Chapter 179: Chapter 178: Because of the Goal, Therefore at a Disadvantage (Five More)
The seventeenth minute.
Ronaldo once again attempted a dribble after receiving the ball, but this time his opponent charged straight at him and knocked him over.
The main referee blew the whistle, awarding Morelence a free-kick in the attacking half.
However, after knocking Ronaldo over, the opponent said, "Kid, this isn’t a circus, stop your ridiculous and ugly dance performance! You look like a monkey jumping around!"
"What did you say?" Ronaldo got up.
"What? You wanna fight?" The opponent puffed out his chest.
He was taller than Ronaldo, stronger than Ronaldo, with a face full of stubble, clearly not someone to mess with.
Ronaldo was a bit intimidated and didn’t make a sound.
Thankfully, his teammates quickly arrived and helped him out of the encirclement.
He was still just a 15-year-old kid, rashly stepping onto the professional stage, facing dimensional suppression, and for the moment, he was somewhat at a loss.
This wasn’t about being cowardly, it was about unfamiliarity.
If such an incident had occurred in a youth match, even if the opponent was stronger than Ronaldo, he would have pushed back or even gotten into a fight because he knew what to do in that environment.
It’s like how many guys in their twenties who just left school would habitually greet career women, office ladies, and female workers in their thirties with "Hello, aunty," as though they were polite.
Despite being well-intentioned, it might come off as offending to the latter.
The main issue is not being used to calling people ’sister,’ rather than not knowing how to say ’sister.’
After the confrontation, Ronaldo reduced his attempts to break through; he started passing back more often, causing a deadlock on the left flank of the team.
Ronaldo felt a bit lost about how he should be playing.
Deng Kai noticed Ronaldo’s confusion, so he began to shift the football to the right flank, changing the focal point of the attack.
The thirty-first minute.
Deng Kai, after receiving a pass back from Flavio on the right, suddenly made a long lob pass, sending the ball deep.
Alex, the right full-back who was already pushing up, sprinted and managed to overtake the opponent’s left full-back with his speed, successfully receiving the ball.
Alex made a cut and a push, slightly faked a move, then crossed the ball directly.
The move wasn’t all that sophisticated, but it caught the opponent off guard.
The football arced through the air and flew into the penalty area.
Boom!
Anderson powerfully headed the ball past the centre-back to score a goal.
"GOAL! Anderson! A beautiful header!"
"Who knew Alex could make a cross like that, he didn’t show these skills during the first half of the season."
"Deng Kai’s lob pass was very broad, giving Alex enough acceleration space. Had they agreed on this beforehand? Except for Alex, it would be hard for anyone else to get the ball; at least Flavio couldn’t."
"If Morelence can take three points today, they will go from rock bottom to third from the bottom. The other two teams at the bottom have already lost their games."
Deng Kai thought that after scoring, everything would get better.
Since the momentum was rising, the intensity increased unconsciously, and scoring another goal wouldn’t be difficult.
However, Morelence, the team Deng Kai was on, was different from the teams he had played for before. After scoring, the whole team, quite uniformly, became "passive."
How to put it, it was like the whole team was retreating.
This was definitely a tactical arrangement set by the head coach before.
But obviously, it wasn’t the right approach.
Because retreating in defense also involves technique.
Just like it’s mentioned on "Arteta’s Tactical Board," the key to positional defense isn’t positioning, but defending.
Defense is a verb.
When you defend against someone, you have to be proactive.
Apply pressure on them, compressing their ball possession space and reaction time.
But what about Morelence?
Their interpretation of falling back was to shrink near the edge of the penalty area without giving their opponents space to break through.
At the same time, they were preparing to contest the opponents’ crosses from the wings.
But can’t you just not let them cross in the first place? At the very least, not let them cross so easily, right?
These issues are hard to detect during regular training, but by the time they are found in a game, it’s already too late.
Within ten minutes after Morelence scored, Penafield launched an attack as ferocious as a tempest. The number of attacks in just these ten minutes had already surpassed the total from both sides in the previous thirty.
Had Penafield suddenly become stronger?
Deng Kai felt incredibly frustrated with the way he was playing.
How was this any different from the Manchester United of the future?
Couldn’t that crappy Manchester United score?
Of course, they could score, and they often scored first.
Couldn’t they hold the lead?
They could hold it, always taking the lead.
But damn it, they always let it slip, getting overtaken.
Why?
Because after they scored, they seemed even more anxious than when they conceded, with the whole team falling back, retreating without defending, almost as if they were assisting the other team’s offense by not being able to launch their own.
In such a scenario, it was almost like they were willingly smashing their own front and midfield lines, completely exposing their defense to the opposing onslaught.
With such a defense, it was bound to be riddled with holes.
Even putting four world’s best center-backs there would result in a leaky defense.
"No, we can’t keep playing like this. You, get up front," Deng Kai told Ronaldo to move forward and stop falling back.
Because the team’s striker Anderson and right winger Flavio had both fallen back as well.
The team’s structure was completely compressed by the opposition, losing any sense of hierarchy, and any casual pass from them could penetrate the entire team.
So Ronaldo moved up front.
Consequently, some hisses were heard from the surroundings.
Everyone was falling back to defend—but Ronaldo alone didn’t, did he think he was Ronaldo?
Fortunately, Ronaldo’s personality had never been one to fear others’ doubts. If Kai asked him to move up, there must be good reason for it.
The forty-second minute.
Feng Te made a crucial interception. If he hadn’t stopped that ball, there would have been two Penafield players behind him waiting to shoot from the penalty spot.
Ricardo would have definitely crumbled.
Bang!
Feng Te passed the ball to Deng Kai.
Bang!
Deng Kai turned halfway and took a blind shot immediately.
The tempo of the match suddenly accelerated.
A usual rhythm of the game starting from defense would typically go like this: fall back, intense defense, struggle for ball possession, clearance, controlling possession, waiting for teammates to move into position, penetrating progression, the key pass for attack...
But Deng Kai switched from the struggle for ball possession directly to the key pass for attack.
Skipping too many steps.
This was the effect of the attack-defense rhythm setter.
And it was only through De Bruyne’s Conscious Flow Pass that Deng Kai could afford to do this.
"Ah!"
After passing the ball, Deng Kai was brought down by the opponent’s number eight.
It was clear from the start that the opponent intended to take Deng Kai down to prevent him from orchestrating an attack.
But the opponent was obviously a step too slow, or rather, Deng Kai was just too fast.
The main referee gestured for the advantage to play on.
Because upfield, Ronaldo was speeding along.
Penafield was pressing so high up that it took less than three seconds for Ronaldo to be all alone.
The ball was too far for Penafield’s goalkeeper to make a move; he could only watch as Ronaldo received the ball and continued to charge at him.
After Ronaldo broke into the penalty area, Penafield’s goalkeeper started moving, attempting to cause trouble for Ronaldo.
But Ronaldo was in solid form. After sidestepping to create an angle, he finished with a low shot.
He didn’t waste the one-on-one opportunity.
