Chapter 109 Qualifies in advance! (Ch 109)

“The ball goes in!!!”
“Luo Yi’s long shot!!!”
“This is a shocking, unreasonable, heavy long-range shot!”
“Luo Yi, only 17 years old! He conquered Camp Nou! He broke through Zubizarreta’s defense!”
“Before the end of the first half, he helped Monaco equalize the score!”
“This is also Luo Yi’s first goal for Monaco!”
“This first goal was against such a strong opponent and on such an important occasion.”
“Luo Yi, you are really a big scene man!”
On the side of the court.
There was silence on the Barcelona bench.
Cruyff shook his head slightly.
But this time, when he looked at Luo Yi, there was a hint of appreciation in his eyes.
It can be said that Barcelona did not have many loopholes in defense just now.
Monaco’s attacking four had been blocked, and if Luo Yi had kicked the ball a little later, he would have been blocked by Coman.
But not many people thought that Luo Yi chose to take a long shot from a distance of 30 meters!
And he fought so beautifully.
This is a genuine world-class goal!
Isn’t such a midfielder who runs actively, steals fiercely, can pass threatening balls and can also make forward runs and shoot, the best candidate for defensive midfielder in Cruyff’s mind?
Cruyff even thought of his fellow Dutchmen, Gullit and Rijkaard…
What’s even more commendable is that the child is only 17 years old!
Being young means potential and endless possibilities!
“It would be great if I could bring him to Barcelona one day…” Cruyff thought.
At this time, Luo Yi had already stood in front of the visiting team’s fan area.
Strike a pose and perform a classic Tai Chi starting gesture!
He will celebrate the goal in the most Chinese way at the Camp Nou, to celebrate his first goal for Monaco!
Sometimes, celebrations don’t have to be all passionate.
Just like Haaland’s “meditation”, Dybala’s “masked warrior”, Gilardino’s “playing the violin”, Baggio’s “listening carefully”, Raul’s “kissing the ring”…
Many of them are even quieter than this Tai Chi.
The most important thing is to have unique features, and the most important thing is to be memorable!
Sure enough, as soon as Luo Yi’s starting gesture appeared, Monaco fans started roaring wildly!
“Luo Yi!”
“Luo Yi!”
“Luo Yi!”
His classic celebration completely captivated Monaco fans!
As Ikpeba, Djorkaeff, Petit and others rushed to Luo Yi one after another and began to clumsily imitate Luo Yi’s movements, the cheers of Monaco fans suddenly turned into laughter.
The Tai Chi performed by “foreigners” is just not authentic!
—————–
Not long after, the referee blew the whistle to end the first half.
Luo Yi was surrounded by his teammates and walked into the player tunnel.
The Barcelona stars looked a little lost.
No one expected that Monaco, who could easily beat Monaco away from home in the last round, would become a tough nut to crack at Camp Nou today!
Although it is still a draw, Barcelona shows no signs of losing.
However, at the Camp Nou, if Barcelona doesn’t win, it means they lose!
When he returned to the home team’s locker room, Cruyff tapped the tactical board and said loudly:
“In fact, Monaco’s overall strength has not become much stronger.”
“The score in the first half does not truly reflect the gap between our two teams.”
“It was mainly because of their defensive midfielder, the Chinese number 8 Luo Yi, who performed so well, which made them come alive as a team.”
“So, we must limit his performance in the second half.”
“First of all, we also need to intensify the pressure in the frontcourt so that they can’t control the ball and pass it easily.”
“Secondly, Baquero, you should pay more attention to Luo Yi and don’t let him get the ball comfortably!”
“As long as we can restrain him…”
On the other side, the Monaco dressing room.
Assistant coach Messi whispered to Wenger: “Boss, can we hold back a little in the second half? In order to get a point…”
But Wenger waved his hand: “No, keep attacking! If we withdraw now, we will die!”
—————–
The fifteen-minute halftime passed in a flash.
The referee blew the whistle and the second half of the game started again!
Klinsmann and Ikpeba opened the game in the center circle, then passed the ball back to Luo Yi.
From Barcelona, ​​Stoichkov and Begiristain immediately pressed forward.
Luo Yi was not in a hurry and passed the ball to Thuram to deal with.
When Begiristain went to pressure Thuram again, Luo Yi had already moved to the wing, and Thuram passed the ball to the side and took the ball out again.
There is currently a problem with Barcelona’s frontcourt pressure, and that is Romario.
On the surface, he followed his two forward teammates up, but in fact he was just pretending. He ran a few steps and then went to the front and started walking again.
This reduces the effectiveness of Barcelona’s pressing.
However, when Luo Yi dribbled the ball forward again, Buckro also pressed forward.
Compared to Guardiola and Laudrup, captain Baker is actually the one who is better at doing the dirty work in midfield.
He is superior to his other two midfield teammates in various indicators such as defensive positioning and tackling ability.
That’s why Cruyff asked him to be responsible for marking Luo Yi!
Luo Yi first protected the ball with his back, but found it was not so easy to get rid of Bakro’s defense, so he passed it to the side to Xifu.
Shifu looked up at his teammates in front of him and prepared to kick a high ball to Klinsmann.
But at this moment, Guardiola had already predicted Scifo’s actions, and he slid over and tackled the ball away!
Guardiola also stood up very quickly and kicked forward.
A half-high ball reached the right side outside Monaco’s penalty area!
And there, standing Romario.
So he moved again!
It can be said that his judgment of the landing point of the ball and his technique of stopping the ball have been mastered to an extreme.
The moment he received the ball, he just lifted his right foot lightly and let the football lie quietly at his feet.
However, as the game had just started, Monaco’s defense had no time to press forward.
Now all four defenders are in the backcourt!
So the left-back Valeri rushed forward first.
But Romario just gently pushed the ball with the outside of his foot, then moved forward and passed it to Valeri!
The two central defenders, Dumas and Thuram, looked at each other and attacked together!
Dumas kicked from the left and Thuram intercepted from the right.
But an incredible scene occurred.
Romario touched the ball with his left and right feet continuously in just half a second, and his body kept changing rhythm.
Speed ​​up first, then slow down, then speed up again!
With such continuous small changes of direction and his extremely fast pace, he continuously dodged the blockade of two Monaco central defenders!
In fact, from the stands, it was difficult to see exactly what Romario did.
The fans only see one fact:
Romario broke through and entered the penalty area!
He accomplished the feat of passing three people in a row!
“Romario!”
“Romario!”
“Romario!”
With the whole audience shouting in unison, the atmosphere at Camp Nou reached its highest point!
This is Romario!
His extraordinary ability in a small space is unparalleled in the world!
Now, he has a one-on-one situation and faces Monaco goalkeeper Ettori.
At this moment, Monaco fans were already in despair.
Because compared to Romario’s dribbling, his ability to seize opportunities is truly amazing.
He scored more than a thousand goals in his lifetime, most of which were scored in the penalty area.
He is the real “king of the penalty area”, and later Van Nistelrooy could only respectfully call him senior.
Now that Romario has a chance to score, it basically means he has scored a goal.
But at this time…
A black-haired figure stood in front of Romario!
Monaco’s No. 8, Luo Yi!
He immediately returned to defense after seeing Scifo being intercepted and kicked forward by Guardiola.
After Romario passed three defenders, he returned to the penalty area and stood in front of the old goalkeeper Ettori, becoming the last line of defense!
Luo Yi VS Romario, this is also the first head-on confrontation between the two goal scorers today!
Suddenly, all eyes were focused here.
In the eyes of Barcelona fans at Camp Nou, Luo Yi’s coming over to provide backup defense was just to add another backdrop to Romario’s legendary goal.
“Romario alone destroyed Monaco’s entire defense, let alone a Chinese kid like you?”
At this time, Romario started to speed up.
His dribbling moves are not actually very eye-catching.
He doesn’t use bicycle moves as frequently as Denilson, nor does he use high-speed impacts to blow up his opponents like Ronaldo.
He mainly relies on his low center of gravity and short-distance explosive power to suddenly start when he is stationary or moving slowly, using the smallest movement, the fastest step frequency, and the slightest change of direction to shake off the defense.
Now facing Luo Yi’s defense, Romario is also confident that he can defeat him with this trick!
But Luo Yi’s eyes were very firm.
He didn’t care what Romario was doing, or how fast the lone wolf’s feet were.
He stared at the ball at Romario’s feet.
Then……
Lower your center of gravity, turn sideways, and quickly extend your right leg.
Fall to the ground and shovel!
Luo Yi’s foot landed accurately on the football, and then took Romario down with him.
The two men fell to the grass at the same time, and the football slowly slid out of the baseline.
“The referee indicated that there was no foul!”
“That was an accurate and elegant tackle!”
“Luo Yi disrupted Romario’s attack, and this potential one-on-one shot was ruined!”
“After Romario passed three people in a row, he was finally defeated by Luo Yi.”
“This duel is truly a wonderful moment worth recording!”
Goalkeeper Ettore was the first to rush over and pull up Luo Yi, patting his head and cheering loudly.
He knows best the value of this tackle.
To be honest, when facing Romario’s one-on-one chance, he basically gave up!
But Luo Yi’s appearance saved everything!
On the sidelines, there was silence on the Barcelona bench.
They have just stood up and are ready to celebrate the goal!
The result was like being poured with a basin of cold water, and the flame was extinguished.
Cruyff was also silent for a long time.
When Romario was getting going, there weren’t many players who could defend him successfully…
After standing up, Romario was slightly surprised.
He really didn’t expect that his unparalleled skills in the penalty area would be useless in front of this Chinese boy.
This kid seemed to have seen through everything.
With just one kick, the ball was cleared away very quickly and cleanly.
The young are so promising!
He shook his head and walked forward, ready to grab the corner kick.
The corner kick was taken by Laudrup.
“After Cruyff took over Camp Nou, Barcelona’s set-piece tactics became more diverse.”
“Now let’s see how Laudrup takes this corner.”
“Okay, run up, drive to… Hey, it didn’t reach the penalty area.”
“This is a tactical corner!”
At this time, Monaco’s penalty area was crowded with people, and Luo Yi was also staring at Romario, not letting him easily grab the ball.
But Laudrup kicked the ball out of the penalty area.
At the top of the penalty area, it was the heavy hitter Ronald Koeman who rushed up!
He just turned sideways and swung his leg, then volleyed the ball directly into the air!
The football whizzed towards Monaco’s goal!
Luo Yi was right in front of the goal post and subconsciously wanted to hit it with his head.
But the ball passed by with just a “whoosh” sound, and he had no chance to touch the ball at all!
“The ball goes in!!!”
“Ronald Koeman!”
“A signature powerful long shot!”
“As a defender, he has scored more than 200 goals in his career so far!”
“This is a result that many forwards would be ashamed of, and it also makes him the defender with the most goals in history!”
“Now, he has used a long-range volley like this to help Barcelona take the lead over Monaco again!”
The Camp Nou stadium fell into carnival again, and Barcelona players rushed towards Coman and began to celebrate wildly.
Luo Yi shook his head slightly.
There is really no way.
Coman’s long-range shooting skills are really strong and powerful!
And it was a volley!
He is truly worthy of being a historical-level defender with a sword!
Luo Yi touched his head.
I don’t know whether I should be upset or thankful that I didn’t touch the ball just now…
—————–
The entire Monaco team is in a good mood.
Fight again!
Anyway, we were not favored today, and it is already very good to have been able to get to this point.
The Monaco fans who came to Camp Nou to watch the game were obviously satisfied with the team’s performance.
They kept singing to cheer the team up and didn’t show any disappointment about the goal they just conceded!
Wenger also kept clapping on the sidelines, telling everyone not to take the goal loss to heart!
After the game resumed, Monaco players continued to press forward actively and fought fiercely with Barcelona.
Barcelona took advantage of their advantage in ball possession and tried their best to keep the ball under their feet.
When they are leading by one goal, it would be more beneficial for them to slow down the pace.
Time passes by minute by minute in this consumption.
In the 75th minute, Wenger stood up and started making substitutions.
Warech and Henry came on to replace Klinsmann and Ikpeba.
This is mainly because of the front-court pressure tactics we played today, which consumed too much physical energy of the forwards!
On the other hand, Wenger also felt that the hope of equalizing the game was not great, so he simply let the young players go up and feel the atmosphere of the Champions League and what it was like to play at Camp Nou!
It was really despairing when Barcelona started to control the ball and kill time.
Anyway, there is still one round of games to go, so we can just compete with Spartak Moscow then.
After a few more minutes, Wenger replaced Scifo with Grimandi.
The Belgians can’t fight anymore!
As if both sides had discussed it beforehand, Cruyff also started to make substitutions.
But he still has his own tactical intentions.
Romario, Stoichkov and Laudrup took turns to leave the field to kill some time, and then Amor, Goikoechea and young player De La Pena were replaced.
Only Begiristain is left on the front line, so we need to strengthen the defense and keep the score until the end of the game.
This is undoubtedly a very reasonable approach when the game is basically won and there is still a league game to play at the weekend.
only……
Cruyff still overlooked one person.
That’s Luo Yi.
Since Monaco mainly adopted the style of pressure in the frontcourt today, Luo Yi did not have to run all over the field like a ball-grabbing machine before.
Therefore, his physical energy consumption is even less than usual.
Now it’s the end of the game and everyone is exhausted, but Luo Yi is still full of energy!
In the 85th minute, De La Pena’s careless pass in the midfield was intercepted by Luo Yi, who immediately went into berserk mode and rushed forward!
The two central defenders of Barcelona have already cursed De La Pena a thousand times in their hearts.
Kid, we are all 17 years old, why are you so unstable in doing things?
But now we can only guard against Luo Yi first.
This time it was Nadal who rushed forward.
Otherwise, if it was a little later, Luo Yi might have taken another long shot!
If he scores again, it will be hard for Barcelona to accept.
Monaco actually didn’t have many shooting opportunities today, but it would be a bit unfair if Luo Yi scored two goals with two long-range shots!
Luo Yi did not forcefully attack Nadal.
Because Luo Yi never grasped him.
Nadal is so strong!
And his one-on-one defensive ability is indeed very strong.
Luo Yi’s current dribbling ability can only be described as average, and there is no space behind him for a quick dribble, so he can only give up on breaking through.
So he stopped the ball and prepared to pass it to Pettit on the other side.
But Nadal made a direct tackle!
He had to tackle the ball before Luo Yi completed the pass!
“Bang!”
There was a sound, but the ball was not shoveled away.
The ball rolled a few meters to the left side of Barcelona’s goal and was caught by Henry!
Luo Yi staggered after being tackled, but after adjusting his balance, he rushed straight to the penalty area!
Henry also understood what was going on and ignored Ferrer who was rushing towards him, but instead directly passed the ball to his ribs.
The ball is at Luo Yi’s feet again!
There was a sudden panic in Barcelona’s penalty area.
Coman looked at Luo Yi as if he was facing a formidable enemy.
Unlike Romario, Luo Yi doesn’t think about dribbling past opponents or using any techniques to shoot.
He doesn’t play tricks.
As soon as his foot stepped onto the Barcelona penalty area line, he was already in position to shoot.
Before the Barcelona fans could even scream, Luo Yi had already turned the football under his feet into a cannonball and blasted it towards Barcelona’s goal!
This time the distance was even closer, and Barcelona goalkeeper Zubizarreta didn’t have time to make any saves. He just watched the ball go into the goal from his left side!
2:2!
“Luo Yi scored twice!”
“He scored for Monaco for the first time today, twice!!!”
“He equalised for Monaco!”
“Falling behind twice and equalizing twice, Monaco showed their strength and tenacity!”
In the stands, that small group of Monaco fans went crazy.
Many of them took off their clothes in the cold wind and swung them in their hands to vent their excitement.
Luo Yi on the field didn’t even have time to celebrate this time. He was knocked to the ground by his teammates who rushed over from behind, and then piled up like a pyramid…
On the bench, Wenger also hugged the assistant coach and substitute players tightly.
Scoring two goals and equalizing the score in front of the Dream Team at Camp Nou is an achievement in itself!
“Haha, Luo Yi is so strong! Boss, did we discover his scoring ability too late? Haha!” Assistant coach Messi kept shaking Wenger’s body.
“No, his offensive ability has always been strong.” Wenger tried to stay calm after the celebration. “It just broke out in this game… Maybe facing a strong team will inspire him to fight harder?”
On the other side, Cruyff kept shaking his head and sighing.
In his opinion, there is still no major problem with his tactics.
After all, Monaco did not create many shooting opportunities!
“We just lost to Luo Yi…” Cruyff stood up again and shouted to the court, “We haven’t lost yet! Keep your head up and continue the game!”
—————–
The game restarted in the middle circle.
With little time left, Barcelona began to press forward again, hoping to score another goal in the final moments.
But after replacing several world-class players, Barcelona’s offensive power dropped sharply, and now they are no longer motivated to strengthen their offense.
The same is true in Monaco.
Compared with Klinsmann, Ikpeba and Scifo, the abilities of Warech, Henry and Grimandi are somewhat behind in terms of both game experience and technical level.
In addition, now that the score was equalized, Wenger began to let his players focus more on defense.
The more they play, the more impatient the Barcelona players become.
In the final injury time, they even started to kick high balls in the midfield!
This is an offensive style that Barcelona is not good at.
As Monaco resolved Barcelona’s attacks time and time again, the referee finally blew the whistle to end the game!
“Congratulations to Monaco! They got a valuable draw at the Camp Nou!”
“Since Monaco is now two points ahead of third-placed Galatasaray, and their goal difference is +4, while Galatasaray is -4, the advantage is obvious.”
“Galatasaray will face Barcelona away in the last round. It is a fantasy to expect them to make up for such a huge goal difference.”
“This way, Monaco can basically confirm that they will advance to the knockout stage, or the semi-finals, as the runner-up in the group!”
“This will be Monaco’s best record in the history of the Champions League! Congratulations to them in advance!”
“The biggest contributor to Monaco’s draw today is undoubtedly the 17-year-old young player Luo Yi.”
“If he didn’t score, it would be fine, but he scored two! With these two goals and his outstanding performance throughout the game, he won the MVP of the game!”
“The top team in Group B is likely to be the stronger AC Milan, who will also be Monaco’s opponent in the semi-finals.”
“Let us look forward to Monaco and Luo Yi’s performance in the future!”