Football career: From winning the championship to becoming a legend

After the Spaniards luckily equalized the score, their morale was boosted again and their originally anxious and nervous mood was relieved a lot. As a result, the Spaniards' defensive counterattack formation became more solid, and the occasional loopholes in the defense line disappeared.

On the contrary, Sevilla, who were tied without knowing what was happening, fell into a panic in the second half of the first half. Firstly, it was because they were disappointed that they could score a goal and then score immediately. Secondly, Maresca was a little angry because of his own mistake, just like Nekonen in the second leg of the semi-final against Osasuna. He basically wanted to do everything by himself after getting the ball, which seriously disrupted the team's offensive organization and balance.

Li Qi naturally noticed the problem after the next kick-off, but at this critical juncture, it seemed that no one's advice would be of any use, and they had to have a good chat after the game; but now on the court he could only help defend against Maresca's forward loopholes while constantly moving the ball to the other side, and could only hope that the other side could break the deadlock again.

So in the second half of the first half, Sevilla, who had lost one side, and the united Espanyol exchanged offense and defense. Overall, Sevilla was still the dominant side, but the Espanyol's counterattack was more threatening. After all, breaking a dense defense is a world problem, and there is more room for counterattack.

In the 33rd minute, the Spaniard intercepted Maresca's breakthrough and passed it to Luis Garcia. Tamudo barely made a long shot from the edge of the penalty area on the right side despite Li Qi's defense, but the ball went wide of the goal.

In the 38th minute, after receiving a long pass from Li Qi, Kanoute headed the ball and Puerta's shot from the left side of the penalty area hit Jarque and deflected out of the far corner.

In the 40th minute, the Spaniards again succeeded in scrambling the ball from Maresca, who was hesitant, and Luis Garcia sent another straight pass. It was Tamudo who decisively shot from 25 yards in the middle before Li Qi's close pressure. The Spaniards hit the goal for the second time in this game, but this time the shot was not refracted by interference, but the angle was too straight and was confiscated by Palop.

In the 45th minute before the end of the first half, Li Qi saved the ball that Maresca failed to score alone and sent it directly to the left. Then Adriano and Paulson passed the ball to the bottom of the left side. Fabiano, who was almost invisible in the first half, rushed to the front point and volleyed from 10 yards in front of the goal, but the ball went wide of the near corner...

With the long whistle of the Swiss referee, the first half of the game ended.

In the first half of the game, especially in the second half, Maresca, who was eager to show himself and make up for his mistakes, tried to make efforts alone several times but to no avail. He was even intercepted by the opponent several times and launched threatening counterattacks. The goal lost by Sevilla in the first half was caused by Maresca's overly selfish dribbling.

Mago has the technical ability and is very aggressive in his tackling, but his choice of ball handling has become the crux of the team. The Spaniards were so accurate in their tackling of him that in the second half of the first half, his teammates didn't dare to pass the ball to the right side of the court; this meant that in the attack, Sevilla was not only missing one player, but a whole wing!

Juan Ramos also saw the problem. It is understandable that Juan Ramos is arrogant and wants to make contributions to the team, but football is not a one-man sport. Even a strong team like Barcelona, ​​without teamwork and organization, was beaten by Getafe in an away game a week ago. Two seasons ago, AC Milan, which was invincible, also lost 3 goals in the first half of the Champions League final...

When Juan Ramos cited two well-known classic examples in the first half, the guilty Maresca lowered his proud head, and with Li Qi's timely persuasion, he also publicly stated his mistake.

However, Juan Ramos did not give Maresca time to readjust in the second half, after all, this was the UEFA Cup final, and Maresca would obviously be affected by his performance in the first half and would certainly not be able to play 100% of his strength. So when Maresca expressed his understanding, Juan Ramos also gave Maresca enough steps to rest in the second half, leaving the stage for the performance to his trusted teammates, and he himself reserved his strength to prepare for the weekend league.

Seeing Maresca calmly accept being substituted in the first half of the final, Li Qi couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. This fierce wild horse has made a lot of progress in the past half of the season. If it was before, not to mention making a big fuss, it would definitely make the head coach embarrassed. But just before the half-time break, Maresca suddenly hugged Li Qi's neck and whispered, "Ricardo, I'm counting on you! You must win the game beautifully in the second half, otherwise our Italian twins will be blamed..."

Li Qi naturally understood what Maresca meant. He was substituted at halftime. Only by winning the whole game and winning the championship cleanly and with all the praise could he cover up his poor performance and mistakes and avoid being targeted by the media and fans after the game. So Li Qi naturally responded with a thumbs up: No problem, I will take care of the second half!

In fact, Li Qi felt that Maresca's tough breakthrough in the first half was not completely unhelpful. There were at least two reasons. First, the constant fighting weakened the physical strength of the Spanish players on the same side. Second, in order to help Maresca, Li Qi basically stayed in the backcourt to organize, saving a lot of physical strength. Therefore, Li Qi felt that after the opponent's physical strength declined in the second half, it was really suitable for him to do a big fight: Well, say hello to Paulson first, and take care of your own retreat.

In the second half, Juan Ramos decisively replaced Maresca with Navas. Sevilla immediately returned to normal, the offense was no longer unbalanced, and they regained the initiative in the game, suppressed the Spaniard again, and began to create constant threats.

After the second half, the Spaniards were in high spirits and spent most of the time on passive defense, so their physical strength further declined. Ten minutes before the second half, Li Qi had already shown his strength and ambition to take over the game. Although his technical moves were still a little immature, his wide-ranging running and very reasonable passing made it difficult for the Spaniards to even pass the half court. They also lost the ball very quickly and could only cope with it.

Espanyol coach Valverde was also a little helpless. He had anticipated at the beginning of the first half that the team might run out of physical strength in the second half, but he did not expect the turning point to come so soon. Moreover, the midfield and frontcourt had obviously been overshadowed by Li Qi, so he did not dare to take the ball at all and could only make quick substitutions.

So in the 55th minute, the Spaniard also made a personnel adjustment, Pandiani, who performed a hat trick in the middle of the week, replaced Rufete. The Spaniard returned to the traditional 4-4-2 formation and began to try a more concise long pass, hoping to create opportunities through the direct cooperation between Pandiani and Tamudo in the frontcourt, instead of seeking to go through the midfield.

Although this would be less efficient, at least there would be a chance to create a threat.

However, Valverde overlooked another problem, which was the lack of a defensive midfielder in the center of the midfield, and the originally tight defensive formation also had some loopholes.

This loophole was quickly discovered and exploited by Li Qi.

At the 58th minute of the game, in the VIP box of Hampden Park Stadium, Sarafina was chatting gossip with her girlfriends. Of course, whenever Li Qi got the ball, the girls would shout together.

But Li Qi got the ball too many times in this game. After a while, the girls ran out of energy. After all, without the continuous stimulation of energy bars, it was difficult to keep these well-fed girls focused simply by visual impact. So in the second half, most of the girls started talking about the eternal topic - gossip; even Sarafina was distracted to deal with it, because she was the organizer of this event...

But suddenly, Emma, ​​the youngest girl in the box, pointed at the court with her rose-red nail polish and shouted, "Look!"

Everyone followed Emma's direction and saw Li Qi controlling the ball and advancing at high speed in the Spanish team's central defense area! Everyone's ears also noticed the passionate comments of the live commentator in the TV broadcast in the box!

"Beautiful! Li Qi took advantage of Moirais's unpreparedness and dribbled past him with ease!"

"Li Qi is too fast! He is impossible to stop. The Spaniards are left empty in the middle..."

"It's at the edge of the penalty area, time to shoot!"

"Oh no! Great pass! Beautiful!"

"Canute! Push shot..."

"Ditch oooooh! Ditch oooooh! Ditch!"

"Canoute received a pass from Li Qi through the gap between the players, and shot directly from 12 yards, breaking through the goalpost of Iraizos!"

"Sevilla took the lead again in the 58th minute of the game! 2 to 1!"

"The Spaniard's substitution just now was obviously to strengthen the offense. It was indeed too embarrassing to be suppressed by Sevilla. But Valverde certainly didn't expect that just after the substitution, such a fatal defensive gap appeared in the middle, and the score fell behind again!"

"Li Qi's move was also very brilliant. He changed his previous strategy of constantly passing the ball to the side and suddenly passed through the crotch and accelerated to get rid of the opponent. Moiles was passed cleanly, and Luis Garcia and De La Pena couldn't catch up with Li Qi at all."

"But the most amazing thing is that Li Qi was able to calmly deliver a wonderful pass while dribbling at high speed. The ball first changed direction slightly diagonally, deflecting the two central defenders defending in front of him, and then he faked a shot and made a real pass. Through the slow-motion replay, we can see clearly that it was a very delicate pass. Facing two tall defenders who tried to block his shot, the ball just slipped through the gap between them!"

"And the force of this diagonal pass was controlled very cleverly, allowing Kanoute, who was following up on the other side, to get it before the goalkeeper. Otherwise, if the force was a little stronger, it would be closer to the goalkeeper. However, if the force was a little weaker, it might not be able to get through the interception of the two central defenders in front..."

The girls in the box were already going crazy with joy. Even if Li Qi didn't score a goal directly, it was as if they were indirectly involved. Maybe the girls in the group were just so easily infected? This was also the charm of watching a game live...

However, the Spaniards, who fell behind again, immediately fought back after the kick-off. Pandiani, who had just come on as a substitute, received a diagonal pass from De La Pena and tried to break through the middle with the cover of Tamudo.

However, the ball was stopped by Dragutinovic this time. However, at the moment when the ball lost control, Paulson and Dragutinovic had some misunderstandings, and both sides gave way to each other, allowing Riera to seize the opportunity and volley directly from 25 yards on the left!

The ball was shot with great force and at a very tricky angle, heading for the blind corner of the goal. Fortunately, Palop was very focused and bravely flew up to block the ball with one hand, causing the ball to change direction and bounce off the crossbar of the goal and go out of the bottom line.

Sevilla escaped. Juan Ramos was so anxious that he kept shouting on the sidelines, concentrating his attention and handling the ball decisively.

At the same time, not long after this goal, in the 62nd minute of the game, Juan Ramos made another personnel adjustment and took the lead again. There was no need to risk keeping two center forwards. So he replaced Fabiano, who was almost invisible in this game, with Renato, and pushed Li Qi, who was obviously in great form in this game, to the position of shadow striker on the front line, allowing his players to handle the ball more simply and feed the ball directly to Li Qi in the frontcourt to deal with.

After Li Qi moved forward, Sevilla, like Espanyol, rarely passed through the midfield and kept making long passes or direct passes to find Li Qi, which made Espanyol even more uncomfortable.

Because Li Qi directly controlled the ball at the edge of the Spanish defensive third zone, he was very skilled. It was basically difficult to steal the ball by one person; Li Qi changed his previous style of frequently passing the ball with one foot, and instead imitated Ronaldinho to hold the ball between the opponent's midfield and back line to create threats. However, if two people double-teamed, Li Qi would decisively pass back and absolutely not give the Spanish a chance to steal the ball.

In this back and forth, the lagging Spaniards kept running back and forth but couldn't get the ball. They were led by Li Qi to circle around on the left, right and center... In fact, Li Qi's trick was not impossible to break, as Barcelona's Ronaldinho was often restricted. But that would require two players to run more than Li Qi. However, no one on the Spaniards, who were obviously physically exhausted and mentally unbalanced, had come up with a good solution.

So in the 68th minute of the game, Moiles finally couldn't help himself and tackled Li Qi from behind as he was about to turn around and break free from the defense. The Swiss referee Busacca did not hesitate this time. After all, it was the second reckless tackle foul in 3 minutes. He directly showed the second yellow gem card, and Moiles was sent back to the locker room to wait for the award ceremony...

The Spaniard was really desperate, trailing in the score, in a passive situation, and now one man less! But it was the UEFA Cup final after all, so they couldn't give up no matter what; so Valverde quickly replaced Tamudo with La Coruna as the right back, and Zabaleta moved forward to the defensive midfielder position to make up for the defense in the middle, otherwise they would definitely be defeated by Li Qi who was in great form in this game.

However, with Sabaletta guarding him, Li Qi felt that he had another chance. After all, he was an old acquaintance, and compared with Moiles who just left the field, Sabaletta was still a lot worse in physical condition. Although he ran more actively and more flexibly, it was obviously difficult for Sabaletta, who was only 1 meters tall, to face and guard Li Qi, who was over 7 meters tall.

So shortly after Moiles left the field, in the 76th minute of the game, Li Qi used Zabaleta's point to create a threat again.

Li Qi, who has recently become obsessed with watching NBA, first borrowed the tactics of singles in basketball. Through hand gestures and pass dispatch, he asked his teammates to move as far apart as possible, leaving the middle lane for himself and Zabaleta.

After a few repeated passes to the wing and long passes, the defensive focus of the Spanish team, which was one man short, was pulled to both sides. There were only two central defenders in the middle to protect the penalty area and Zabaleta was defending Li Qi in the middle.

Li Qi was positioning himself with his back to the goalkeeper at the edge of the defensive third zone, waving to Renato for the ball. Having tried to play one-on-one against Zabaleta several times before, Li Qi knew that with his overall physical superiority, as long as he didn't dribble the ball blindly, it would be almost impossible for Zabaleta's short arms and legs to reach the ball through his big butt.

So Renato sent the ball diagonally to Li Qi's feet. Li Qi stepped on the ball lightly, facing Sabaletta who was defending him, constantly observing the situation around and behind him, and prepared to play alone with his back not far from the front of the penalty area!

Seeing Li Qi getting the ball in the key area again, the girls in the box screamed collectively at first, and then they were so nervous that they couldn't make a sound...