Super Marshal

As soon as the winter break ended, Chinatown was struggling again and again.

The first game is the first leg of the Copa del Rey knockout round of 16, a guest at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.

Mourinho obviously does not take Chinatown too seriously. In the first game of the winter break, he did not use all the main players, including Diego Costa and Ozil. Played as a semi-substitute.

But facing the powerful Galacticos, Pochettino's team took the initiative and performed very bravely. Carvajal scored a goal in the 10th minute of the first half and Miranda scored in the 29th minute. Take advantage of the corner kick to score another victory.

With a 2-0 lead, Chinatown seemed to see the dawn of victory.

But Mourinho repented at halftime, replaced three main players in one breath, launched a fierce attack on the Chinatown team, and in the 68th, 70th and 78th minutes, consecutively They pulled back three goals and finally narrowly defeated Chinatown 3-2 at the Bernabeu Stadium.

After a tough match against Real Madrid, Chinatown drew with Atletico Madrid 0-0 at home in the weekend league. In this game, the whole game was passive and they stuck to the goal. Players such as De Gea, Miranda and Godin performed very bravely.

Pochettino retained his strength in the league and exerted his strength in the second round of the Copa del Rey. He staged an offensive and defensive duel with Mourinho. Neither side was able to score the other's goal throughout the game.

Until the end of the game, after receiving Alba's pass from the left, Hazard forced his way into the penalty area and was pulled down from behind by Arbeloa. The Real Madrid right back received the second yellow card of the game and was The referee sent off a red card, and Hazard personally took the penalty kick and scored a goal for Chinatown.

The total score was three to three, but Chinatown eliminated Real Madrid on away goals.

Mourinho was furious after the game over Arbeloa's second yellow card, angrily criticized the referee's favoritism and believed that Hazard was diving. However, whether it was the media or the TV station, it could be clearly seen through the video that Hazard was diving. Veloa did pull down Hazard from behind, otherwise the Belgian would have formed a one-man attack.

The elimination of the star-studded Real Madrid has brought Chinatown once again into the sight of fans around the world. Especially the tenacious momentum shown by Real Madrid in the two games is even more impressive.

But in the 19th round of La Liga at the weekend, although Chinatown equalized the score with a goal scored by Pellet in the 88th minute, they eventually conceded in stoppage time and lost 1-2 away. Sporting Gijon.

With one draw and one loss in the two rounds, Chinatown's league ranking dropped rapidly to tenth in La Liga. The excitement brought by promotion to the Copa del Rey also quickly dissipated.

In the middle of the week, the first leg of the Copa del Rey quarter-finals was ushered in. Chinatown relied on Aubameyang's goal to draw Emery's Valencia 1-1 away from home, and a week later, they won 2-0 at home. Zero defeated the Bat Legion, Rakitic and Herrera both scored.

In an interview with the media after the game, Emery said with regret that Chinatown performed better than Valencia in these two games, and promotion was a matter of course.

However, in the middle of the two cup matches, Chinatown lost to Barcelona 1-4 at Camp Nou.

Barcelona took the lead in the 13th minute with Puyol's goal, but Chinatown's Aubameyang quickly equalized the score. But in the second half, Messi came up short on the 54th, 60th and 63rd. In just ten minutes, he completely cheated and performed a hat trick, exceeding the score again.

In the end, Chinatown lost 1-4 away from home.

A double defeat by Barcelona. The morale in Chinatown was low, and the league ranking dropped to eleventh place again.

As a result, the media and fans began to attack Pochettino one after another, believing that Chinatown should not insist on two-front operations and should concentrate on playing well in the league instead of being distracted by cup competitions, especially the Copa del Rey.

However, the club's general manager Armando Marcos and technical director Cantarero came forward again and publicly supported Pochettino's decision, saying that the club would not change its confidence in Pochettino because of temporary ups and downs in performance.

After eliminating Valencia in the Copa del Rey, Chinatown quickly defeated Sevilla 2-1 at home in the weekend league, with Rakitic and Aubameyang scoring goals.

With a victory, Chinatown's league ranking jumped to eighth place.

But what is even more exciting for fans is that three days after defeating Sevilla, Pochettino's team welcomed Bielsa's Athletic Bilbao at home in the first leg of the Copa del Rey semi-finals.

Both sides are known for their high-position pressing, and the game was very fierce. Chinatown took advantage of their home court to firmly suppress Athletic Bilbao, and Rakitic scored a goal in the first half with Hazard assisting.

In the second half, after changing sides and fighting again, Bielsa replaced two players in one breath in order to counterattack. However, Chinatown relied on Pellet's assist and Aubameyang scored another victory. In the end, Chinatown secured the victory 2-0 at home. One foot in the Copa del Rey final.

But the price of the tough battle against Athletic Bilbao was that the team had to rotate over the weekend and lost to Granada 1-2 away from home. Fortunately, the ranking remained unchanged. However, most media expressed concern about Pochettino's insistence on playing in cup competitions. Even the fans still don’t understand. Shouldn’t we try our best to keep the league first?

In the second round of the semi-finals, Chinatown tied Athletic Bilbao 2-2 away, eliminated Bielsa's team with a total score of 4-3, and successfully advanced to the King's Cup final.

This is also the first time in the history of Chinatown to advance to the King's Cup final.

And this time the opponent is Guardiola's Barcelona.

After advancing to the King's Cup final, the team's morale was boosted. In the subsequent match against Real Mallorca, Caparros' team sneaked a goal in the fourth minute, but Pochettino, sitting at home, quickly adjusted the situation, and Pelle assisted Aubameyang to equalize the score.

In the 55th minute of the second half, Illarramendi scored a long shot to overtake the score for Chinatown, and then striker Pelle scored a goal, and finally reversed Real Mallorca 3-1, but the league ranking remained unchanged.

A week later, Pochettino made a rotation for the Champions League in the middle of the week. Chinatown lost 0-1 to Athletic Bilbao away. Bielsa's team avenged the elimination from the King's Cup at home and stepped on Chinatown's league ranking to ninth place.

Unexpectedly, on Wednesday at the Olympic Park Stadium in Lyon, Chinatown lost the ball just eight minutes after the start. Young player Lacazette opened the scoring for Lyon, and the French Ligue 1 powerhouse scored with the first shot.

After that, Chinatown was completely trapped in Lyon's iron wall.

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Pochettino stood in front of the visiting team's coaching bench at the Olympic Park Stadium, his suit open, his hands on his waist, revealing a white shirt, but his face full of stubble made him look very rough.

He hasn't taken good care of his image for more than a month, and his messy hair is like a bird's nest.

Since the winter break, the team has been working non-stop, fighting in the King's Cup, the league and the Champions League. Every game is a tough battle. Chinatown is very difficult to play, and the players are also very hard-working and under great pressure.

As the head coach of the team, Pochettino is even more so.

The opponent of this game, Lyon, is a frequent visitor to the Champions League knockout stage and has good strength. Although the young coach Garde has just taken office this season, he has served as a youth training coach and first-team assistant coach in Lyon for many years. He has assisted former Lyon coaches such as Le Guen, Houllier and Puel. His appointment has also won the trust of the management, intending to implement rejuvenation of the team.

Lacazette, who scored in this game, was promoted by him from the youth team.

The 4-3-3 formation is currently the mainstream in Europe, and Garde also adopts this style of play. The goalkeeper is Lloris, the back line from left to right is Sissoko, Chris, Lovren and Revie, the midfield is Fofana, Carlstrom and Gourcuff, and the front court is Bastos, Lacazette and Briand.

Garde obviously did a lot of work for this game. He studied Chinatown's style of play in depth and adopted a regional defense strategy for Hazard, who was the most active and had the strongest personal ability in the frontcourt, to avoid the team from falling into a one-on-one defense as much as possible, which prevented the Belgian from getting too many good opportunities throughout the game.

Aubameyang is the team's top scorer, with fast speed and strong impact, so Garde let Sissoko stick to him. The left-back performed well in this game and did not give Aubameyang too many good opportunities.

The game lasted 75 minutes. Chinatown had a possession rate of 60% and the number of shots reached three times that of Lyon, but it still failed to break through the Lyon team's goal. The shooting efficiency was very poor.

The home team had a substitution, but the away team had not. Pochettino knew that everyone was waiting for his decision.

Away 0-1 is actually an acceptable result.

After returning to the home court, Chinatown can play more targeted according to the layout of this game.

This thought came to Pochettino's mind, but soon, he tried hard to suppress this tempting thought, because another voice came to his mind.

"Fearless, always moving forward, this is the purpose of our Chinatown game!"

"We will never fear any opponent, nor will we bow to any difficult challenge. No matter who the opponent is, we must dare to swing the sword."

This is Gao Han's resounding words to Pochettino, which is deafening.

At this moment, it sounded in Pochettino's mind, but it made the Argentine feel a little ashamed.

There are still twenty minutes left, the team is behind 0-1, and he actually feels satisfied!

If Mr. Gao Han is here, at this moment he will definitely look for the opponent's weakness and find a weapon to restrain the opponent and turn defeat into victory, but he will never give up.

Let alone losing, a draw will never appear in Gao Han's options. He has always had only one goal, that is, to win.

Pochettino slapped his face with both hands, exhaled heavily, turned around, and shouted to assistant coach Jesus Perez behind him, "Show me a detailed analysis of this game." Jesus Perez was stunned for a moment, but soon reacted and immediately found the data analyst. He quickly walked to Pochettino's side with a tablet computer, which opened the data analysis software carefully created by Gao Han and Sergio Garcia, and began to study it carefully.

Through the club's data analysis software, everything about the game was clearly presented in front of Pochettino. At this moment, when he calmed down, many details that he had ignored before reappeared in his sight. Organize it and immediately have a vague outline in your mind.

"Lyon's loophole is here!" Pochettino said through gritted teeth.