Maybe after the game, someone thinks that Chu Zhongtian's foul was irrational, because he would miss the League Cup semi-finals because of this red card, and the semi-finals were related to whether they could enter the finals. Want to defend the champion? Let's talk about defending the title first.

But at this moment, none of the Metz fans at the Furyan Stadium in Holy Mountain, as well as those media staff sitting in the media seats and broadcasts, thought of this. They were all infected by the atmosphere at that time and stood up to applaud Chu Zhongtian's departure.

Everyone knows that if Chu Zhongtian did not foul, Ribery would have been able to get rid of it successfully and then face goalkeeper Wenbi alone. Wenbi is not good at one-on-one, and his outstanding goal line skills are his goal line skills.

So at that time, fouls were the best choice, although this would lead to Chu Zhongtian missing the next game.

Chu Zhongtian stood on the sidelines and accepted the applause from the fans. At this time, he did not consider that he would miss the semi-finals. If he did not foul, then he would not even be qualified to miss the semi-finals.

After receiving applause from the fans on the sidelines, Fernandez walked up and hugged him.

"You're doing a good job, Chu. Now go down and have a good rest." He patted Chu Zhongtian on the back.

Chu Zhongtian nodded.

The game is one minute away from the end of ninety minutes, and the injury time is at most four minutes, which means there are five minutes left. Bayern Munich will try his best to score a goal within these five minutes, but facing Messe, who decided not to defend, Bayern Munich may not have any good solutions.

In this world, no team dares to say that they can easily break through a team that is determined to defend.

Even Barcelona won't do it.

Chu Zhongtian walked down the corridor and entered the inside of the stadium. The Metz fans in the stands who stood up and applauded him then sat back on their seats to watch the next game.

Chu Zhongtian did not return to the locker room, but he stood at the entrance of the corridor, leaned his head and looked inward to see the game going on. He had to wait until the game ended before he could truly feel at ease.

※※※ Chu Zhongtian was sent off to strengthen Metz's determination to defend the whole team. Fernandez replaced Menez with Jaiovi at the last moment. Metz changed to the "forwardless" tactic, not to striker, return to defense at all, and shrinks the defense line within the 30-meter area in the second half, making Bayern Munich unable to find a suitable path even if he wants to attack.

Ribery is still very active, but his breakthroughs are always surrounded by Metz players.

The game time passed quickly, but Bayern players didn't know. While they were still looking for loopholes in Metz's defense line, the referee blew the whistle in his mouth.

"One...two...three! The game ends! The game ends! Metz eliminated Bayern Munich with a total score of 3:2!"

"They made it to the semi-finals of the League Cup! There are only three games away from their way to defending the title!"

Bayern Munich's players stood there, stunned, and unexpectedly, their team was actually eliminated by a Ligue 1 unknown player.

Ribery stood alone in the center of the field, lowering her head, silent. At this time, no one was booing him. Metz's fans were busy celebrating the victory, and no one could care about him.

Metz's players were also celebrating wildly, and no one could care about him either.

Chu Zhongtian felt relieved when he saw the game end. At this time, he remembered that he would miss the first leg of the semi-finals.

Fortunately, I just missed one game, not two, otherwise it is hard to say whether the team can enter the League Cup final.

Instead of going in to participate in the team's celebration, he turned around and returned to the locker room.

※※※In an interview with reporters after the game, Promón mentioned Chu Zhongtian's red card and victory in the game: "We want to dedicate the victory of this game to Chu! It was his self-sacrifice that brought a victory to the team. Without him, we might not be able to face you with such spirit, ha!"

Some Metz players were also asked what to do if Chu Zhongtian was missing.

In this regard, Menez gave his answer: "Chu is of course very important to the team, but football is not played by one person, and the other ten people are also very important. I hope the new team can survive the first leg of the semi-finals, and we will wait for Chu to come back then."

Ibisevic also expressed the same view: "I'm not saying that Chu is not important, on the contrary, Chu is very important. However, when he can't play, we will not surrender. We will win the game and wait for Chu to return to the team!"

So about Chu Zhongtian's red card... most players said that there was nothing wrong with that red card. If it were them, they would probably do the same thing as Chu Zhongtian.

Jean Fernandez was also asked about Chu Zhongtian's red card incident at the post-match press conference.

"...There is no doubt about that red card. Chu did make a foul... But what I want to say is that it was not a foul that intentionally hurt people, and the facts prove it. Ribery was not hurt at all. Chu is a very professional player. He never intentionally violates the opponent's players... His absence? His absence in the first leg of the semi-finals will certainly have an impact on us, but I hope this impact will be minimized. We have many other excellent players, and we are confident."

Chu Zhongtian's red card became the focus of post-match news media reports, mainly focusing on the duel between him and Ribery and the impact of this red card. The media are not optimistic about the future of Metz in the first leg of the semi-finals.

Chu Zhongtian's explanation in an interview with reporters was as follows: "I didn't think so much at that time? Red card? Suspension? Absent from the semi-finals? I didn't think about these things. I just thought that I couldn't let him run away from me, just like that. Do you regret it? Well... Of course it's not good to miss a semi-final, but if I didn't foul, I'm afraid I wouldn't even be qualified to miss a semi-final. So there is no regret."

※※The next day, Metz's opponent in the semi-finals was newly released - the dark horse from Russia, St. Petersburg Zenit. If Metz was the dark horse in the League Cup last season, then this season's St. Petersburg Zenit is the big dark horse in this League Cup.

In the battle between the former dark horse and the current dark horse, the former dark horse finally won away the League Cup and became a big winner with his performance last season. So can the current dark horse follow suit?

Although Messe was saying that he could defeat his opponent without Chu Zhongtian, the situation was not as they said on the day of the game.

On April 24, in the first leg of the two sides, Metz went to challenge Zenit away.

Metz players didn't know much about Zenit before, but they only went to read some information about them when they learned that their opponent in the semi-finals of the League Cup was Zenit.

The team has two of the most notable people, one is their frontcourt offensive core and the other is their captain and defensive core, anatoliy_tymoschuk.

Fernandez also made arrangements for these two people before the game.

In actual competition, his arrangements did not work.

Chu Zhongtian was absent, and Pjanic started. Pjanic was a full-time midfielder and was not good at defense. So Zenit took turns to attack the middle lane against this point, causing Mess to be in a hurry.

Chu Zhongtian is a player with balanced offense and defense. With him, he can attack and retreat and defend. Pjanic obviously cannot perfectly replace Chu Zhongtian.

Just four minutes into the game, St. Petersburg Zenit striker Pavel_pogrebnyak broke through the goal guarded by Winby with a free kick from twenty-five yards.

The home team leads 1:0!

The premature concealment of the ball disrupted all Metz's arrangements before the game. Faced with such an early concealment, Metz was a little overwhelmed. They didn't know how to play the next game... In the following game, the whole team fell into an impatient mood.

Without Chu Zhongtian connecting in the middle and backcourt, their attack also lost the threat.

In the 38th minute, Zenit's midfielder Konstantin_zyryanov scored another goal, expanding the lead to two goals. Argentine striker Domingoz, a former champion team player of the youth league, made a straight pass. Zlyanov made a fake move to get rid of Traore, and then threw away Obettan who came to defend, and shot the ball into the far corner before Rodriguez blocked it at 12 yards away.

To make matters worse, the team's forward Menez was injured in the subsequent game and could not hold on. So Fernandez had to replace Menez with Reynold at 45 minutes of the game.

During the break, Fernandez felt the mess in the team's midfield and decided to stabilize the defense and regain control.

So Pyanic was replaced by Yayiovi. Yayiovi was a midfielder who was both offensive and defensive, but in more aspects, he was much worse than Chu Zhongtian.

However, his defense is better than Pjanic, so poor Pjanic finally waited for a chance, but only played half the game.

Fernandez's substitution adjustment did not bring him good luck, and the team's situation did not reverse. Although Fernandez said a lot to the players during the midfield, he still pulled several key players to teach opportunities in person after playing. However, Zenit's full-game press interrupted his tactical arrangements, because the situation was difficult to improve without Chu Zhongtian, a player who could control the football in the midfield and then transfer the dispatch.

The second half had just begun ten minutes, and in the 55th minute, Zenit took advantage of Metz's mistakes on the defense line to win another goal.

At that time, Zenit's right-back Alexandr_anyukov inserted an assist and crossed to the goal. The central defender Traore was not closely guarding the man, and Victor_faizulin headed the ball from six yards in front of the goal.

Zenit leads 3:0 in pen!

This goal concealed completely destroyed the fighting spirit of Metz players.

Before the game, they vowed to give the victory of this game to Chu Zhongtian, who was unable to come to St. Petersburg due to the suspension.

But unexpectedly, what was given to Chu Zhongtian was a clean and neat defeat.

Every Metz player on the court has a hollow eyes and a confused look, not knowing what they should do.

Fernandez can do nothing to face such a game.

I can only watch my team be humiliated away. For Metz, who just eliminated his strong rival Bayern Munich, this is like a nightmare.

But neither Metz nor his nightmare have ended.

In the 73rd minute, Al Shavin, who had been active in the whole game, dribbled the ball and broke through Metz's left back Frank Signorino on the right side, and then made a cross. Center Pogrebniac, who was connected in the middle, pushed the ball into the bottom right corner from 16 yards at the first time. This was his tenth goal in the 13th game of this League Cup, and Zenit led 4:0 at home!

After that, Metz began a desperate counterattack. They did not seek to win the game, but were trying to pursue one or two away goals.

But neither Chu Zhongtian nor Pjanic. Mess was disconnected from the midfield and frontcourt, and the ball behind could not be accurately sent to the front. Ibisevic had the ability but could not use it.

In the end, Metz was able to accept this painful score helplessly on the away game - 0:4.

This score means a lot of things. First of all, they did not get a away goal, which greatly reduced their chances of turning the game in the second leg. Secondly, the net loss of four goals has basically announced the end of the semi-finals in advance, unless they return to home to the same score, and hope to drag the game into overtime. But this is really difficult... Every Metz player refuses to be interviewed after the game, but Fernandez is the head coach and he must attend the post-match press conference. When the media asked him to comment on the game, Fernandez seemed helpless: "We had imagined many possibilities, but I didn't expect that we could concede the ball just four minutes into the game. This disrupted all our arrangements and put a heavy psychological burden on the players."

A reporter asked: "Did Chu's absence have had a great impact on the team?"

Fernandez nodded and admitted simply: "Yes, we lack a player in the midfield who can organize in a series. Originally, we thought Chu's red card would not have much impact, but judging from this game, his absence did have a great impact..."

Some reporters asked him what to do next round.

"Next round...we will try our best to advance. Now is not the time to give up..."

But anyone can tell that he is just holding on now.

Even if Chu Zhongtian returns, he may not be able to help Messe complete a shocking reversal. If they really do it, it would probably be difficult to defend the League Cup.

※※※ Back at the Holy Mountain Forian training base, all the Metz players who lost the ball were in a bad mood. They were dejected during the training and were unwilling to talk more about the game against Zenit.

It was not the first time for them to lose, but it was really unacceptable to lose with such a large score in such an important game.

Everyone felt discouraged when they thought of the huge gap between the four balls.

The so-called misfortune does not happen alone, but it rains all the time. It is usually used at this time - 0:4, in addition to losing to Zenit, there are even more unlucky ones.

Menez, who was injured in the game, was diagnosed with pubic tendon inflammation after the game and had to undergo surgery. He will be absent for at least three months and will be completely reimbursed this season. I thought Menez was just a simple muscle strain, but I didn't expect that this disease would be such a disease. Fernandez was very troubled.

The whole team was filled with pessimism.

This emotion has been brought to the league.

Mess in the league has not yet recovered from the feeling of losing a big score in the League Cup. They lost 0-1 to Saint-Etienne at home. Since the League Cup entered the knockout stage, Mess, who fought on both sides, has been unstable in the league. As of the 35th round of the league, with three rounds left before the end of the league, they have accumulated 47 points and ranked 12th in the league. There is an eleven point gap from Rennes, who is sixth in the league, and has completely lost the hope of participating in next season's European competitions based on the league rankings.

Now if they want to participate in the next season's League Cup, they must defend the champion in the League Cup, but before defending the title, they have to complete a big reversal that is almost impossible... This is true. On May 1st, Metz welcomed their opponent, St. Petersburg Zenit, in the second leg of the League Cup semi-finals, at home.

In this game, Chu Zhongtian returned to the starting lineup.

Everyone had high expectations for him, and he did not disappoint the fans.

Eighteen minutes into the game, Ibisekic used a straight pass to create an opportunity for Ibisevic. The Bosnian scorer scored the football into the goal and took the lead in getting the goal back!

This goal made the Holy Mountain Forian Stadium thunderous. There are three goals left before overtime, and there are still 72 minutes left, so it is still time.

In order to prevent Chu Zhongtian and Mes from performing, Zenit had to use the killing tactics.
To be continued...