Green Field Eunuch

Chapter 232 How did they even get in?

Wembley Stadium.

With the referee's whistle, the FA Cup final officially began.

Stoke City took advantage of the kickoff and launched an attack towards Manchester City's half. They showed no signs of intimidation and instead displayed impressive spirit, clearly intending to dominate Manchester City.

And their performance was indeed quite good. In their first wave of attack, they reached the penalty area. After Lescott cleared the ball, they intercepted it from De Jong and launched another attack.

Stoke City launched an attack on Manchester City's goal for a full two minutes. Although they did not score, their continuous offensive gave them the upper hand in terms of momentum.

The commentator for the live match said, "Let's watch the game. After the kickoff, Stoke City showed good form. Their attack was very strong. Look at this play, if Kompany hadn't cleared the ball in time, Pennant on the other side would have had a chance..."

"Judging from the start of the game, Stoke City were not giving up easily; they were very strong and worked hard."

"The outcome of the match was not without suspense."

"If Manchester City let their guard down, they could very well be defeated by Stoke City."

On the pitch, Manchester City did indeed find themselves on the back foot in the opening stages.

They were clearly not in the game yet, and after defending for a while, they were intercepted by the opponent again, giving Stoke City many opportunities.

Of course, it won't be easy for Stoke City to score a goal.

Before the match, Mancini emphasized defense to the team, especially the need to guard against the opponent's early attack. Therefore, at this stage, Manchester City's players also devoted more energy to defense.

When a weaker team faces a stronger team, a strong start is a good strategy. By launching an aggressive attack at the beginning, the stronger team can catch off guard and try to score the first goal.

If we can defend against it, we can pull off an upset.

This is a very common method.

Manchester City anticipated this, and Mancini decided to focus on a solid defense and slowly wear down Stoke City. After all, Manchester City has stronger players and a goal-scoring machine like Shan Yongzhuo.

When Stoke City's momentum waned, Manchester City were able to gradually take control of the game and slowly score goals.

Five minutes passed, and the situation unfolded exactly as Mancini had predicted. Manchester City, having gradually regained their footing, began to organize an attack.

In this attack, the ball was moved from the right wing to the middle, and Barry lobbed the ball directly to De Jong, who then kicked it to Shan Yongzhuo.

Shan Yongzhuo was standing on the left side of the penalty area, next to Stoke City defender Shawcross, who was specifically assigned to mark Shan Yongzhuo.

Shawcross positioned himself to Shan Yongzhuo's right front, directly between Shan Yongzhuo and the goal. If Shan Yongzhuo wanted to break through, he would have to face Shawcross directly.

However, shooting directly from this position seems impractical.

However, Shawcross discovered that he was completely wrong.

Instead of making a normal breakthrough like a striker, Shan Yongzhuo started his breakthrough like a winger, kicking the ball to his left front and then rushing towards it.

Shawcross couldn't intercept the ball directly, so he could only turn around and follow Shan Yongzhuo to chase after it.

However, like most tall guards, Shawcross's weakness of slow turning speed came at a great cost at this moment, as he closely followed behind Shan Yongzhuo.

However, looking at Shan Yongzhuo's breakthrough path, Shawcross did not sense any danger.

If Shan Yongzhuo crosses from the byline like a winger, there will be no danger, since he is the one who passes the ball out. All the other Manchester City players combined are not as threatening as he is alone.

As long as it's not Shan Yongzhuo who takes the shot, it's fine.

This was the highest directive Stoke City manager Pulis gave to Shawcross.

Dan Yongzhuo dribbled the ball and quickly reached the vicinity of the byline. Shawcross was hot on his heels, and another full-back, Wilkinson, also came over, trying to double-team Dan Yongzhuo.

If you're caught between two players in this position and the ball stops, then even if Shan Yongzhuo is incredibly skilled, there's basically no way he can turn the tide.

Dan Yongzhuo was about to reach the byline when he glanced at the goal and stopped rushing forward. Instead, he swung his right foot, ignoring the double attack from Wilkinson and Shawcross, and kicked the ball out with the outside of his right foot.

"What is he doing?" "Is that a pass?"

"Keep an eye on Balotelli!"

"Grab the spot!"

In that instant, all the other Stoke City defenders swarmed into the penalty area, completely shutting down Balotelli.

No one believed that Shan Yongzhuo's shot was a direct shot, because he took the shot between two players, and it was simply a pipe dream to score with such a shot.

However, what everyone saw next was the ball being passed between Wilkinson and Shawcross, arcing across the field and heading towards the right corner of the goal.

"Danger!"

"Notice!"

The Stoke City players finally realized what was happening and loudly reminded goalkeeper Sorensen.

"Fuck!"

Sorensen also noticed something was wrong and couldn't help but spit out a curse. He immediately rushed in that direction, but his reaction was a beat too slow, and the angle of that shot was too tricky.

In the end, the football flew into the goal, just past the post.

"Goal?"

"They're in already?"

Many people looked at Stoke City's goal in disbelief. A goal was scored through a gap between two players at an almost zero-degree angle.
The football in the goal reminded them that the ball had indeed gone in.

The referee blows his whistle and raises his hand.

The goal is valid!

"The ball is in!"

"They can get in here?"

The surrounding stands erupted in discussion, and their topic soon shifted from the goal to Shan Yongzhuo.

"Truly worthy of being called a single!"

"Shan Yongzhuo, the world's number one striker, the number one shooter!"

"There's simply no way to defend this ball."

"That's right, unless you stay focused from the beginning, it's impossible to defend against."

The cheers of the fans echoed throughout the stadium.

After Manchester City scored the first goal, not only Manchester City fans, but also more than half of the neutral fans in the stadium applauded, because the goal was indeed very beautiful.

The shot, coming from an almost zero-degree angle, was impeccable.

Shan Yongzhuo's name resounded throughout Wembley.

The commentator exclaimed, "That was a brilliant goal! Wilkinson and Shawcross never expected that Shan Yongzhuo would choose to shoot directly from there."

"That was an absolutely unreasonable goal!"

"The opponent was the number one goal-scoring machine at the time, as if they were born to score goals."

"Stock needs to take this even more seriously from now on, otherwise they won't have any chance at all..."

(End of this chapter)