Football: Starting from the 05 World Youth Championship

As expected, Argentina dominated the game after it started, taking advantage of their home field to launch wave after wave of attacks on China.

Messi was undoubtedly the most dazzling star in the opposing team's lineup. In the first five minutes of the match, he alone created several dangerous situations in front of the Chinese team's goal with his unstoppable dribbling and sharp breakthroughs.

The Chinese team's approach to dealing with Messi's threat was also very simple: starting from the backfield, they sent multiple players to double-team and press him, limiting his movement as much as possible and denying him space to break through or pass the ball.

This tactic had some effect, but because the Chinese players were not strong enough, although they could limit Messi, they could not completely shut him down.

Messi is still able to create threats and occasionally pass the ball to his teammates.

Today, Messi was partnered up front by his good friend Aguero. The two cooperated very well, and even in the midst of the opponent's defense, they were able to produce some pleasing attacking combinations from time to time.

Meanwhile, Di Maria on the wing, after his two teammates on the front line drew enough firepower, frequently used his dribbling ability to cause trouble for the Chinese team on the wing.

In the first fifteen minutes of the match, the situation was almost one-sided. The Chinese team was pinned back in their own half and couldn't get out of the field. Even when the whole team retreated to defend, it was difficult to withstand the opponent's attack, and dangerous situations kept breaking out in front of the goal.

If it weren't for Wang Dalei's superb performance, making numerous saves to deny the opponent's shots, the Chinese team would be behind now.

But good fortune won't last forever for the Chinese team. If they continue to be so passive, conceding a goal is only a matter of time.

On the sidelines, Chinese national football team coach Zhu Guanghu frowned deeply.

Although he had anticipated a tough match before it started, the attacking pressure exerted by the opponent once the game began still exceeded his expectations.

Is this the strength of the world's top teams?
Compared to teams like this, the Chinese team is indeed far behind.

This Argentine team on the field is very young, especially their forward line:
Messi at 22, Aguero at 21, Higuain at 21, and Tevez at 25—these shining strikers in the top five leagues are all in their early twenties, but they have already shown the potential to be super strikers.

Messi was the top scorer in La Liga and Europe last season, Tevez scored goals like crazy for Manchester City, and even Higuain and Aguero have scored double-digit goals for their respective clubs.

Looking at the forward line alone, there are almost no national teams in the world that can compare with Argentina!
Therefore, in the eyes of Argentine fans, scoring a goal was only a matter of time.

"Give up the struggle, Chinese people, you can't hold out!"

"Haha, go back to farming, football isn't for you!"

The Argentine fans, who had a clear advantage, hurled insults at the Chinese players on the field.

Although the vast majority of Chinese players do not understand Spanish, this does not prevent them from understanding what the other party is trying to express through their facial expressions.

Even a clay figure has a bit of fire in it. Faced with the arrogant Argentine fans and players, the Chinese players on the field gradually got into the game, and even their previously restrained movements began to become more aggressive.

Within minutes, several Argentine players, including Messi and Di Maria, who were attempting to break through with the ball, were tackled by Chinese players.

Neither of them was injured, but they were covered in mud and looked quite disheveled.

After being fouled, the Argentine players became much more subdued, since no one wants to get injured in a friendly match.

The fans at the stadium naturally booed the Chinese team for their fouls and mocked the Chinese players for their "brutal" playing style.

But their boos didn't sound harsh to the Chinese players; in fact, they sounded rather pleasant.

In this match, Lin Feng was matched up against his club teammate, Mascherano.

Although Argentina had possession of the ball for most of the time, China would always target Lin Feng whenever they got the ball.

This puts a lot of pressure on Mascherano, but as one of the world's top defensive midfielders, he is confident in his interception ability and can defend against any midfielder!

However, he was already drenched in sweat after only 20 minutes of the game.

Lin Feng's range of movement is too large. He never stays in midfield waiting for the ball to come to him. Instead, he is always making runs and receiving passes.

Mascherano was slightly distracted, and his opponent moved away from him, running to a safe position to receive the ball.

Given Lin Feng's ball control skills, once he manages to stop the ball, it becomes exponentially more difficult to steal it from him.

At first, Little Ma was brimming with confidence and tried to rob a few times.

He found that he couldn't steal the ball from his opponent in a one-on-one situation, so he tried to call for backup.

However, in order to implement Maradona's aggressive offensive style, almost all of his teammates pushed forward, and the only one who could help was the aging Veron.

Born in 75, Veron is already 34 years old this year. Expecting him to help with defense is really wishful thinking.

After all, he's at an age where he's almost retired, and he's really out of fuel!

In fact, he had already left the top five leagues two years ago and returned to the Argentine league to retire.

So even he himself did not expect to be called up by Maradona and become a part of this brand-new Argentine national team.

After all, any normal person would choose Riquelme over him, but because of the conflict between him and Riquelme, Maradona gave up on Riquelme, so Maradona had no choice but to choose him.

Even an old midfielder like Veron, who is nearing retirement, has been called up, which shows just how weak the midfield of this Argentine team is!
Veron was Lin Feng's teammate at Inter Milan and even served as Lin Feng's substitute for a period of time, so he knows very well how strong Lin Feng is.

Seeing that Ma was under pressure, he wanted to come up and help, but unfortunately he was not good at defense, and his running ability and physical fitness had declined significantly compared to his peak.

His attempt to help not only failed to achieve the desired effect, but actually made things worse.

After Lin Feng attacked, he deftly nutmegged Veron, then broke free from the two men's encirclement.

After breaking through the encirclement, Lin Feng suddenly saw a clearer view.

Lin Feng's former teammate Samuel knew how good he was, so he immediately stepped forward to intercept, not to steal the ball from Lin Feng, but to slow down the opponent's attack and buy time for his teammates to get into position.

Lin Feng was well aware of the opponent's plan, because the Chinese team's formation was heavily compressed, and when he dribbled the ball on a counterattack, there was no one around him to support him.

With starting striker Gao Lin still behind him, Lin Feng couldn't stop to wait for him. The opportunity was too good to pass up, so he had to keep moving forward.

In an instant, he made a decision in his heart.

Faced with Samuel's interception, Lin Feng slightly reduced his speed, giving the other party the illusion that he was about to be stopped.

But just as the opponent approached within 2 meters of him, he suddenly flicked the ball to the right with the outside of his right foot. Samuel's eyes had never left the ball at Lin Feng's feet, and upon seeing the opponent's movement, he almost instinctively pulled his foot back, preparing to turn and block the shot.

However, at the very moment his center of gravity shifted, Lin Feng's outstretched right foot, after completing the motion of flicking the ball to the right, suddenly used the inside of his foot to twist the ball to the left.

Samuel, whose center of gravity was shifting backward, was unable to make any other moves and could only watch helplessly as his opponent passed him from the outside.

Cow's tail!
Exclamations erupted from the stands as the well-informed Argentine fans immediately recognized the move Lin Feng had used!
They'd seen the "cow tail" move before, but they'd never seen a player use it so skillfully while dribbling at high speed!
Even Ronaldinho, the football prodigy, needs to slow down to a certain level before he can use the Bull Tail.

After getting past Samuel, only Burdisso remained blocking Lin Feng's path.

As Lin Feng pressed closer, the Argentine fans at Monumental Stadium nervously began to pray silently, clearly lacking confidence in Burdisso.

Burdisso was completely numb at that moment. Wasn't it his side that was attacking just a few seconds ago?
How did the opponent manage to dribble up to our penalty area so quickly?
What about avant-garde?
What about the defensive midfielder?
Save it!

With limited abilities and unable to carry the burden alone, Burdisso did not cause Lin Feng much trouble.

The two had worked together briefly at Inter Milan, and Lin Feng knew very well that his opponent was slow to turn. With a burst of speed, he left his opponent behind.

Burdisso, who had been completely outmaneuvered, no longer needed to worry about how to stop Lin Feng. This problem had now been handed over to his teammate – Argentina's goalkeeper Romero!

At this moment, Romero just wanted to curse!

What kind of terrible defense could allow the opponent to break through from the middle, overcome all obstacles, and dribble all the way into their own penalty area?
Damn it, this is already a one-on-one situation, how am I supposed to defend?
Now that things have come to this, we have no choice but to bite the bullet and take action!
Lin Feng did not make things difficult for the young goalkeeper, who was only 22 years old. The moment Romero came out, he took the opportunity to push the ball into the far corner and send it into the goal.

The score became 1-0, with the away team, China, taking the lead!
This result was unexpected by everyone. Not only were the Argentinians surprised, but even the Chinese fans watching the live broadcast of the game were completely taken aback.

China's first shot on goal resulted in a goal?
We're in the lead?
Some fans, wondering if they were dreaming, couldn't help but pinch their thighs.

It wasn't until they felt a clear, real pain in their thighs that they believed it was real!
Lin Feng is awesome!

【666! 】

That was an incredible shot!

[Haha, we're in the lead! We're actually in the lead!]

Weren't the Argentinians just being arrogant? Keep being arrogant, will you?

[Plans changed, be prepared for an upset!]

Chinese fans across the ocean were ecstatic, while Argentine fans on the other side of the ocean began to question their existence.

How exactly did we concede that goal?

They couldn't understand why the team that scored first wasn't them, but their opponents.

In the first 20 minutes of the match, the Chinese team did not have a single decent attacking opportunity. Lin Feng's shot was the only shot the Chinese team had in the first half.

On the other hand, Argentina had at least eight or ten shots on goal in the first 20 minutes.
With so many opportunities presented to them, why didn't they seize them and instead allowed the opponent to score first?

"Pretty!"

"Just kick it like that!"

"I knew Lin Feng could do it!"

The cheers and celebrations coming from the Chinese coaching bench on the sidelines were making Maradona a little irritated.

To be honest, he didn't understand how Argentina conceded that goal either!

When Lin Feng received the ball, there were four Argentine defenders nearby.

But these four people couldn't stop him!

Instead of questioning whether his single defensive midfielder formation was too weak, he blamed the players for not being serious enough, thinking they must have been careless and hadn't defended properly.

Otherwise, how could the opponent have gotten past his entire back line by one person?
Mascherano, who had been chasing after them all the way but still couldn't catch up, felt aggrieved when he heard his coach's roar from the sidelines.

Although it was indeed his responsibility not to stop Lin Feng, he didn't expect the other party to be so difficult to deal with!

Although the two had faced off in previous training matches within the club.

However, in those warm-up matches, apart from young players eager to make a name for themselves, the main players generally don't take them too seriously.

So Little Ma didn't actually feel Lin Feng's true strength, but at this moment, he truly felt the powerful pressure Lin Feng exerted on the opponents in the midfield.

"The Chinese team scored an unexpected goal, which can definitely be called a dream start!"

"I have a different opinion!"

"Oh? Coach Zhang, please speak!"

"On the surface, this attack was almost entirely created by Lin Feng's strong individual ability, but in reality, I think it was a tactic deliberately arranged by Coach Zhu Guanghu."

"Did you notice? During the counter-attack just now, Lin Feng moved ahead of striker Gao Lin, taking the lead. This shows that Lin Feng is the real trump card in the Chinese team's counter-attack tactics!"

Zhang Lu's analysis received considerable approval from fans:
[Pulling the forwards back to play as defenders, and pushing the midfielders up to play as forwards—that's what surprise is all about!]

If Zhang Lu's analysis is correct, then I declare that Lao Zhu has the upper hand in this round of the duel with Lama!

[Old Zhu: I'm not as good as Maradona at playing football, but you're not as good as me at leading a team!]

In just a few minutes, Chinese fans went from being gloomy to being overjoyed.

Inside the CCTV studio, after delivering her analysis, Zhang Lu's expression suddenly turned serious:

"That kind of 'cow tail' movement during fast dribbling requires extremely high levels of core strength and physical flexibility from the player!"

"Although it looks pleasing to the eye, I strongly advise Lin Feng not to use it again. This move is not only dangerous, but also puts a heavy burden on the body, especially on the knees and ankles. If he gets injured, it could very well be a season-ending injury, or even a serious injury that could affect his career!" (End of Chapter)