Just after playing the Community Shield with Chelsea, Liverpool will immediately fly to North Macedonia to prepare for the European Super Cup.
Three days later, on August 9, Liverpool, last season’s Champions League champions, faced off against last season’s Europa League champions Manchester United for the 2017 European Super Cup at Philip II Stadium in the capital of North Macedonia.
This is also the first time that the European Super Cup will feature an English national derby. Not only were local fans and citizens in the capital of North Macedonia attracted, media from nearly 200 countries and regions around the world also competed to broadcast the live broadcast, attracting tens of millions of viewers. of fans tuned in to watch the live broadcast of the European Super Cup.
Liverpool have not been afraid of their arch-enemy Manchester United in the past two years. Ever since Willard joined, Liverpool has had every advantage over Manchester United.
The only drawback of this game may be that Liverpool just played a Community Shield match with Chelsea, so the schedule is busy and the schedule is tight.
Manchester United arrived here long ago and started preparing for the game. Their physical and energy consumption was not as high as that of Liverpool, who had just played a Community Shield.
Although Klopp changed a few people on the back line, the midfielders and frontcourt players are still the main players who participated in the Community Shield Cup. In addition, Klopp requires everyone to play offensive football and replace defense with offense, so I am a bit worried about physical fitness.
However, when the actual game started, everyone discovered that Liverpool had actually spread the formation wider. The distance between the front, center, and back lines was widened, and the width of the left, center, and right lines was also widened to prevent opponents from attacking. Break through from the wing or play a quick counterattack.
But Manchester United failed to take advantage of Liverpool's deliberately stretched formation, because Liverpool had Willard in the midfield.
Let's attack from the wing. Liverpool's formation is relatively wide, and there are people on the wing at any time, so it can't be used as a surprise attack. After a slight delay, Willard returned to defend in place.
When attacking from the center, you need to directly face Willard's interception, which is even more difficult. Velarde's defensive skills are only 93, which is far from the top, but the problem is that he has full physique and physical fitness, 99 consciousness, 96 speed and header, and 93 reverse foot. Unless he reaches Messi's skills, And you can't be too weak in terms of physique and speed, so you have a greater chance of breaking through Willard.
Even if an average person performs extraordinarily well and can technically deceive Willard, Willard will not be easily broken through if he collides with his body or turns back to defend with his superb awareness and speed.
Even if the opponent can occasionally break through Velarde, Velarde's blockage can delay a certain period of time, allowing his teammates to make up defense in time, and will not let the opponent really break through Velarde and then face the goal.
In this way, not only does Willard reduce the distance he has to run to the side and bottom line, saving physical energy and time, but Liverpool's defense becomes safer and the counterattack can be more direct and effective.
Klopp is also constantly optimizing and adjusting the formation to maximize Velarde's strength.
With his defense safe and secure, the next step is to wait for a goal. There is currently no team in the world that can rely on ball-control defense to keep the ball at their feet and completely prevent Liverpool from touching the ball. Even Barcelona can't do it.
Therefore, what this game showed to everyone is that the Red Devils Manchester United under Mourinho, who is known for their quick counterattacks, were unable to make several threatening counterattacks against Liverpool. Instead, once the ball changed hands, , with Willard taking over the responsibility of organizing the offense, Manchester United's defense became extremely dangerous.
Although the team's defense under Mourinho's coaching has done well, it still cannot stop Willard's offense.
In the 21st minute, after getting the ball in the midfield, Velarde hit a wall with Wijnaldum to pass the defensive midfielder Matic, and then passed Pogba with a fried ball. Then faced with defender Smalling and Lingard and Lukaku who were returning to defense, Willard made a long diagonal pass and sent the ball into Manchester United's penalty area.
Firmino's clever movement just caught the landing point, so that the center back Smalling who was following him could not destroy the ball. Firmino jumped and shook his head to head the ball towards the goalkeeper. Goal direction.
Goalkeeper De Gea responded well, but Firmino hit the ball at a tricky angle and from a close range in the penalty area. Therefore, he failed to touch the ball in the end and could only watch the ball go into the net.
Liverpool 1-0, first victory.
After the score changed, the following games became much simpler, because this was the European Super Cup, and the outcome was determined by one game, so Manchester United had to strengthen their offense.
But their offense made no progress in the face of Liverpool's new tactics. No matter whether they were in the center, on the wing, on the ground or in the air, they failed to achieve any results.
Moreover, Manchester United was not lucky. In the 32nd minute, Mkhitaryan finally relied on his personal ability to break through Milner's wing defense. He passed a good ball from the bottom and passed through Velarde and Lukaku in the middle. The ball was headed over the head by Lingard who rushed up from behind.
As a result, Lingard's header from behind the goal was very close, but it hit the post. After bouncing back into the penalty area, Red Army defender Lovren kicked him out of the penalty area to save the ball.
Manchester United missed an opportunity to equalize the score.
As the saying goes, it is a shame to waste an opportunity. Sure enough, after just three minutes, Liverpool expanded the score.
This was a corner kick opportunity that Willard got through a long shot outside the penalty area. Then Willard jumped high during the header challenge in the penalty area, overwhelming Manchester United's Lukaku, Lindelof and others. Seizing the first point, he headed Firmino's corner kick into the Red Devils' goal.
Liverpool is 2-0, expanding the score and having greater hope of winning.
Manchester United naturally increased their offensive intensity, but still could not score a real goal.
Although Liverpool has increased the width and length of the formation, the players' running, fighting, and high-pressing intensity have not decreased. In addition, with Willard sitting in the midfield with no worries about physical fitness, Manchester United simply cannot provide the frontcourt with anything through the midfield. The strong support caused Manchester United's offense to always lose the ball halfway, making it difficult to penetrate Liverpool's penalty area and pose a threat to the goal.
However, Liverpool, which had widened its formation distance, also had higher requirements on players' passing and off-the-ball movement, so they made more mistakes and failed to score again in the rest of the first half.
At halftime, the score between the two sides was still 2-0, but Liverpool held a two-goal lead, and with a top star like Willard sitting in the midfield, even if no goals were scored in the second half, it would be difficult for the opponent to score. , the probability of winning is still very high.
Therefore, Liverpool fans were in a good mood at halftime, just waiting for the game to end and celebrate the victory and championship, as well as the annual sixth crown.
