The road to godhood starting from Ligue 1

Chapter 225 The Poetics of French Football
The youthful spirit was revealed at this moment.

Yes,

It was indeed three goals.

But not Atlético Madrid, it's Bastia!

This scene was captured by countless cameras.

At this moment.

Bastia is having a blast.

As always, the tavern was filled with the mingled alcohol from the glasses; screams and gasps echoed through the streets and alleys of Bastia.
On every broadcast screen, the passionate shouts of TF1 commentators echoed simultaneously—

"OH LL! C'EST MAGNIFIQUE! Gaio! Gaio! Gaio scores for Bastia!!!"
His series of feints in front of the penalty area—this was probably the umpteenth time he'd shaken off Filipe—he burst into the box and unleashed a powerful shot! Goal! Goal! Goal! The score is now 3-1!

Look at the silence of the Atletico Madrid fans in the stands; I believe Bastia is now in a frenzy! This is their historic moment!
Gaião has written his own legend in this Europa League match! France is breathing, and their opponents are trembling!

This is the poetry of French football!

Bastia is having a blast.

Calderon remained silent.

Courtois reluctantly retrieved the ball from the net, his brow furrowed; the match was proving far more difficult than he had anticipated.

The other Atletico Madrid players basically shared the same idea.

Kirk stood on the court, hands on his hips, watching Gaio. He replayed Gaio's series of moves in his mind and saw the upper limit of Gaio's dribbling ability.

His dribbling skills are excellent, but against Gaio, Kirk seemed to see a long road ahead of him.

He was called a genius.

But Gaio seems to deserve the title more.

Corner flag area.

The Bastia players swarmed around Gaio, surrounding him with smiles on their faces.

Rothen hugged Gaio tightly, exclaiming, "Great! All our hard work on defense paid off! We've been waiting for this shot!"

Hahaha.

Everyone else laughed, feeling that the defense in this half of the court had finally made a difference.

Defense is very mentally taxing.

But Gaio's goal greatly boosted their morale.

When Simeone saw Gaio's gesture after scoring, he knew it was aimed at him.

This actually calmed him down.

Think carefully about the current situation.

Does Atletico Madrid have any other tricks up its sleeve?
Have.

Falcao.

In fact, Simeone originally wanted to rest Falcao and let Costa fill in.

But it seems the team is having problems on offense and needs to make adjustments.

Costa can't come off; he has to coordinate with Falcao.

The two wingers need adjustment, and Raul Garcia's position also needs adjustment; neither has been effective.

Simeone quickly determined in his mind how to make adjustments for the second half.

It's impossible to use all three substitution slots at once.

The priority is to replace Raul Garcia, but who can we use?
After considering his squad, Simeone decided to substitute Christian Rodriguez.

After finalizing the adjustments, Simeone turned his attention to the field, waving to his players to calm down and get through the first half first.

Haji Begitch jumped in again.

Like Gaio, he held up three fingers towards Simone.

The two head coaches are really going head-to-head today.

Mbappe, Saliba, and others joined the visiting team in chanting "Gaião" wildly.

Although they didn't fill the away section, everyone was shouting from the bottom of their hearts.

Listening to Bastia's shouts, watching Atletico Madrid's silence.

Deschamps laughed and said, "There are still two months until the Golden Boy award winner is announced. I think it's 100% Gaio this year. I estimate that Turin will release the list of nominees next week. Based on Gaio's current performance, it's hard for anyone to compete with him. I've seen the media discussing Gaio the most."

Zidane nodded. "Gaião has a great chance of winning, but we still need to see what happens in the next month or so. I think the only ones who can challenge Gaião are AC Milan's El Shaarawy and La Liga's Francisco Málaga."

Zidane pays close attention to these things.

Because Real Madrid now has young players who are being hyped by the media and may have a chance to compete for the Golden Boy award, such as Jesé and Varane.

However, in Zidane's view, they are still far behind Gaio.

Since its inception in 2003, the winners of the European Golden Boy award over the past nine years have all rightfully earned their place as top-tier football stars.

The Golden Boy Award is highly prestigious.

Some say this is the Ballon d'Or for players under 21.

After all, this is an expert judging panel composed of 30 journalists from media outlets in 20 European countries, including authoritative media such as France Football, L'Équipe, The Times, Marca, Mundo Deportivo, and Bild.

The voting rules are also simple.

Each judge selects 5 players from the candidates and scores them according to their ranking: 10 points for first place, 7 points for second place, 5 points for third place, 3 points for fourth place, and 1 point for fifth place. The player with the highest score will receive the Golden Boy Award.

"Oh?" Deschamps clearly didn't have much time to pay attention to these things and seemed somewhat puzzled.

Zidane continued, "El Shaarawy and Francisco have both performed well, scoring goals in both Serie A and La Liga. The key is that they have Champions League matches, which is a bigger platform than the Europa League."

Francisco's style is very similar to Gaião's; both have excellent dribbling skills. You may not follow La Liga and be unaware that Malaga is in financial crisis, but they still manage to rank in the top four in La Liga thanks to Francisco, and their performance in the Champions League is also quite good.

It's true that new talents emerge every year. Gaio stepped into the professional arena at the beginning of this year and made a name for himself.

Francisco's professional debut was only a year earlier than Gaio's, but he's already leading a team in the Champions League; he's a very strong young player.

Deschamps agrees with Zidane's statement that "new talents emerge every year".

The world of football has never lacked talent.

Zidane continued, "I'm not afraid to tell you, we've already set our sights on Francisco, and we expect to sign him in the summer transfer window. Malaga has no reason to refuse, and the player himself certainly wouldn't refuse a platform like Real Madrid."

Deschamps shook his head. "Haha, I don't care about Francisco. I only care that Real Madrid doesn't buy Gaio. Such a big club is not suitable for Gaio right now."

"of course."

As Zidane was speaking, he heard a commotion coming from the Calderon Stadium.

Look over there immediately.

Gaio bent down and flattened a bouquet of flowers from the corner flag area, placing it on the ground.

He then made an apologetic gesture toward the stands.

clap clap clap!
The Atlético Madrid fans in the stands applauded him. At that moment, their eyes, looking at the young player, held no hostility, only admiration. Many players who come to the Calderón stadium don't know the meaning of the flowers in each corner flag.

Some people even find the flowers in the way and kick them away.

But just now,
After celebrating, Lukaku accidentally stepped on the bouquet, and Gaio immediately picked it up, unfolded it, and put it back.

Atletico Madrid fans were already about to start cursing.

But seeing Gaio's actions...

Instead, they applauded him.

The on-site director clearly observed this scene, but was unaware of what was happening.

They only showed one set of shots.

To the broadcasters, it looked like Atlético Madrid fans applauding Gaio.

Some commentators said, "Gaio has won over the discerning fans at Calderon Stadium."

The game quickly resumed.

Atletico Madrid kicked off and did not give up their attack, but their defense appeared more compact.

They left no room for a counterattack.

Seeing this, Hagi Begic frowned. He wanted his players to attack, but he was worried about falling into Atletico Madrid's trap, so he stuck to a deep, low-block defense.

In the final minutes, Atletico Madrid's attack became simple: crosses to Costa.

Costa headed in two of the four crosses.

It gave Haji Begitch a real scare, but thankfully stoppage time ended quickly.

drop!
The referee blew the halftime whistle, signaling the start of halftime.

Hajibegichi breathed a sigh of relief.

Although they are currently leading by two goals, it's unlikely that they will truly relax.

This is Atlético Madrid, and it's at their home ground. A two-goal lead isn't safe.

Hagi Begitch walked toward the locker room while thinking about how to arrange the second half.

The players from both sides had different expressions as they walked toward the locker room.

Atletico Madrid players are quite serious.

Clearly, the result of this first half was not what they hoped for; it would have been better if the score had been reversed.

Player tunnel.

The Bastia players greeted each other, and De Bruyne, who had been chatting and laughing with his teammates, suddenly turned cold.

Gaio glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Courtois walk in, brushing past them.

Bastia dressing room.

Hagi Bejic was not relaxed about being two goals ahead. He said, "We need to continue to strengthen our defense in the second half. We can't let our guard down just because we're ahead. Atletico Madrid will come back like beasts in the second half. We must get back into position as quickly as possible after every goal we lose."

The center-backs should keep compact, and the full-backs should tuck inside to protect the penalty area, preventing their wingers from easily breaking through one-on-one.

The players nodded in agreement. They knew that their lead wasn't due to their overall strength, but mainly because Gaio's individual ability was exceptional.

Hagibejic pointed to Rothen and Kanté and said, "Your teamwork is getting better and better. You did well in the first half. You still need to continue to block Koke and Gabi's passing lanes and disrupt their attempts to find Costa. In the second half, they will likely bring on Falcao, so you need to find ways to disrupt their passing even more early. It's better to foul first than let them get into a smooth attacking flow!"

Rothen nodded.

He was actually very clear about the game in his mind. His only worry was whether his body could withstand such a high-intensity game.

The only good news is that Kante is very mobile and can take on most of his defensive duties.

After Hajibegichi finished speaking, he looked at Gaio.

A smile appeared on his face.

"You did a great job in the first half. You played up to my expectations, but you still need to be careful. Your breakthroughs will attract double teams. They will put more pressure on you in the second half, so you need to be careful and find opportunities to pass the ball quickly."

At this point, Hagi Begic looked at De Bruyne again, "Kevin, when Gaio or Sadio are attacking, you can make some forward runs."

"Gaio, if you get double-teamed, you can pass the ball to Kevin who's making a run into the box."

"Kevin, when you receive the ball in this situation, you have the freedom to choose. You can shoot from long range or look for a teammate."

Both of them nodded.

Based on this half, Atletico Madrid will definitely need to focus on marking Gaio in the second half, so in addition to Mane and Lukaku, they will need other players to make runs from deep to receive the ball.

Enhance the layers of attack.

After explaining the specific arrangements, Hagi Bejic looked at everyone and said, word by word, "Don't underestimate Atletico Madrid. They haven't lost a game this season. Perhaps we can be the first team to make them lose, but there are still 45 minutes left. Your legendary moment is yet to come. Don't let these 45 minutes ruin all your efforts and make all your hard work go to waste!"

"The first 15 minutes are crucial! If they keep getting corner kicks or have multiple shots without scoring, their mentality will collapse. So at the start, everyone needs to retreat and defend, and as soon as we win the ball, we need to launch long balls into open areas to wear them down. Right now, it's not us who are anxious, it's them!"

"Keep this up in the second half, let them know who's really here to fight!"

The Atlético Madrid dressing room on the other side.

Simeone was also constantly devising tactics for the second half.

"Filipe, in the second half I'm making you stick to Gaio! Do you even know how to defend?! Look at how you got beaten in the first half! Didn't I teach you how to defend?"
He dares to take the ball? I'll bump his knee! Every time he gets the ball, Gabi immediately moves laterally to block his cutting inside, forcing him to cross from the outside. That big black guy can't head the ball at all; his crosses just give us a counter-attack!

“And we need to disrupt their long passes, Kirk. You have to block their passing lanes between number 17 and Gaio, don’t let them connect.”

Simeone talked a lot about the plans to defend Gaio's right flank. He couldn't stand his team's defense in this half, seeing Gaio wreaking havoc on the right flank.

This is unforgivable to him.

Of course, besides how to defend against Gaio, Simeone also talked a lot about breaking down the opponent's tight defense.

"Juanfran, Suarez, you need to make more cross-positioning attacks on the opponent's right flank! When crossing from the byline, someone needs to cut inside to the flank and receive the cutback pass. Costa will be at the near post, and Adrian will be at the far post! Also, pay attention to increasing vertical speed and lateral stretching, but reduce lateral passes."

"Garcia, you come down and rest. Christian, go up and get the ball, then pass it to Costa with his back to goal. He'll hold off the center-back and then immediately pass it to the wing. We'll use a 45-degree diagonal pass to break through their defense."

Simone made very careful arrangements.

He doesn't want to lose this match!

Not only because Atletico Madrid has not lost a game this season so far, but more importantly, Bastia is a direct competitor for the top spot in the group.

The other two opponents posed no threat, except for Bastia.

Simeone initially thought Atletico Madrid would easily qualify as group winners, but now it seems there has been a slight surprise.

soon.

Halftime is over.

The players returned to the field.

Gaio noticed that Atletico Madrid had made a substitution, with number 8 Raul Garcia being taken off and replaced by their number 11, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Gaio likes to call him Cristiano Ronaldo.

Christian Rodriguez, that's Cristiano Ronaldo too.

(End of this chapter)