Chapter 231: The Advantages of Leiden East

Amid the collective cheers of nearly 40,000 fans, players from both sides appeared!

In the player channel, Lazio and Leiden Oriental players had no communication. Although Boban and Deselli in Leiden Oriental's starting lineup have been playing in Serie A for a long time and are also familiar with Lazio's players, they do not have much friendship.

The players of Leiden East all looked ahead. Although except for Jin Kraze who was standing in the front and a few tall men who could see the scene outside the player's passage, most of the other players could only see the backs of their teammates in front, they all looked forward without looking at them, ready to welcome the strongest opponent of the season.

In this era when the "small World Cup" remains, Serie A teams are basically admired by most teams in other leagues. Although they have not monopolized the European championships in the past ten years, almost every season has teams that can enter the finals of the three major European Cups, which itself proves that the overall strength of this league is indeed worthy of the four words "small World Cup".

What about Premier League teams? After the Heisel tragedy, they were greatly injured and missed the European arena for five years. The isolation from the European continent made them able to watch the rapid development of mainland football, but they could only entertain themselves in the island. The consequence of this is that when they returned to the European arena, they found that their proud long pass rush has become a laughing stock of world football. Teams in other leagues have begun to play faster, tighter and more competitive modern football, and they are still playing old-fashioned long pass rush.

The result of this is that the English team's performance in the European arena is a mess. Even when Arsenal entered the final of the Winners Cup, facing Parma, the players were shaking their calves before playing (Arsenal captain Tony Adams). However, although the John Bulls were arrogant, they were also a nation that was good at learning - perhaps all island nations have such characteristics - so Gulit came, Viali came, Zora came, Borgkamp came, Klinsman came, and Lavanelli came... Compared with these stars who have begun to go downhill, more people came in Serie A were only second-rate players, but the arrival of these players brought vitality and the most advanced concept to the Premier League. Manchester United entered the quarterfinals of the Champions League for three consecutive seasons. Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelsea won the Winners Cup championship one after another, proving that the Premier League is gradually recovering.

Even so, Lazio's players still have a psychological advantage when facing Premier League teams - Premier League teams? I heard that second-rate Serie A players can also call the wind and rain there... Although Manchester United has eliminated two Serie A teams in the Champions League this year, let's see what the situation of these two teams in Serie A this season - Juventus is now ranked sixth and can barely enter the League Cup next season? Inter Milan is ranked eighth and is in danger of qualifications in the League Cup. Can the Serie A team eliminated by Manchester United represent the highest level of Serie A this season? What a joke!

Only teams like us who have been in the top Serie A standings this season are qualified to represent the true strength of Serie A team this season. Didn’t we meet Chelsea, the fourth in the Premier League last time? With so many former Serie A players, we were still beaten by us at home and away doubles?

Although five days ago, Lazio was tied 1-1 by Fiorentina, giving up the first place in the Serie A standings that had been in the Serie A for half a season, and was overtaken by AC Milan, and it is very likely that they would lose the league championship in the last round, but the pride in their hearts still exists.

In this era, it is an era when Serie A teams have huge psychological advantages against Premier League teams. In history, although Manchester United won the championship after defeating two Italian teams in a row this season, they soon lost 0-2 away at the feet of Fiorentina in the second season. After the game, Italian reporters proudly asked him "Is the pasta delicious?", which made Sir Ferguson eat a lot.

Although Lazio's main midfielder Dejan Stankovic missed the game, Lazio has never lacked excellent substitutes - Czech midfielder Pavel Nedved, who was recently thrown into the cold palace, got the opportunity to start, and Argentine midfielder Matthias Almeida who returned from injury and Portuguese forward Sergio Concesan formed the midfield, and veteran Robert Mancini, who was ahead of them, and the two forwards were Virgin.

Eri and Salas - although Salas is not in good shape in the league recently, he twice pierced through Chelsea goal in the second leg of the Cup semi-finals to let Erikson decide to use him in this game. At the same time, Salas also has good memories of playing on England's land - on February 12 last year, he represented the Chilean national team twice pierced the England goal at Wembley Stadium - even the best coach would inevitably be a little superstitious.

Italian teams have always had an excellent defense line, and Lazio is no exception. The former Italian national goalkeeper Luca Macegiani guards the goal. In front of him are free kick master Mikhainovic and Lazio's local flag Alessandro Nesta. Although he is not the captain of Lazio now, the captain's armband is worn on veteran Mancini, but everyone knows the excellence of this 22-year-old defender. After Bareci and Maldini, the core of the Italian defense in the future will inevitably be this handsome and tall young man.

Beside Mikhainovic and Nesta are Italian local wing guards - 27-year-old left-back Giuseppe Favali and Paul Negro, who are also 27-year-old. Although these two defenders are not very famous, they are typical Italian local powerhouses. What's more, they are now in their best condition when they are playing.

This is a lineup with almost no shortcomings. The defense line is extremely stable, the midfield running is excellent, and creativity is not a problem with Mancini, a player who is getting older and more demonic. The two players on the forward line are invincible. Vieri has established his position in the world-class center group after the 1998 World Cup, while Salas is a mini version of Crespo - although he is not tall, he has excellent bounce ability, heading skills and foot skills are quite good, and his sense of smell in front of the goal is also first-class. Otherwise, he would not have broken the Italian national team goal guarded by Palioca twice in the World Cup. If Baggio had not created a penalty kick smartly, the Italian national team might have died in that game.

There is impact, grab points, skills, and running... This year's Lazio does not seem to have any weaknesses. Although he lost two consecutive games like cramps in the league, he gave up the lead advantage to AC Milan, but those two games were not reference-one was the Roman derby, and the other was the outbreak of Henry defeating a team alone.

If you can't find any shortcomings, you can only compete for internal strength.

In today's starting lineup, Xiao Ming did not send Glencier to the court. The harassment on the wing was not very effective against the Italian team, especially when three of the opponent's four midfielders were active players with large range of activities - Gerald appeared on the right side of the midfield. With him and Marklele in the midfield, Leiden East's midfield could become more tough.

If it is not included in the excitement brought by the release of the new team song, Leiden Oriental has only two advantages - that is, their main players have a full week and a half to rest and adjust, and there is no problem with physical fitness. Lazio's last league game was five days ago, with a slight physical advantage. The second point is in terms of mentality. Leiden Oriental's league has ended and can focus all its attention in the Winners Cup. Lazio still has an important league that has not been played, and he will be distracted by the league anyway - their last round opponent is Parma, who has just won the League Cup championship. In addition to defeating Parma, a powerful opponent, he also has to count on AC Milan's home court at Perugia, and the hope is extremely slim.

However, it is obvious that Eriksen also noticed this problem. Before the start of the game, he kept emphasizing that although Lazio is concerned about the league, he did not place a secondary position in the final of the Cup of Winners. At the same time, if he can win the club's first championship in the European arena, it will undoubtedly have a positive effect on the next league final.

The law enforcement referee of this game is from an undergraduate degree from Austria. In the European Cup final of the under 21 three years ago, he sent off two Italian players. Since then, he has not enforced the Italian team in national team or club competitions. The local newspapers in Rome have made a big fuss about this. They believe that the undergraduate degree will retire in one year, and maybe he will cheat Lazio. Xiao Ming is disdainful of this. Whether from UEFA or in other aspects, UEFA may want to see a traditional Italian team like Lazio win the championship, rather than Leiden Oriental, which has only entered the top league this season. As many Leiden Oriental fans believe, let a team that participates in the Winners Cup for the first time permanently collect the Winners Cup, and UEFA has no face.

After captains Mancini and Jinklaze of both sides took the side, the battle between the Red Dragon and the Blue Eagle officially began!

Tens of thousands of fans in the stands sang "The Red Dragon Flag Flying" at the same time. The songs suppressed the singing of more than 7,000 Lazio fans, but this seemed to be understandable. Lazio's team songs themselves are similar to lyricism, and they are not very imposing when singing on the court. "The Red Dragon Flag Flying" is quite suitable for choruses of ten thousand people, and it is reasonable to suppress Lazio.

This momentum also moved the Lazio players who have been through the battlefield. They knew that this Winners Cup final in England was definitely beneficial to the English team of Leiden Oriental, but Leiden Oriental fans in the stands could actually have such an overwhelming advantage. This game was completely equivalent to a away game...

What moved them even more was the momentum that Leiden East showed after the start of the game.

Generally speaking, the reason why Italian teams always have the advantage when playing against England teams is because they have excellent central defenders. They can always predict the landing point in advance by defensive skills, so that they are invincible when facing Premier League teams, which mainly fly with both wings. In terms of offense, the fast counterattack tactics of shadow forwards and centers can undoubtedly expose the weakness of England's central defenders' slow turn - unfortunately, the Leiden Oriental they face happens to be one of the most outliers among Premier League teams.

This season, Leiden East's offense is mainly played with the two wings of Jinklaze and Glenshare, but Jinklaze is not the traditional winger. The inward cut after breaking through is the most threatening. At the same time, his position is not fixed on the wing. He can also play his role in the middle. Glenshare is a typical winger, but he did not go to this game. Gerald sent more to defend in the middle, and the attack on the right was handed over to Boban who pulled the edge and Sun Jihai who was inserted in the back row. Lazio's attack on the flank is basically concentrated on the right, and he does not have much pressure on him.

After several symbolic breakthroughs on the left, Jinklaze gave his opponent Negro a definition - it didn't seem very good, but he stood firmly, and he turned around without a slow turn, with accurate positioning and quick footing.

"It's not those Premier League full-backs who turn slowly... It seems that the boss is right. In the future, there will be more troublesome opponents. If you increase your means and methods to break through, maybe after more and more outstanding full-backs in the Premier League, you will also become more and more mediocre." Jin Kraze thought in his heart, and then passed the ball to Boban in the middle.

Boban got the ball under Almeida's interference and then passed it back to Gerald who was inserted. Nedved retreated. Gerald immediately passed the ball to Sun Jihai who was inserted into the back row and assisted.

Sun Jihai planned to drive the ball to break through Favalli, but Favalli stuck the position tightly. Sun Jihai forced forward and dodged a crossing gap, and then passed the ball into the penalty area. Fanny and Nesta competed for the position. The two were about the same age, but compared with Nesta, who appeared in the Serie A at the age of seventeen and was selected for the Italian national team at the age of twenty, Fanny was considered to be late, and he was much worse than the opponent in experience.

The ball was cleared by Nesta first, and Gerald shot from a relatively far distance, and the ball was easily saved by Machegiani.

Leiden East's first attack ended with a middle-lane offense.

Lazio launched a counterattack. Concesan planned to break through from the right, but Daniel's defense made him feel very difficult. Nedved ran over to receive the ball. As soon as he got the ball, Marklele entangled him. In desperation, he could only pass the ball to Mancini. Mancini passed the ball again to Vieri who pulled out of the penalty area. Vieri planned to forcefully turn around and break through Hepia's defense. He had the upper hand in power and turned around smoothly. However, Hepia's turn was not slower than Vieri at all. When Vieri turned around and shot, he made a defensive move. The ball hit his leg and bounced out. Deselli rushed up and cleared the ball.

Vieri is undoubtedly a super center and is moving steadily towards his peak period. In the last Cup of Winners, it was his unreasonable impact and breakthrough that made Chelsea's defense suffer. However, this time he met an opponent. Although he could not compare with Vieri in physical confrontation, Hypia was able to reduce Vieri's direct threat to the goal by his position and turn - no defender could make Vieri helpless, all he could do was make Vieri's direct threat to the goal smaller.

The cooperation is tacit, the offense is mainly based on the ground and short passes, the defense is flexible, the two central defenders have excellent turning and assisting defense, and the full-backs have done a good job in the area defense - this is the first impression of Erikson on the opponent in front of him after watching the 20 minutes of the game.

Moreover, they were very flexible on the court and ran very actively. It seems that their main players all had a rest in the last league - what about their own team? They fought for both sides at Frankie Stadium and Fiorentina. Stankovic was injured in that game, and the main players were not in the best condition.

The right time, place, people and people - it seems that they are all on the opponent's side, how should we play this game?

The only thing that comforted him was that Nedved, who was ordered to be in danger, performed very positively on the court, and supported the midfield with a large range of running strongly, so that Lazio's midfield would not be suppressed by the opponent's running. Vieri's sprint in the frontcourt also made Eriksson feel at ease. The performance of this shooter directly determines how many goals Lazio can score.

Although Mancini's running seemed a bit scattered, and the exhaustion of the whole season made the veteran's physical fitness almost exhausted, with his experience and skills, even if the inspiration could solve the problem, and Salas is the kind of player who either does not appear in the camera and will cause a threat. Now their silence does not make Erikson worry.

Although they are passive on the court - will the Italian team still be afraid of the passive situation on the court? What they are good at is winning in adversity, which is the biggest feature of the Italian team! What's more, Lazio's defense line is not eye-catching, but it is the most reassuring part of Eriksen!

As long as there is a good opportunity to counterattack, Lazio, who has more experience, can turn the situation around and hold the advantage again!

Seeing Leiden East, who had already begun to gain an advantage on the court, constantly creating opportunities for the two forwards through the attacks from the middle and the two wings, gradually pressing Lazio to attack in the half court, Eriksen held his chin and thought quietly in his heart.

Xiao Ming glanced at Eriksen from a distance and knew what the Swedish was thinking.
Chapter completed!