God of Green

Alkmaar also used a cross from the side to pass the ball into the penalty area, and his teammate Jiang Xiaolin also grabbed the first point in the penalty area to form a header.

But Jiang Xiaolin and Zenit striker Pugnyek had different results in the header. Pugnyek headed the ball over the crossbar, while Jiang Xiaolin headed the ball into the goal.

In the 35th minute of the first half, Jiang Xiaolin used a header from a cross from the side to break through the goal of Zenit St. Petersburg, scoring his first goal of the game and giving Alkmaar a 2-0 lead at home.

When Jiang Xiaolin's header flew into the goal, the entire AFAS Stadium was boiling, and countless Alkmaar fans and Jiang Xiaolin's fans shouted and cheered excitedly, celebrating Jiang Xiaolin's goal.

In the commentary booth, the commentators also shouted passionately:

"Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal..."

"The ball is in!"

"Jiang Xiaolin finally scored a goal!"

"In the 35th minute, Jiang Xiaolin grabbed the first point in a side attack with a cross from the bottom, and successfully headed the ball into the goal, scoring his first goal of the game and also Alkmaar's second goal."

"Alkmaar leads Zenit St. Petersburg 2-0!"

"Jiang Xiaolin's total number of goals in the UEFA Cup this season has risen to 13 goals."

"Zenit's clamor to freeze Jiang Xiaolin before the game became a joke!"

Indeed, when Jiang Xiaolin scored this goal, it was a huge blow to the players of Zenit St. Petersburg.

If Jiang Xiaolin's assist to Pocognoli with his heel pass was a stroke of genius and unexpected, then the header in the penalty area after the cross from the sideline was a fair sideline attack, which is a very common offensive method on the football field.

With a clear routine and enough people in the penalty area to defend Jiang Xiaolin, he still grabbed the first point in such an offensive routine and completed the header, which was a big blow.

"Is Jiang Xiaolin's goal really unstoppable?"

Some people inevitably felt desperate.

What made them even more nervous was that Alkmaar was already leading 2-0.

If they were not very nervous when they were one goal behind away from home, they were already in a dangerous situation when they were two goals behind.

Even if there was a second round, they were at an absolute disadvantage in terms of the situation.

Even if they returned to their home court in the second round, they were not sure to win. After all, Zenit St. Petersburg played a game with Alkmaar at home last season, and at that time Zenit was tied 1-1 by Alkmaar.

Now that Alkmaar has Jiang Xiaolin, whether Zenit can win when returning to the St. Petersburg Stadium is really an unknown!

It is not so easy to reverse the total score of two goals behind!

Therefore, after the game resumes later, Zenit must fight back more vigorously, strive to score goals, narrow the total score gap and get away goals.

Otherwise, the defending champion may really be eliminated in the quarter-finals.

In addition, Jiang Xiaolin's goal also further proves Jiang Xiaolin's role in Alkmaar's offensive system.

At present, Jiang Xiaolin's genius assisted one of Alkmaar's two goals with his heel, and then scored another goal in the penalty area, which completely directed Alkmaar's two-goal lead. Even if Van Gaal personally told the players and coaches of Zenit St. Petersburg that he would not let Jiang Xiaolin be the core of the offense in this game, the other party would not believe it.

Therefore, although the game has not resumed, the players of Zenit St. Petersburg have made up their minds. On the one hand, they will naturally increase their counterattack in the next game, and on the other hand, they will pay more attention to the defense of Jiang Xiaolin.

Jiang Xiaolin must not be allowed to score again.

Otherwise, if Zenit is three goals behind, it will be really dead.

A big reversal after falling behind by three goals is not so easy to happen, otherwise every three-goal reversal will not become a classic history of world football.

Jiang Xiaolin and his teammates naturally don't care so much at this time.

They just need to celebrate to their heart's content.

Before the end of the first half, they were already 2-0 ahead.

Everyone seems to have seen the bright prospects of eliminating the defending champion and advancing to the quarterfinals.

The key is that Jiang Xiaolin's performance in these two goals will definitely make the opponent more paralyzed and careless, and unable to see through the tactical arrangements of head coach Van Gaal.

They will definitely be more determined to believe that Jiang Xiaolin is still Alkmaar'sThe core of the offense tried every means to prevent Jiang Xiaolin's dribbling, breakthrough, shooting and passing.

In addition, they were two goals behind and had to take care of the offense, so they certainly couldn't mark other Alkmaar players.

As long as Hamdaoyi and others got the chance, they could score.

Alkmaar's football is not a game for Jiang Xiaolin alone.

Therefore, the Alkmaar players, including Jiang Xiaolin, celebrated very relaxed.

However, after celebrating for more than half a minute, the referee intervened and stopped it, because the players of Zenit St. Petersburg protested that Alkmaar was celebrating to delay time.

Since the referee came out, everyone ended the celebration and returned to their own half amid the applause and cheers of the fans, waiting for Zenit St. Petersburg to kick the ball in the middle circle.

After the game resumed, Zenit St. Petersburg, which was two goals behind, really increased its offensive strength, using their physical strength and height advantages to continuously play the tactic of passing the ball from the side to the bottom, threatening Alkmaar's goal from the air.

However, their forwards' heading skills are not as good as Jiang Xiaolin's, and their jumping and scoring abilities are far behind, so they do not have an absolute advantage over Alkmaar's central defenders.

What's more, there is Sergio Romero, the main goalkeeper of the Argentine Olympic team, standing in front of Alkmaar's goal!

Since Romero became a main player in Alkmaar, his performance has become more and more stable, and his goalkeeping skills have become more and more outstanding.

In the 41st minute, Zenit St. Petersburg played the most threatening attack since the start of the game.

In this attack, Zenit St. Petersburg's full-back Shupatrice suddenly inserted an assist, played a two-on-one match with forward Sensov, passed Alkmaar's full-back Pocognoli, and then successfully passed the ball from the bottom.

Zenit striker Deki also showed his extraordinary ability this time. He grabbed the first point between the penalty spot and the small penalty area line in the penalty area, beat Ragnar Klavan to win the header, and headed the ball into the Alkmaar goal.

Moreover, Deki's header was at an angle. Although it was not very tricky, it did not go straight to the middle, but flew to the right goal.

At such a close distance in the penalty area, even if the angle was not so tricky that it went straight to the dead corner, it would still be difficult for ordinary goalkeepers to save it.

However, Sergio Romero played the level of a world-class goalkeeper this time.

He actually judged the general direction of the opponent's header from Deki's movements before Deki headed the ball, and moved one step to the right.

Although this kind of prediction is not 100% accurate, it is obvious that Romero's prediction was right this time and saved the team.

After moving one step to the right, Deki had already headed the ball.

Romero also reacted quickly the moment Deji headed the ball and jumped to save it.

Then, Deji's threatening header was saved by Romero's flying sideways and flew out of the post.

Deji, who was still in the air after heading the ball, had already shown ecstasy about scoring a goal, but he didn't expect that his high-quality header was saved by the opponent's goalkeeper during the landing.

Deji, who fell to the ground, immediately slapped his forehead with both hands and looked at Sergio Romero with an incredible expression.

The fans of Zenit St. Petersburg in the stands were the same.

Everyone saw the ball that Deji headed and thought he was going to score a goal!

Unexpectedly, the goalkeeper of Alkmaar actually saved such a powerful close-range header.

Everyone couldn't help but sigh in disappointment.

On the other hand, on the Alkmaar side, the players in the penalty area pulled Romero up one by one in ecstasy, patted his shoulders and hugged him, thanking him for saving the team with this save.

More than 10,000 Alkmaar home fans in the stands also burst into warm applause, applauding Romero's wonderful save.

Helplessly, Zenit St. Petersburg could only take a corner kick.

Because the players of Zenit St. Petersburg do have an advantage in height, Jiang Xiaolin also returned to the penalty area to participate in the corner kick defense when defending the corner kick, instead of waiting outside the penalty area to counterattack.

And this time Jiang Xiaolin played a role in the corner kick defense.

The opponent's corner kick landed near him. Jiang Xiaolin relied on his strong physique and jumping power to suppress Zenit central defender Wedicsher who was competing with him for the header, and grabbed the first point to head the ball out of the penalty area to clear the siege.

Zenit's attack was over.

In the next few minutes, neither side made any threatening attacks.

After 1 minute of stoppage time, the referee blew the whistle.The whistle sounded at the end of the first half, and the two sides entered the halftime break with a score of 2-0, with Alkmaar, who played at home, leading by two goals.

During the halftime break, Van Gaal praised the team's performance in the first half, especially the first heel pass to Jiang Xiaolin, which Van Gaal also praised as a classic masterpiece that was enough to be included in the top ten assists of the season.

Moreover, Jiang Xiaolin's one assist plus one goal also confused the players of Zenit St. Petersburg even more.

Judging from the second half of the first half, in addition to distracting themselves from the counterattack, Zenit St. Petersburg did put more energy on defending Jiang Xiaolin, so that even with Jiang Xiaolin's strength, he did not get any decent counterattack opportunities in the last few minutes.

But this is exactly what Van Gaal is happy about.

The opponent has not yet seen through Van Gaal's tactics, and has been building a defense line with Jiang Xiaolin as the center to prevent Jiang Xiaolin's counterattack.

In fact, Alkmaar's attacking points were scattered, but in the first half, except for Pocognoli's goal, they didn't get any good opportunities to show their skills, so the players and coaches of Zenit St. Petersburg didn't notice it.

Van Gaal told everyone to continue playing like this in the second half, letting Jiang Xiaolin be the tactical center to attract firepower, and other players waited for Jiang Xiaolin or others to pass the ball and get a chance to shoot.

Although Jiang Xiaolin was not the main attacking point, if his teammates' shots created opportunities for supplementary shots, or opportunities for corner kicks or free kicks, Jiang Xiaolin could still score.

This is exactly the confusing nature of Van Gaal's tactics, which made Zenit St. Petersburg play half the game without reacting.

Because Van Gaal did not completely restrict Jiang Xiaolin, let him be a supporting role, and even his shooting was inaccurate.

Such tactics did cause great harm to Zenit St. Petersburg. Even after a 15-minute adjustment during the halftime break, Zenit's coach did not discover Alkmaar's conspiracy. After the start of the second half, he still organized a counterattack while focusing on Jiang Xiaolin.

As a result, less than 5 minutes into the second half, in the 49th minute, Alkmaar scored again.

And this goal was neither Jiang Xiaolin's shot nor his assist. Jiang Xiaolin didn't even touch the ball.

It was the embodiment of Van Gaal's tactics.

In this counterattack, Jiang Xiaolin attracted the full defense of three defenders, including a defensive midfielder and two central defenders, in the middle.

It was Alkmaar's counterattack itself, and Zenit St. Petersburg had fewer defenders.

In addition, they focused their attention on Jiang Xiaolin, and as a result, Moussa Dembele, who was counterattacking with the ball on the wing, did not pass the ball to Jiang Xiaolin at all, but passed it to Maarten Martens, who was inserted in the back row and unguarded.

Martens received a pass from Moussa Dembele outside the penalty area without any defense. At this time, when the defensive midfielder Danisov, who was running with Jiang Xiaolin, wanted to give up Jiang Xiaolin and intercept Martens, it was too late.

Martens did not stop the ball at all. Facing the ball passed by Moussa Dembele, he kicked the ball out of the penalty area without stopping.

The ball flew into the air, flew past the toes of Danisov who stretched his legs late to break the ball but failed to touch it, and then hit the goal of Zenit St. Petersburg like a cannonball, and flew into the goal along the right post.

Goalkeeper Malafev was always worried about Jiang Xiaolin's threat, and was still preventing Martens from passing the ball to Jiang Xiaolin after receiving Dembele's pass before completing the shot. Who would have thought that Martens would shoot directly outside the penalty area without stopping the ball.

Malafev was caught off guard and was a little slow to react, which resulted in him being unable to save Maarten Martens' long shot from outside the penalty area.

Alkmaar took a 3-0 lead thanks to Moussa Dembele's assist to Maarten Martens' goal.