Starting from playing as a defensive midfielder for Real Madrid

In the temporarily quiet Etihad Stadium, Li Ang excitedly jumped on Ibrahimovic's back and ran with him to the corner flag area of ​​Manchester City's half, raising one arm high and roaring in celebration!

Cross, who was following his teammates, was much calmer now. He even had time to touch his undeformed hairstyle.

But Li Ang would not let him continue to pretend to be cold. After grabbing Cross into the celebrating army, after a while, a good-looking handsome guy with messy hair mingled with his teammates, arms around each other.

"You could have turned around and advanced the ball just now. Fernandinho couldn't guard you. I watched all the games between Chelsea and Manchester City last season..."

After finally waiting for his teammates to calm down and hug each other and separate, Cross then arranged his hair and approached Li Ang to ask questions.

The exchange of questions between straight men was so direct that Li Ang didn't think much, patted Cross on the shoulder and gave his answer.

"Then I will definitely believe in you unconditionally. Don't I know your strength? Let's hit Manchester City hard and destroy their confidence as soon as possible!"

After Li Ang finished speaking, he trotted and accelerated back to his own half. He kept applauding on the way and loudly encouraged his teammates to keep up their efforts.

Cross looked at Li Ang's retreating back, his slightly narrowed eyes full of smiles, and then he quickened his pace to follow.

The first half of the game was almost half an hour old. Faced with the fact that their side had already conceded two goals, the confidence of Manchester City's players was somewhat dampened.

More importantly, in the past, Chelsea basically put a lot of effort into defensive counterattacks when facing them.

In terms of tactical layout, Chelsea's tactics are more utilitarian, and their style of play is also very rough and tough.

So in the past, when Manchester City failed to achieve a favorable result against Chelsea, Manchester City players would always comfort themselves with the following similar thoughts:

Of course Chelsea's utilitarian style of play will be more conducive to winning the game. As long as they take the lead first, they will immediately shrink their formation and fight back. Chelsea never dared to fight Manchester City openly to the end...

But today, Chelsea did what all Manchester City players and fans hoped for.

After taking the lead, they did not choose to recycle their formation to defend against counterattacks, but continued to fight against Manchester City!

Chelsea, who chose a radical style of play, was not equalized by Manchester City, but instead further expanded their lead.

This result is a slap in the face to all Manchester City players!

Guardiola stood on the sidelines and suppressed his dissatisfaction and doubts.

He also rejected the suggestion from his assistant to focus on defense for the time being and make tactical adjustments during the halftime break.

If Manchester City is leading by two goals at this moment, Guardiola may not mind using shrinking defense to disgust his old friend.

But now it is Manchester City that is lagging behind!

They were still stunned by Chelsea in front of tens of thousands of die-hard Manchester City fans at home!

In such a critical situation, even if Guardiola's on-the-spot adjustments were ordinary, he knew very well:

As long as he dares to ask the players on the field to shrink their formation and focus on defense, Manchester City's overall tactical tone will be completely messed up!

At this moment, Guardiola still showed his decisiveness and courage as the world's top coach.

"Being behind by two goals in our own home court is already a humiliating defeat! And if we don't think about attacking more actively when we are behind, then all Manchester City fans can spit on us after the game. !”

Guardiola made up his mind, and his decision was quickly communicated to every Manchester City player on the field by the assistant coach.

A desperate and tragic mood soon spread within the Manchester City team.

Li Ang quickly felt something was wrong with the momentum of the Manchester City players on the court.

It wasn't a desperate effort or a strong counterattack that made him feel uneasy.

It is a determination to defend your beliefs and fight to the end despite knowing that you may not be able to defeat your opponent.

This is what Li Ang saw in the eyes of Manchester City players.

The inexplicable anger of determination and unwillingness surprised Li Ang.

"If your team wants to fight for their lives, they will do this only when they have no retreat at the end. Are you going to fight for your lives before the first half is over?"

Li Ang asked directly at Aguero, who was about to kick off, and naturally received a blank look from the opponent.

After the game restarted, Manchester City also responded to Chelsea with their aggressive forward pressing attack.

Even though they have conceded two goals, they still will not retreat. They will still fight Chelsea on the offensive end until the end!

Manchester City's strong response can be regarded as catching Chelsea's players off guard.

After all, according to common sense, even if the Manchester City team does not fall into a period of tactical chaos at this time, the players' morale will not be too high.

As long as Chelsea makes another effort and continues to attack Manchester City, if they are lucky, it is not impossible to score another goal.

So the confident Chelsea players collided with Manchester City who had already decided to fight back, and the situation quickly took a turn!

Manchester City, which has no worries about defense at all and is completely devoted to the crazy attack, has forcibly raised the offensive rhythm by another gear!

Li Ang was the first to feel that something was wrong, but before he could remind his teammates, he could only passively fall into Manchester City's stormy offensive rhythm.

The joy in Mourinho's eyes gradually faded. He watched the situation on the court slowly reverse, and his eyes became serious.

"Jose, there are just over ten minutes left in the first half. Why don't we shrink our formation first, retain our two-goal lead, and wait until the intermission..."

At this moment, Holland, like the Manchester City assistant coach a few minutes ago, put forward the suggestion that his team should strengthen its defense first.

But after thinking for two minutes, Mourinho made exactly the same decision as Guardiola.

"Perhaps when we make the decision to switch to defense at this time, the players on the field will choose to understand, but I think it is more important now to give them firm trust and support, even if we lose the ball because of it!"

Mourinho's tone was unusually firm.

He was indeed mentally prepared to see his team lose the ball at the end of the first half.

Because Manchester City has clearly shown their offensive status.

Such an excellent game state was not achieved when they were in the lead and chasing the victory.

But it was inspired by the adversity of falling behind!

Mourinho has led his team in this kind of game too many times, so he knows very well how difficult it is to deal with Manchester City, which has now been beaten!

But he still has to make a desperate move on the offensive end.

As a result, Chelsea's players on the field quickly received tactical instructions from their own coaching staff.

"Don't shrink the formation, go up! We must continue to work hard on the offensive end!!!"

Upon seeing this, Li Ang was the first to stand up and respond to Mourinho's call.

Although Chelsea devotes more energy to counter-attacking offense, Li Ang has more free tactical power.

So he spared no effort and continued to run actively between the two halves!

When he exerted his strength on the defensive end, Manchester City's dominant offensive rhythm was still the mainstream development of the situation on the field at this moment.

But it has become much more difficult for Manchester City to deliver the ball from outside Chelsea's defensive third zone to Chelsea's defensive hinterland!

The most important point is Li Ang's resolute defensive interference with Fabregas.

Rakitic is a very good midfielder, but he obviously cannot compare with Cesc Fabregas in terms of passing threats.

In desperation, David Silva could only actively retreat again and again to get and play the ball.

In this way, he can try to maintain the ability of Manchester City's midfielder to deliver threatening passes forward after Fabregas stalls.

After Li Ang successfully interfered with Fabregas' performance, he also cooperated with his teammates to launch rapid attacks against Manchester City's hinterland.

In the 37th minute of the first half, Manchester City received a through ball from Silva and overtook Terry with a threatening kick from Aguero.

The next second, Cech, who had confiscated Aguero's shot, quickly threw the ball, and then Li Ang, who received the ball, launched a rapid advance!

Unfortunately, Hazard, who finally received Li Ang's pass, was alone this time.

Instead of passing the ball to De Bruyne who was advancing from behind, he chose to cut inside and force a kick!

Valdez is quite sure of saving this completely traceable shot.

After firmly saving Hazard's shot, he also quickly threw the football hand to the side.

Manchester City and Chelsea spent the last few minutes of the first half in this crazy acceleration of each other.

At the end of the first half, Manchester City actually fired nine shots, five of which were on target, which was better than Chelsea's eight shots and four of which were on target.

In terms of ball possession rate, Manchester City has a slight lead with 53% of the ball possession data.

Chelsea mainly lost control of the rhythm of the game in the last ten minutes of the first half, so in the end, Manchester City overtook possession.

However, Mourinho was very satisfied with the results achieved by his players in the first half.

Looking at the score that did not change again in the end, Mourinho breathed a sigh of relief.

Players from both teams took the time to rehydrate and regain their strength in the short fifteen minutes.

Mourinho and Guardiola also made their last major tactical adjustments in this game.

At the beginning of the second half of the game, commentators and fans from various countries were surprised to find that Manchester City actually made substitution adjustments first!

In the first half, Navas had a speed advantage, but his performance was mediocre under the strong confrontation rhythm and was replaced by Guardiola.

Replacing him on the field is "Calabash Baby" Villa, who has not started a game since moving to Manchester City this season!

However, Manchester City did not directly change to play 442, but continued to play 433. Aguero gave up the center position and went to the left wing.

Guardiola's substitution adjustment completely exceeded Mourinho's prediction.

If it were Villa around 2010, Mourinho would naturally give him the most important tactical focus.

But now Villa is no longer at his peak.

He played very well at Atletico Madrid last season, but in the Premier League, at least in his first few substitute appearances, Villa's ability to seize opportunities appeared to be average.

Commentators from various countries were also speculating at this moment, inferring whether Guardiola simply wanted to change the offensive combination to try the effect.

Otherwise, it is really difficult to explain such a substitution. Even if Navas performed poorly in the first half, he is still younger and his breakthrough power will be greater.

Substitute Villa and let Aguero pass the ball to him?

This kind of tactical thinking is really...

Just when the neutral fans and commentators were puzzled, Villa at the top of the Chelsea penalty area just received Silva's inward cross.

Seeing Villa touch the ball for the first time after coming on as a substitute, Manchester City fans also subconsciously looked forward to it.

But Villa did not make any wonderful passing moves with the ball. Instead, he firmly held the ball with his back and quickly passed the football back to Cesc Fabregas who came up.

Under Terry's defensive interference, Villa's return pass did not make a deformation error.

Although he is not tall, his stocky figure is enough to withstand the interference and confrontation of defenders.

But his reasonable choice of return pass this time made the Manchester City fans at the scene suddenly feel anxious.

Today's Manchester City fans don't want any tactical fulcrum, they want a more reliable scorer!

Even some Manchester City fans have begun to question Guardiola's choice to sell Dzeko in the summer window.

After all, if you need a tactical fulcrum, no matter how you look at it, Dzeko is a more suitable candidate than the aging Villa!

After serving as a fulcrum twice in a row, protecting the ball and successfully transferring the ball, almost all neutral fans had no expectations for Villa.

But off the field, Guardiola was very satisfied with Villa's way of successfully helping the team to connect and conduct the ball in front of Chelsea's penalty area.

In the 58th minute of the second half, Villa took the initiative to retreat and got close to Silva, who was being guarded by Matic.

The moment he received the pass from Silva, Villa changed his previous mode of protecting the ball and directly took the ball and turned around smoothly, facing Chelsea's penalty area defense line!

Villa, who suddenly accelerated, instantly attracted the defensive attention of Thiago Silva!

Terry tacitly chose to retreat, but his retreat prevented Aguero from being in an offside position!

Villa sent his first forward pass after coming on the field.

And Aguero, who had already rushed behind Thiago Silva, also smoothly connected the shooting action!

Between the offload and the lead, Terry's defense seemed to be half a beat too slow after all!

Aguero calmly pushed the shot into the near corner of the goal. Cech quickly went to the ground to save, but his reaction was no longer as good as that of himself at his peak!

The ball crossed the Chelsea goal line and crashed into the net.

Villa, who had attracted the attention of countless fans at this moment, only calmly waved his right fist in a small way, then smiled and high-fived and hugged Cesc Fabregas who came up to him.

"Guardiola used Villa to liberate Aguero! Even though he is no longer at his peak, Villa can still use his rich game experience to help the team open up the situation!

1-2! Manchester City got a goal back in the second half and they still have a chance! "

Sky Sports commentators excitedly explained in the studio.

And Li Ang looked at the stands of the Etihad Stadium that had been holding back for most of the game and finally celebrated wildly at this moment.

But an idea suddenly came to my mind.

"The confrontation between passing and controlling football and crazy running and pressing football should officially begin today..."