Starting from playing as a defensive midfielder for Real Madrid

At Wembley Stadium in the afternoon, a fine yellow halo of sunlight was cast from the roof.

Today is a good weather day for watching football, and in addition to supporters of Chelsea and Manchester City, there are also a large number of tourists gathered in the stands of Wembley Stadium today.

They come from all over the world and want to take this opportunity to see the new Champions League champion.

There is no doubt that Chelsea is the absolute protagonist and focus in today's Community Shield match.

Before the game, a large number of European sports media were more optimistic about Chelsea winning their fifth championship trophy this year!

After all, Chelsea has won three cup titles at this stadium in the past nearly half a season.

As long as they have reached the cup final, they have never missed a match.

Today's Wembley Stadium is also ridiculed by many Premier League fans as Chelsea's "lucky stadium".

Regardless of whether you look at the winning percentage of the cup final or the record between Chelsea and Manchester City in the past two seasons.

Reporters and fans have no reason not to believe that Chelsea will continue to be the final winner.

Manchester City still plays the role of a challenger.

Even if they have strengthened this summer window, they have further approached Chelsea in terms of team value.

But before they truly defeated Chelsea and regained their dominance in the Premier League, they were always the weaker side in the field of public opinion.

Before the game officially started, the new players who joined Manchester City - whether they were starting or sitting on the bench - were almost all looking at Li Ang who was wearing the captain's armband for the first time.

Li Ang was actually observing them.

Sterling, Gundogan, Bravo, Sane, Otamendi...

There are players he has played against before, as well as players he has met for the first time on the playing field.

But without exception, he is very "familiar" with these new Manchester City players.

After taking over Manchester City for two seasons, Guardiola has taken his biggest step in recruiting and building the team.

This Manchester City is also very different from last season.

Li Ang is familiar with these players, but his teammates are not very familiar with them.

After getting Manchester City's starting 11-man roster before the game, Mourinho even wondered in the locker room whether Guardiola wanted to give up the Community Shield.

After all, in terms of starting arrangements, Guardiola boldly used many new players today.

In comparison, Mourinho only made adjustments to two starting personnel on the forward and defensive lines.

For the sake of the stability of the team's performance, he did not dare to let Oblak start directly in the Community Shield match, and instead reused Cech.

Guardiola had made trial and error before, and Valdes failed to achieve the same effect as before in Barcelona. Now he has hired Bravo, a ball-playing goalkeeper from La Liga.

Just buy it and use it, Joe Hart was once again put on the bench by Guardiola.

Let’s not talk about whether the substitution is effective or not. Guardiola is really brave anyway!

Mourinho shook his head as soon as he saw Manchester City's starting 11-man roster.

He didn't expect that his old friend would start recuperating so early in the new season.

At this time, the live broadcast commentators from various countries are also looking forward to introducing the new players in the Manchester City first team to the fans and viewers.

Although he is very bold in employing personnel today, Guardiola still has not directly reproduced the most comfortable 433 formation he used in Barcelona.

Facing Chelsea, who were at their peak, Guardiola still adopted a 4231 starting formation that focused on midfield control.

The starting goalkeeper is Bravo.

Kolarov, Otamendi, Kompany and Jesus Navas form Manchester City's new defense.

In the midfield, Fernandinho and Gundogan formed a double defensive midfielder, Cesc Fabregas served as the attacking midfielder, and Sterling and Silva were placed on his left and right sides.

Aguero suddenly became the starting center.

Chelsea has changed its offensive and defensive posture, and today it took the initiative to adopt a 433 starting formation.

The starting goalkeeper is still the old goalkeeper Petr Cech.

In the defense, Bertrand, Maguire, Thiago Silva and Azpilicueta are lined up from left to right.

In the midfield, Matic played deep, while Kroos and Li Ang served as double central midfielders.

Left winger Hazard, center Suarez, and right winger De Bruyne.

Chelsea's current starting lineup has not changed much, but there are too many old faces on the bench.

Now leading the bench are Salah and Karas, two players who were considered younger brothers in the team last season.

The rest of the young players, such as Oblak, Trippier, Gnabry and Zouma, are even stranger to fans who follow Chelsea.

Many British media have already published articles predicting that Chelsea's performance in multi-line operations will decline significantly in the new season.

But on the main battlefields of the Premier League and Champions League, Chelsea is still very competitive with its still strong main lineup.

This Community Shield match may not be particularly important to Chelsea's players and Mourinho.

But in the eyes of the outside media, this is the first important test Chelsea faces in the new season.

Countless pairs of scrutinizing eyes are on the Chelsea team at this moment, trying to find evidence of their decline in strength in the new season.

After Li Ang completed the side selection on behalf of the team, he shook hands with Kompany and the referee team again, handed the exchanged team flags to the staff on the sideline, and then trotted towards his own half.

As the captain of the team for the first time on the court, his expression couldn't help but become more serious.

However, he had made sufficient preparations before the game, and at this moment he was successfully leading his teammates on the court to complete the last round of cheering before the game.

Terry was not selected for the 18-man roster for the Community Shield due to calf discomfort caused by physical training before the game.

At this moment, he and Abramovich and other Chelsea management were sitting in the box. Seeing that Li Ang had completed his previous work well, he smiled and nodded.

Now he and Lampard are not on the court, but he has great trust in Li Ang's leadership.

He also believes that Li Ang can well assume the responsibility of captain on the field.

This is not because of any intuition, but because Li Ang has used his on-field performance and mental toughness to win the recognition of the veterans in the Chelsea team in the past two seasons.

Just as Mourinho praised Li Ang in previous interviews with the media:

"He is a natural leader, and he has proven this on the court. As long as the team needs him, as long as his teammates need him, he will be the most trustworthy player on the court..."

At this moment, other Chelsea players on the field have absolute trust in Li Ang.

When the referee blew the whistle to start the game, Li Ang, who received the return pass from his teammates, immediately made a tactical gesture to signal his teammates to start their formation.

Chelsea's midfielder also launched a fierce battle for the ball around Li Ang and Manchester City.

Guardiola's team is still growing and evolving.

They failed to win any direct talks with Chelsea last season, but there is no doubt that they have learned enough lessons from their failures.

Just as Chelsea will steal some practical tactical routines from Manchester City from time to time.

Today's Manchester City is obviously much tougher in midfield confrontation than last season.

Li Ang was very surprised when he felt this.

Guardiola's team no longer pursues technology as much as before.

In other words, Guardiola has now been awakened by the wave of crazy running tactics, and he has also begun to pay attention to physical confrontation and the use of space.

Judging from the team's overall confrontation ability, Manchester City is still not Chelsea's opponent at the same level.

But football has never been a sport about which team's players are stronger and can run better.

There are many factors that affect victory or defeat, such as the design of the technical and tactical framework, the restraint ability in tactical selection, the gap in players' mental strength, etc.

Manchester City is still essentially a technical offensive team.

Chelsea have encountered too many teams like this in the past two seasons, and it will not be too difficult to defeat them.

But when such a team has the courage and confidence to dare to show its sword to its opponents in confrontation, and can also play "barbaric" football that disrupts the rhythm of the opponent's organization, they become a big trouble!

"Hey! It's interesting... We are educated hooligans. Now Manchester City wants to become hooligans and become educated people. We really have different paths to achieve the same goal!"

Li Ang complained in his heart.

It seems that after being disgusted by Lao Mu Zheng's backhand for many years, Guardi has thought it through and wants to stop being a human being!

With skills on the forehand and confrontation on the backhand, coupled with abundant physical fitness and tenacious team spirit, Manchester City may not be able to walk the same path that Chelsea has gone through!

The difference may be that Chelsea advocates confrontation and running more, while Manchester City advocates technical containment.

If they are on the right track, Manchester City will be able to catch up and compete with Chelsea sooner or later.

It can only be said that Guashuai's ability to research tactics and self-adjust is still strong!

It's a pity...

"Without Messi and De Bruyne, no matter how good your tactical ideas are, it will be difficult to find a strong enough frontcourt core to support this strategy and compete with us!"

Li Ang felt a little sorry for Guardiola from the bottom of his heart.

It is difficult for Manchester City to find a strong core that can suit their tactics in today's football world.

In the Chelsea team that dominates the Premier League, his little lion has not stopped transforming yet. He is still evolving and getting stronger!

Manchester City's crazy running and high-pressing style at the beginning made many neutral fans watching the game shine.

Chelsea and Manchester City also fought hard for the ball in the first 10 minutes of the game.

It seems that the two teams will not decide the final midfield winner in a short time.

But just after Li Ang almost figured out the intensity of Manchester City's midfielder fighting now.

He changed from his previous style of sitting steadily in the middle and cooperating with Cross's organization style when taking the ball, and suddenly began to try to push forward with the ball!

This is nothing like Li Ang's previous style of play.

In the past, his ability to push forward with the ball was strong, but he basically took advantage of opportunities in transition between offense and defense to dribble the ball.

Taking advantage of the critical moment when the opponent was still attacking a second ago and the defense was unstable, his ability to advance quickly with the ball can often catch the opponent off guard.

He still rarely makes such an attempt to rush forward against the opponent's complete defense line.

But this is exactly what Li Ang did at this moment!

Manchester City's midfield defense was very complete. Seeing Li Ang burst over with the ball, Fabregas directly told Fernandinho and Gundogan not to move lightly.

He and Silva, who retreated to help defend, double-teamed first.

According to Fabregas's understanding of Li Ang, in this case Li Ang can only try to protect the ball. If that doesn't work, he will immediately choose to distribute the ball or even pass it back.

It is too difficult to steal the ball from Li Ang and counterattack. After all, Li Ang is famous in football for his stability.

Fabregas was sure of his judgment, but just when he made up his mind to get close to Li Ang and interfere with his dribbling.

However, Li Ang broke through Xiaofa's defense with a smart crotch-piercing move that was completely inconsistent with Xiaofa's inherent impression of him!

At this moment, Silva had not had time to complete the closed defense against Li Ang with Xiaofa. Seeing that Xiaofa was turned into a "wooden stake", Silva was also anxious and quickly returned to the defense!

Fabregas subconsciously kept up with Silva's return to defense.

But in his heart, he was still shocked by the crotch penetration move that Li Ang confidently broke through him just now!

"Could this be an extraordinary move performed by Li Ang?! Impossible! Absolutely impossible!!!"

Not to mention that Xiaofa was still confused at this moment, the countless fans in front of the TV were also wide-eyed at this moment, looking suspiciously at Li Ang who was taking the ball and advancing quickly in the live broadcast footage.

After all, Li Ang has never been a midfielder known for breakthroughs.

Even though his dribbling ability has indeed improved a lot compared to when he debuted in La Liga, and his ball control level is also quite good, he has never shown off his skills!

Many fans in front of the TV were still wondering whether Li Ang's extraordinary agility just now was due to bad luck.

But the tens of thousands of Chelsea fans at Wembley and the lively audience were screaming and cheering for Li Ang's wonderful performance!

After increasing the speed, Li Ang's dribbling still had no stumbling. On the contrary, the football seemed to be connected to his feet at this time, which made his ball control and advancement look quite smooth.

Li Ang didn't just want to test the upper limit of his dribbling ability on a whim.

It's because now his dribbling and ball-controlling abilities have indeed grown to a level that allows him to take the initiative to tear apart the opponent's defense!

After last season's game and the first round of additional training in the offseason, his dribbling ability value has reached 89.

After that, he took stock of his season points income and found that he had exceeded 3,600 points, which was enough to lock in the ability value and open three diamond-level talent fragment cards.

So he extracted three diamond-level talent fragment cards for bounce, balance and ball control based on his current shortcomings.

Among them, he got the peak ability value of "Ice Prince" Bergkamp for balance, and he got the peak ability value of Ronaldinho for ball control. The upper limit of the talent value of both is 98!

Although his additional training time during the offseason this year was not very long, he also took the time to improve his abilities during pre-season training.

So now his ball control ability value has also successfully increased by two points, and has also reached the threshold of 89!

In terms of balance attributes, after he raised the upper limit of his talent ability value, his growth rate was very fast.

Maybe this is related to the fact that he has been focusing on this aspect of training before.

After returning from training in the United States, his balance ability value successfully exceeded the 90 mark from 87 at the end of last season.

In other words, the three most important physical and technical attributes related to his ability to dribble and break through threats have now risen to 89, 89 and 90 ability values ​​respectively!

This balanced and first-class dribbling threat ability value is combined with his speed of 89 and acceleration of 91.

At this moment, he considers himself to be one of the first-class and top goalkeeper attackers in today's football world. Is there any big problem?

Li Ang feels that he has the ability to try more active long-distance runs on the field, and does not necessarily have to seize counterattack opportunities.

Mourinho has discovered Li Ang's great progress in previous training and encouraged him to make more such attempts.

Now Li Ang is using Manchester City as his test stone.

Li Ang's ability to change his style of painting can be regarded as Mourinho's trump card in tactical arrangements today!

Guardiola looked at Li Ang rushing towards Manchester City's midfield defense, and for some reason, his heart suddenly beat violently.

His reason told him that Li Ang was playing with fire and he didn't need to worry too much.

But the experience of losing too many games in the past told him that Li Ang, this bastard, would definitely have to deal with things again today!

Suddenly standing up from the coaching bench, Guardiola stared at the two midfielders in his backcourt, hoping that they could gain some energy and not give Li Ang a chance to continue to advance!

Fernandinho was not ambiguous, and Gundogan and Gundogan pressed towards Li Ang one after another!

They learned their lesson this time and did not double-team Li Ang from the left and right sides, fearing that Li Ang would suddenly speed up the ball again.

It would be much safer to force Li Ang to the sideline one after the other.

No matter who is broken through by Li Ang first, the other one of them will be able to make up the defense immediately.

And there is Kolarov behind them. No matter how you look at it, the advantage in this offensive and defensive battle is on their side!

"superior!"

Fernandinho looked at Li Ang who took the initiative to slow down and seemed to really want to compete with the two of them. He was also a little annoyed in his heart. He gritted his teeth and gave Gundogan a defensive order!

At this moment, Li Ang had already got the ball near the sideline. Seeing Gundogan being the first to pounce and intercept, he didn't panic at all.

He didn't speed up and continue to hit the bottom, nor did he protect the ball and wait for his teammates to get around him. Instead, he chose to lead the ball decisively and cut inside!

The moment he led the ball with his left foot and walked inside, his entire body was very flexible and completed the deflection of his center of gravity!

He doesn't look like a right-footed player at all!

Fernandinho and Gundogan maintained a relatively safe distance between them, but at this moment this small space was taken advantage of by Li Ang.

Football and most of Li Ang's body had already penetrated the right sideline of Manchester City's penalty area.

Gundogan turned around slowly and was no longer able to restrict Li Ang's defense at this moment. However, Fernandinho had quick eyesight and quick hands to get up and fight against Li Ang!

Li Ang's physical advantage was fully revealed at this time, and he had already penetrated into Manchester City's penalty area, and Fernandinho did not dare to make any tactical fouls against him!

The confrontation between the two seemed to be one-sided, and when Kolarov saw this, he quickly joined the chaotic battle.

At this time, Li Ang spiked the ball with his left foot at low speed and went outside again.

Kolarov hurriedly shifted his focus to prevent Li Ang's pass from the bottom.

But in the next moment, Li Ang faked the dunk!

With his fast pace and familiar dribbling rhythm, he dunked past Kolarov and Fernandinho, who was pressing towards him again, almost instantly!

The Chelsea fans who witnessed Li Ang overpowering several Manchester City defenders at Wembley were extremely excited at this moment!

At this time, after winning enough space for himself, Li Ang calmly hit a left-footed shot!

Bravo stood in the middle of the goal, ready to block the far corner at any time, but Li Ang's shot hit the lower corner of the Manchester City goal in an unusual way!

At the moment when the football was spinning and hitting the net, Li Ang also made a fist with his right hand and roared passionately towards the bottom line!

What greeted him at this moment was the equally crazy and passionate cheers of the fans at the scene!

Guardiola felt dizzy!

Li Ang's run and goal was very exciting!

But what worries Guardiola even more is the way Li Ang cuts past people on the right wing and then shoots into the near corner of the goal. It is so similar to Messi a few years ago!

Even at a certain moment, Guardiola thought he really saw an "enlarged version" of Messi scoring goals at Wembley Stadium!

Countless neutral fans in front of the TV were either excited and exclaiming at this moment, or watching the live broadcast in silence.

They never expected that in this Community Shield match, they would also see Li Ang, whose dribbling and shooting skills had been greatly improved!

In the past, Li Ang continued to improve his arsenal when he was fixed in the defensive midfielder position, but his growth path at that time was still relatively normal.

Learn organization, improve long and short passing skills, and gradually develop a certain ability to assist from behind.

But now that Li Ang can pass several people and score goals like a winger, many fans can't accept it!

Because they have never seen such an outrageous growth talent player before!

At this moment, Li Ang, who was celebrating with his teammates in the live broadcast and spreading his hands in front of the camera, seemed to be responding to these fans.

"Don't be surprised, because I will continue to grow! I will become stronger!"