Fox in the Penalty Area

1st

After Nigeria withstood the fierce offensive of the Chinese team in the first ten minutes of the game, it was finally able to launch some threatening counterattacks.

First, Ibrahim Opoku attacked the Chinese team's right center back Liu Yan on the left rib.

Before Cui Zexu fully returned to defense, Opoku singled out Liu Yan.

Facing Liu Yan's defense, he didn't even make a fake move. He just moved the football forward and started accelerating on the spot. When Liu Yan turned around, Opoku was almost a step away from him...

Fortunately, Wang Guangwei predicted the difficulties Liu Yan would encounter in advance and came to help defend in time, forcing Opoku to force a pass and lose his accuracy. The ball was cleared with a header from the Chinese team's left center back Cai Shuyi.

Nigeria's offense did not end there. They took control of the second point and reorganized their offense.

However, facing the Chinese players who were already in position, Nigeria could not organize any effective offensive, and then was intercepted by Ou Yangjin while going back and forth, losing the ball.

The Chinese team counterattacked.

The fight also failed, and Nigeria counterattacked.

Still relying on speed to rush hard, after stealing the ball, the Nigerian player directly made a long pass to find the forward teammate in front.

Of course, they don't pass it around casually.

This wave of Chinese team's counterattack came from the left wing where Chen Xingyi was. When Nigeria counterattacked, they consciously passed the football into the space behind Chen Xingyi, looking for another player who was fast and at the same time. Emmanuel Akua, whose technique is still more delicate.

Akua and Cai Shuyi started a "race" on the wing. In the end, Akua was the better and received the ball before Cai Shuyi.

At this time, Cai Shuyi had been pulled out of the penalty area and turned into a full-back.

So Xia Xiaoyu returned to the penalty area and temporarily played as a central defender.

At the same time, Chen Xingyi quickly returned to defense and worked with Cai Shuyi to limit Akua's breakthrough.

Facing the defense of two people, Akua was not afraid at all. He used the feints of his upper body and feet to change the rhythm, tricking Cai Shuyi into stealing the ball first. Then he used the outside instep of his right foot to gently knock the football to the side!

Immediately afterwards, he put the football out with his left foot, running diagonally towards the bottom line!

Fortunately, Chen Xingyi's starting speed was fast enough. When he saw Cai Shuyi being shaken, he immediately rushed forward, forcing Akua, and finally chased him back near the baseline, and then stretched out his foot to block Akua's cross. Bottom line.

"Damn, it's so dangerous!"

In front of the projection screen, Yan Yan let out a sigh of relief.

“Nigerian players’ individual combat capabilities are really strong.

Just like this one versus two, you can still get a corner kick..."

"How did such a team lose to Spain 1:3?" Tang Xiuyuan asked curiously.

"It's floating." Yan Yan said.

Tang Xiuyuan looked at her boyfriend again, and Chu Yifan nodded: "Yeah. Basically, the failure in the World Cup, if there is not a huge gap in strength, the loss is probably due to the wrong mentality. Nigeria should After the draw with Italy in the first game, and then watching us defeat Spain 3:0, I felt that the defending champions were nothing more than that. In the last game, they launched a fierce attack from the beginning, unlike now, they just fight back honestly..."

※※※

After Nigeria's corner kick was taken, their centre-back Kennedy Omero grabbed the point, but the ball flew high over the crossbar.

The referee gave a goal kick.

After being threatened by Nigeria's counterattacks, Jorge Dillon made adjustments.

He asked the Chinese team to slow down the tempo, and Chen Xingyi and Cui Zexu were withdrawn as full-backs.

Slowly dealing with Nigeria.

Is Nigeria going to fight back?

Then don't let them fight back.

Anyway, now that the Chinese team is one goal ahead, there is much more room for maneuver tactically.

If Nigeria is not in a hurry, then neither is the Chinese team.

At least there was no rush in the first half.

After Chen Xingyi and Cui Zexu took their positions, the Chinese team's overall formation also recovered.

The pace slows down significantly.

The game became less exciting and exciting than the first dozen minutes.

But Chinese fans don't care.

In the face of victory, it doesn't matter whether you play well or not!

As long as we can qualify in the group, it doesn't matter even if we resort to the "10-0-0 method" in the end and the scene is extremely embarrassing.

After the Chinese team shrank its formation and slowed down its pace.

Nigeria did not immediately press forward and attack.

Head coach Ebubelia Oladebo was worried that this was an attempt by the Chinese team to "lure the enemy deeper", so he did not make adjustments and continued to let the team play defensive counterattacks.

During this period, the pace of the game between the two teams slowed down. The football was mostly spinning back and forth in the midfield, making it difficult to threaten each other's goals. The game scene wasn’t pretty either.

This stalemate lasted until the 30th minute.

There were still fifteen minutes left before the end of the first half, and Nigeria had no way to continue their defensive counterattack. They wanted to use this time to strengthen their offense and see if they could score a goal.

It would be great if we could equalize the score in the first half.

Seeing this scene, Dillon laughed a little. He covered his mouth with his hand and said to Jin Tao, "Look, they really can't wait any longer."

After saying that, he stood up from his seat and walked to the sidelines.

Although they didn't say anything, the Chinese team players all knew what it meant.

Always be on the lookout for counterattack opportunities!

※※※

"After Nigeria's offensive started, the Chinese team's defensive pressure was a bit heavy. But this is also a good time for the Chinese team to counterattack. As long as we can tighten the fence, sooner or later we can find opportunities to counterattack..."

Facing the stubborn defense of the Chinese team, Nigeria was unable to counterattack, so they could only attack with force.

As Nigeria's center in this game, Zaide Okuye must hold the ball in the Chinese team's penalty area in order to create opportunities for his teammates.

However, this time he picked up the ball slightly to the left of the penalty area and was immediately intercepted head-on by two Chinese team players.

Cui Zexu and Liu Yan blocked Okuye head-on.

Seeing that there was no way to pose a threat, Okuye planned to turn around and protect the ball.

But as soon as he turned around, the third Chinese player, midfielder Ou Yangjin, appeared in front of him, stretched out his foot and poked the football away from his feet!

The football was pushed to Liu Yan's side, and he quickly passed the football forward to Xia Xiaoyu, who was retreating to receive the ball.

Xia Xiaoyu turned around and dribbled the ball forward, and saw Zhou Zijing pulling to the right in the frontcourt, while Hu Lai pulled to the left.

They pulled one to the left and one to the right, pulling both Nigeria's center backs to the wings.

In this way, there is a huge gap in the middle!

But Xia Xiaoyu did not pass the football directly to the center. It was true that there was space there, but the problem was that there were no Chinese team players there...

He passed the football to Zhou Zijing who was on the side.

Just as he was passing the ball, Chen Xingyi, who was originally supposed to be on the left, had moved to the middle and was moving forward into the space!

Because he was passing the ball while moving quickly, Xia Xiaoyu's pass was not very accurate and he passed the ball behind Zhou Zijing. So Zhou Zijing could only turn his back to the attacking direction to get the ball.

Just when he caught the ball, Chen Xingyi started to speed up!

Because Zhou Zijing was facing the Chinese team's half, he saw Chen Xingyi's forward penetration.

So he didn't try to turn around and dribble the ball by himself. Instead, he directly used his left foot to knock the football sideways into the middle space behind him!

"Zhou Zijing...beautiful diagonal plug! Chen Xingyi starts to speed up!"

Seeing the football being passed to Chen Xingyi, Nigerian center back Kennedy Omero, who was originally guarding Hule on the right, immediately turned around and pounced on Chen Xingyi.

As for the other Nigerian player who was originally chasing after Chen Xingyi, when he saw Omero coming to defend Chen Xingyi, he slowed down and gave up his position. He really couldn't catch up... He was from the Chinese team. He chased back all the way to his own penalty area and sprinted dozens of meters at high speed. He is not a speedy player, so he is really terrible.

Chen Xingyi caught up with the football and strode forward to play the ball.

When he took the second step, Omero finally came up to him and reached out to interfere with Chen Xingyi.

At this time, Chen Xingyi just ran to the line of the penalty area.

Faced with Omero's interference, he neither chose to continue dribbling nor shot, but used his right foot to distribute the football horizontally to the left!

There, the completely unguarded Hu Lai faced the rolling football, stretched out his bow and arrow, and spread his right leg with his left foot as support!

"Hulai!!"

Goalkeeper Artuloma attacked and pressed to the line of the small penalty area to block Hulay's shooting angle. He thought that Hulay would hit the far corner-most forwards would choose this.

But Hu Lai kicked a near corner!

In a hurry, he quickly got down to the ground and blocked the football with his hands.

He did encounter it, but it didn't change anything...

The football rushed away from his fingers, rolled past his feet, and finally hit the inside of the near post and bounced into the net!

"Good goal!! Hu Lai scored again!! He scored twice in this World Cup! His condition is really hot! Four goals, ranking first in the World Cup scorer list!"

"The Chinese team leads Nigeria 2:0! We have the upper hand in qualifying for the group!"

In fact, the Chinese team only needs to draw with Nigeria in this game to qualify.

Because the game between Spain and Italy, no matter what the result is, will not have a big impact on the Chinese team.

While the Chinese team tied, Italy won and they topped the group with seven points. Spain has three points, which is not as good as the Chinese team with four points.

Italy lost, and Spain qualified first in the group with six points. The Chinese team and Italy both had four points, but the Chinese team had the advantage in goal difference.

Italy and Spain tied, Italy qualified first in the group with five points, China and Spain both had four points, and had an advantage in goal difference, qualifying second in the group.

Therefore, Hu Lai scored twice, which is equivalent to double insurance for the Chinese team's group qualifying situation.

Even if Nigeria chases two goals in a row and equalizes the score, the Chinese team can still qualify on the basis of goal difference.

And Nigeria wants to chase two goals in a row. At present, how difficult is it?