Legend of Green: Rise of the Red Rebels

On 15 February 2018, the first round of the knockout rounds of the Europa League officially began, FC United faced Lyon, who had won seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles, at the Olympic Park stadium.

The feud between English and French football has been going on for a long time, and after the Hundred Years' War, there has been considerable hatred between the two countries, and in the field of football, this kind of historical rivalry between countries with grievances will always attract more attention.

The French media firmly believe that Lyon can definitely beat the English team to advance to the next round, and the English side also believes that our third team in the league is not afraid of any team, and can definitely beat Lyon and advance to the last 16 of the Europa League.

The outside media publicized the match, the two managers were very harmonious when shaking hands before the game, Genesio served as the head coach of Beijing Guoan in the future 2019, Lu Wei also participated in some activities held by Guoan as a representative of the financial circle, and also dealt with Genesio.

Seeing acquaintances in his previous life, Lu Wei also rarely remembered that he had a career in Beijing.

Lu Wei and Genesio could still talk and laugh before the game, but after the whistle blew, the two immediately plunged into the game.

FC United launched a tenacious defense in the midfield, this game, Lu Wei sent a midfield combination of Rice, Matuidi and McGim, using running to defend Lyon's midfielders, although Avar is a winger, but he is actually still active in the middle, because of the dominant number of midfielders, so Lyon gradually gained the upper hand in ball control.

Lyon's midfielders Fikier, Avar and Ndombele are all players with strong attacking ability, but Rice and others defended the midfield very tightly, and after a trial to open a breakthrough from the middle, Lyon can only organize the attack from the wing.

Avar came to the middle, Lyon's wing attack can only rely on loan winger Traore, but Traore's side is on the side, but FC United's iron-blooded captain Robertson, Traore has tried several times in a row but failed, and scribbled crosses were also cleared by Maguire.

Mariano is not a bad season, being sold by Real Madrid to Lyon is not a abandonment of Real Madrid, but sent out for training, just like Morata three years ago, this season has scored 14 goals in Ligue 1, second only to Edinson Cavani and Neymar in the top scorers, as well as his teammate Fekier, more goals than the talented teenager Kylian Mbappe, Real Madrid senior management is already considering whether to activate his buyback clause to bring back the Bernabeu.

But Mariano doesn't have much individual scoring ability, and when crosses and penetrations from the centre can't get the ball to his feet, Lyon's attack is a third of nothing, and the other third is still sitting on the bench, so Lyon's attacking pressure is now all on their midfield core Fekier.

Fikir became the core of Lyon's midfield during Gurcuff's injury, scoring 13 goals and providing 12 assists in 34 league appearances, making him the league's best rookie and named to the Team of the Season.

However, he did not escape the curse of injuries suffered by the Lyon midfielder during his career upswing, rupturing the cruciate ligament in his right knee in a friendly against Portugal in September 2015, not only missing almost the entire 15-16 season, but also missing the European Championship, although he did not follow in the footsteps of his two predecessors after returning from injury, but the knee injury has been with him throughout his career.

Lu Wei's evaluation of him was "a low-end version of Sneijder", and he soon made a performance worthy of this evaluation.

Fekir took the ball in the middle and created space for himself with a pull and a collar, observed the position of his teammates, and passed diagonally behind Tavernier, Lyon left-back Maral received the ball and crossed it backwards to Avar, who then gave it to Fekiel, who kept the ball and shot directly to test Edouard's reaction.

Fekir is among the top three in Ligue 1 in terms of offensive ability and organizational ability with the ball, and not only has a strong sense of the overall situation, accurate passing, and even strong long-range shooting, but also really caused a lot of trouble to FC United's backline for a while.

But trouble is just trouble after all, and it is useless that no threat can be converted into goals.

In the 39th minute, the balance was finally broken, and it was not the home team Lyon who took the lead, but FC United.

Matuidi's forward thrust caught the attention of Ndombele and Tusart, Saint-Maximin easily ran from the left to the middle of the void, while Giroud ran diagonally to the left to create space for his teammates, and for a while, all the Lyon defenders were brought by the French striker to relax the defense against Saint-Maximin.

When Saint-Maximin stopped the ball in the box, Morel reacted quickly to block it, but it still failed to prevent the goal.

This goal is undoubtedly a blow to Lyon, after all, they are a French team, even if football information is now very developed, but some information is still not mastered.

They focused too much on the more familiar two French national team members, Matuidi and Olivier Giroud, and ignored Saint-Maximin, who were also less prominent in the French national youth team, and Lu Wei once again used the information gap to give the team the lead.

After scoring the goal, the game began to enter the rhythm of FC United.

Entering the first season of the Premier League, FC United has not given up its own attacking style of play, but this year the frequency of defensive counterattacks is much higher than before, and in the process of constantly playing against strong teams, it has also been honing its defensive skills.

Just ask Pep Guardiola how scary it can be when FC United defend at full strength.

In the second half, Lu Wei replaced Baird and Tete to strengthen the defense, and it was already a very good result to return home with a one-goal lead over two legs.

Memphis. Depay also came on in the second half to try to equalize for his team, but as soon as he came on, he was hit by a sticky bean bag, Kenny. Tter's task on the pitch was to keep an eye on Depay, and in the original world, if there was no FC United involved, Flander. Mendy and Tette will be Lyon's players this season, but now the two full-backs on the left and right are new to FC United and the absolute regulars in Strasbourg.

Depay's injury has not fully recovered and his game condition has not yet reached 100%, and even if he has the heart, he is unable to return to the sky, and slumps on the grass of the Olympic Park stadium to accept the fate of defeat.