Chapter 249: Silence in the Later Period
Because one player was sent off, the situation was unfavorable for Inter Milan, but the opponent did not score a goal after all.
Inter Milan has not been forced into a desperate situation!
But the impact of the shortage of players is still very obvious. After Vieira left the field, Inter Milan's formation shrank a lot.
Because of the contraction of the back line, the space on both sides of the wing becomes larger.
Inter Milan's lineup has no wingers, and is unable to intercept and delay the opponent's attack in the frontcourt, resulting in the reliance on full-backs for both offense and defense on the flanks.
When Sporting Lisbon used the flanks as the main breakthrough point for attack, Inter Milan's two full-backs found it more difficult to assist because of the huge defensive pressure they faced, causing Inter Milan's offensive tactics to fail and the threat to Sporting Lisbon's goal to drop sharply.
Mancini realized that something was wrong, but he didn't know who to replace for a moment.
After thinking for a long time, Mancini finally decided to let Figo play and replace Crespo.
Crespo performed very poorly in this game. It's not that there was something wrong with his own condition, but that a "striker" like him would be almost useless in the frontcourt if he didn't get enough support from his teammates.
Compared to him, Torres at least has good individual combat capabilities. He can dribble the ball and break through, and is relatively less dependent on his teammates.
Seeing Figo preparing to go on the court, Lin Feng immediately understood Mancini's intention.
This is intended for him to cooperate with Figo, and these people in the front field will solve the offensive problems on their own!
Although it is difficult, it is not completely impossible.
The prerequisite is, don’t lose the ball!
What you fear will come true. Just when Figo was standing on the sidelines preparing to enter the field, the home team scored a goal.
In the 64th minute, Sporting Lisbon once again chose to attack from the wing.
Maicon and Cambiasso wanted to intercept the opponent's attack on the wing, but there was a mistake in their cooperation and they missed Sporting Lisbon's No. 12 Caneila.
The latter grabbed the ball first in the chaos, and passed it to the front of the penalty area before Inter Milan's central defender could make up for it. Another Lisbon player who followed up in the middle received a pass from his teammate about 20 meters in front of the goal, got rid of another Inter Milan defender and shot. Cesar was standing relatively forward, and although he tried hard to save the opponent's shot, he failed to save the ball.
The ball went into the net and the score became 1:0, with Sporting Lisbon scoring the first goal.
This goal dealt a heavy blow to Inter Milan's morale. The team was originally short of players, and everyone gritted their teeth trying to defend their goal, but ultimately failed.
With fewer players and lagging behind, it would be difficult to even draw the game, let alone win.
Figo finally came on the court, but when he saw the score of 0:1, he felt helpless.
"It seems that I am a little late!"
Lin Feng shook his head: "It's not too late, you came at the right time!"
In Lin Feng's opinion, the reason why this game was so difficult was that in addition to the excellent performance of the home team, Inter Milan itself was in poor form.
In fact, it still depends on the team’s mentality!
Perhaps because they received too much praise in Italy, the players unconsciously carried a psychological burden. They not only wanted to win, but also wanted to win beautifully. It would be best if they could shut out their opponents!
The situation in the first half was fine. The players played steadily and did not give the opponent too many chances. Although they wasted a lot of opportunities on offense, there were no fatal mistakes on defense.
But everything changed when Vieira was sent off.
With fewer people on the team and seeing the opponent attacking so fiercely, the players on the team gradually began to lose unity in their thinking.
Some people still want to attack and defeat their opponents to get all three points.
But more people felt that a draw would be enough. After all, no one scored in the first half. Now with fewer people, it would be even harder to score. If they were too obsessed with attacking and were ambushed by the opponent, they might not even get a draw.
But as the opponent scored, their idea naturally failed.
Inter Milan now has only one choice, that is to go all out and attack with all their might.
After all, Inter Milan's lineup is still stronger than its opponents. As long as the whole team can be united in thinking and work together, even if there are fewer people, Lin Feng still feels there is hope of scoring a goal.
Figo nodded; he was convinced by Lin Feng.
Although he felt that the game was over when he came on the court, after hearing what Lin Feng said, he realized that the worst that could happen was a loss, so why not give it a try and fight for that glimmer of hope?
After the game resumed, Inter Milan took the initiative to speed up the offensive tempo.
After Figo came on the court, Lin Feng's pressure in the frontcourt was relieved a lot. In addition, Maicon rushed up to participate in the attack again and again without sparing his energy, allowing Inter Milan to launch a small offensive climax in the frontcourt.
Although Sporting Lisbon anticipated Inter Milan's counterattack, they did not expect Inter Milan's counterattack to be so fierce.
For a while, their formation was suppressed by Inter Milan and they could hardly move forward.
After suppressing the opponent with offense, Inter Milan's midfield was also liberated, and Stankovic and Cambiasso finally freed up their energy to participate in the offense.
In the 69th minute, Stankovic intercepted the ball in the midfield and boldly chose to dribble forward.
His action attracted the attention of the opponent's full-back and defensive midfielder, allowing Lin Feng to see the opportunity and quietly move to the left to the flank area.
Stankovic saw that the opponent's defense was tight and felt that he had no chance, so he was about to pass the ball back to his teammates so that they could reorganize the attack.
When he suddenly saw Lin Feng's running position, his eyes suddenly lit up and he passed the ball without hesitation.
Sporting Lisbon's full-back stretched out his foot to intercept, but missed by a hair's breadth, and the ball successfully landed at Lin Feng's feet.
As soon as Lin Feng got the ball, another defensive midfielder of the opponent rushed over, but his action to steal the ball was already within Lin Feng's prediction. Lin Feng lowered his left shoulder and kicked the ball to the left with his right foot, as if he was going to break through from the left. The opponent did not suspect him and immediately adjusted his body's center of gravity, trying to continue to stick to Lin Feng.
But this was just a feint by Lin Feng. After seeing the opponent shift his center of gravity, he quickly pushed the ball to the outside with his right foot, pushed the ground hard with his left foot, and suddenly accelerated his body, rushing out from the gap created by the opponent.
"Good shot, beautiful pass!"
"There is space in front of Lin Feng, he can shoot the ball himself!"
Before the commentator finished speaking, Lin Feng had already adjusted his pace, looked up at the goalkeeper's position, and swung his legs in preparation for the shot.
Everyone thought he was going to shoot himself. The opponent's goalkeeper squatted slightly, ready to save the shot. The central defender even made a flying move to block the shot.
However, contrary to everyone's expectations, Lin Feng did not shoot himself, but faked a shot and passed the ball into the penalty area with the inside of his right foot. Torres rushed over like a tank, and under the huge inertia, he twisted his body forcefully and completed a light push shot, then twisted his body into a knot and fell into the penalty area.
When Torres fell, he heard screams from the fans at the scene.
When I turned around, I saw the ball was already rolling in the net.
"Torres! The 22-year-old young Spanish center forward stood up when the team needed him most!"
"Just when the outside world was questioning whether Inter Milan had made a mistake again by bringing in a fake striker at a high price, Torres stood up, redeemed himself, and saved his team!"
"Inter Milan, who was one man down, fought hard to equalize the score despite extremely unfavorable circumstances. The game is not over yet. Can they continue to create miracles?"
This goal did give Inter Milan's morale a significant boost, but Sporting Lisbon is not a pushover.
After Inter Milan equalized the game, they became more aggressive and launched a mad-dog pressing campaign on Inter Milan players on the field.
If the previous pressing was mainly concentrated in the midfield and backcourt, now they have expanded the range of pressing to the frontcourt. Even if Inter Milan's defenders pass the ball back in the backcourt, they will not allow it!
The opponent's numerical advantage, coupled with their reckless running and pressing, made it difficult for Inter Milan to organize an effective attack.
But on the other hand, it is difficult for the opponent's attack to penetrate Inter Milan's defense.
In the end, the score remained 1:1 until the end of the game.
This score was difficult to accept for both sides. Sporting Lisbon paid a huge price in physical exertion and several players received cards in this game. Despite the big advantage of the opponent having fewer players and themselves scoring first, they actually lost the three points.
For Inter Milan, a key defender was injured and Vieira received a red card. When they return to their home court to face the strongest team Bayern Munich in the next game, neither of them will be able to play.
Originally, even if Inter Milan put all their main players into it, they might not be able to beat Bayern. Now, two main players have been lost before the game even started, making the next game even more difficult.
If Inter Milan loses to Bayern at home and only gets 1 point in two rounds, their situation of qualifying for the group stage will be very dangerous.
It is precisely because of this that after this game, major Italian media used the word "disappointing" to evaluate Inter Milan's performance in the Champions League.
“Haha, I told you not to praise Inter Milan, now I’ve been slapped in the face, right?”
"As the Serie A champions, we couldn't even beat a Portuguese Super League team, and we almost lost the game unexpectedly. I feel ashamed to tell anyone about it!"
"It's over, it's over. Serie A looks like it's really over. Even the champions are performing like this. What else can you expect?"
"Inter Milan is finished, the other teams performed much better than them!"
In the first round of the Champions League, AC Milan beat Athens 3:0 at home, and Roma beat Shakhtar Donetsk 4:0 at home. Both teams got off to a good start and won resoundingly.
Inter Milan was the only team that didn't win, but they are still the Serie A champions.
It's no wonder that the fans would mock them. After all, before the game started, the entire Italian media was praising Inter Milan, but the 'invincible' Inter Milan handed in such an answer.
Not to mention the fans of other teams scolding them, even Inter Milan’s own fans had the urge to curse.
Look at Bayern, they are also a top club, why is Bayern so stable in beating weak teams?
In the first round, Bayern won 4-0 against Spartak Moscow at home, firmly taking the initiative to qualify from the first round of the group stage.
Given Inter Milan's current state, fans really don't think they can go head-to-head with Bayern.
As soon as the team lost, Moratti's patience was immediately exhausted and he impulsively wanted to make substitutions.
But there was really no good coach to replace him at this time, so Moratti could only continue to PUA Mancini and give him a military order:
"We must win the next game!"
Mancini felt bitter in his heart and silently looked at the game schedule. When he saw the name of Bayern Munich, he opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but when he met Moratti's unquestionable eyes, he finally swallowed back what he wanted to say.
As the saying goes, when misfortunes never come singly, Inter Milan just suffered a setback in the Champions League and after returning to the league, they immediately stumbled again.
In the second round of the league, Inter Milan, playing at home, was equalized by Sampdoria in injury time, and the advantage they had led for most of the game was wiped out.
AC Milan and Roma won one after another, causing Inter Milan's position in the Serie A standings to drop from first to fifth.
This time, the ridicule from the outside world suddenly became louder!
"No way, no way, this is the invincible Inter Milan in Serie A? How come they can't even beat Sampdoria?"
"Inter Milan spent so much money and brought in so many top players, but ended up with such a poor result. They are in a hopeless situation!"
For a time, the entire Italian football world was filled with mockery of Inter Milan. In addition to mocking Inter Milan, some fans even opened a bet on when Inter Milan would change its coach:
"Moratti must be considering the team's new coach now. Maybe we will see Inter Milan change their coach next week!"
"Do you think Mancini can last until Christmas?"
"I'm looking at Xuan!"
"I also think it's unlikely. If Inter Milan loses a few more games, given Moratti's temper, I'm afraid he will be fired before December!"
In addition to mocking Inter Milan and its boss, they also did not forget to mock Inter Milan's players, many of whom attacked Lin Feng.
“Why are you bragging about Lin Feng being the best player in Serie A? I don’t think he is even remotely as good as Totti. Let’s see how the werewolf king Totti leads his team to victory!”
"Is this guy hitting the rookie wall? He performed amazingly in his first season because everyone was unfamiliar with him. But in his second season, when everyone knew his strength, his performance seemed to have lost its magic and plummeted!"
This statement has been recognized by many people. Otherwise, it cannot explain why Inter Milan's lineup is so strong this season but they play so badly.
You should know that at the end of last season, when Inter Milan was full of injured players, Lin Feng was still able to lead the incomplete Inter Milan to advance triumphantly on his own.
Why is it that this trick suddenly failed to work this season?
Fans would naturally think that Lin Feng’s own condition must have declined!
But not everyone thinks so!
Kaka, whose playing style and position on the field are very similar to Lin Feng, believes that it was Inter Milan's tactical changes that restricted Lin Feng's performance.
(End of this chapter)
