side of their home team and cheered every time they got the ball.

As for the Pirates of Madrid... they are naturally the unlikable villains.

Especially Hu Lai.

Hulay, who scored six goals in the last game, successfully made himself the least popular person among Vesseldorf fans.

Whenever he gets the ball, the stadium is bound to be booed.

After he scored, the decibel level of boos reached the highest level in the game.

Amid deafening boos, Hulay planted his "flag" at Vesseldorf's home court.

The only Madrid Pirates player who could avoid being booed was Milos Vukovic.

He played for Vesseldorf for three seasons before moving to Madrid Pirates.

In these three seasons, he has grown from a talented young player to the star and core midfielder of a strong Bundesliga team.

It was precisely with his performance in Vesseldorf that he won the favor of the giant Madrid Pirates.

This time, returning to the place where he once fought after a year, Vukovich was still welcomed by Vesseldorf fans.

Although the welcome was far less than when Hu Lai followed the team back to Leeds City...

※※※

Just when Sugiyama Tatsuya put his hands on his hips and looked at the celebrating Madrid Pirates players in a daze, Vukovich came over.

He did not follow his teammates to celebrate qualifying early, but greeted his former teammates on the court and comforted them.

The defeat in this game gave the team very little hope of advancing from the group stage to the knockout rounds.

That's not to say it's completely impossible. In theory, there are still some situations that would allow Vesseldorf to advance. But the prerequisite requirements in those cases are very stringent and there is no point in considering them.

Vukovic has only been away from the team for a year, and there are still many old faces he is familiar with in the team.

He went to greet them one by one and comfort them.

In the last game, after Madrid Pirates scored 8-0 at home, Vukovich also went to comfort his former teammates one by one.

Hu Lai scored six goals and he couldn't control it.

From the perspective of a Madrid Pirates player, all he can do is hug and comfort his former teammates.

This may also be an important reason why Vukovic was not booed by Vesseldorf fans in this game.

After Vukovich patted Nico Strauy on the shoulder, he walked towards his successor in the team, Tatsuya Sugiyama.

"You did well, Sugiyama," he said in German.

Sugiyama Tatsuya forced a smile: "Thank you, Milos."

"I'm not trying to comfort you. I'm serious. You played really well. Because you are not only attacking, but also defending very carefully." Vukovic knew that Sugiyama Tatsuya had misunderstood him. , and further explained. "As a midfielder, you need to be able to play a role on both offense and defense to help the team."

Sugiyama Tatsuya frowned, trying hard to think about Vukovich's words.

His defense during the game was actually out of necessity.

As a result, now that Vukovich said this, it seems that we should develop in this direction?

"You see, when I went to Madrid Pirates, I could only attack. But now I can also do some defensive work." Vukovich used his own personal experience to increase his persuasion. "And once you can defend in the game, you will find that the world becomes wider in front of you..."

After saying that, he did not continue to persuade Sugiyama Tatsuya to accept his theory, but patted him on the shoulder and said goodbye to him.

※※※

"What did you say to Tatsuya Sugiyama?"

After Vukovich returned to his teammates, Hu Lai asked him curiously.

"Ah, I gave him some of my suggestions. For example, I praised him for his good defense in the game..."

Vukovich conveyed what he just told Tatsuya Sugiyama to Hu Lai.

"You're quite caring..."

Vukovich smiled: "After all, he is the person who came to Vesseldorf to continue to lead this team forward after I left. He needs to become stronger so that Vesseldorf can continue in the future. Qualify for the Champions League.”

"I don't quite agree with your opinion, Milos." Hu Lai shook his head.

"Why? Do you think he should stay in the attacking midfielder position?"

Hu Lai continued to shake his head: "I'm not talking about how to play specifically. You are a midfielder and you must be more professional than me. I just think Sugiyama Tatsuya's problem may not be technical."

"Huh?" Vukovich was a little surprised.

Hulemo rubbed his chin and looked at Tatsuya Sugiyama among the Vesseldorf players: "I think Tatsuya Sugiyama's ability to withstand pressure is not very good. You see, his performance has not returned to normal since he lost to us in the last round. . His performance in the league was hazy. Today’s game was positive enough, but... if he was running around, wouldn’t it be better to be a blue-collar player? Did Schmidt arrange for him to start to let him defend? "

Vukovich wanted to complain: Who else would have suffered such a failure, I'm afraid it would be impossible to just ignore it, right?

But after thinking about it for a moment, he felt that what Hu Lai said made sense.

In fact, when the two sides met last time, Vukovich felt that Sugiyama Tatsuya's mentality collapsed a bit quickly - after the start of that game, Sugiyama Tatsuya was quite active and was also trying to find scoring opportunities.

But after Hu Lai scored one goal after another, Sugiyama Tatsuya's morale and performance visibly collapsed.

This shows that his heart is indeed not strong enough.

"I'm not polite, Milos. Sugiyama Tatsuya's ability is definitely better than Brother Huan, but his performance in tough battles is not as good as Brother Huan. He may not even be 60% of his true level. Play it out.”

Vukovich naturally knows who "Brother Huan" is - Saria's midfielder Zhang Qinghuan.

Zhang Qinghuan was indispensable for Saria's ability to reach the Copa del Rey final last season. His performance against Sporting Vizcaya was impressive.

So Vukovich nodded and agreed with Hu Lai's judgment.

But he also has a question:

"Why is this so?"

Hu Lai looked into the distance with deep eyes:

"Perhaps Brother Huan has suffered too much infamy... He used to be the number one genius in our Chinese football and was highly anticipated. As much as the Chinese fans liked him, they hated him later..."