During the World Cup preliminaries, "France Football" announced the 30-person shortlist for the 2017 Ballon d'Or, with Willard and Firmino continuing to be selected.
But everyone knows that Firmino and others are basically running with him. The final three candidates are basically Verard, Messi, and Ronaldo. The final winner is most likely Vera. Virtue.
Back in England, on October 14th, Liverpool sat at Anfield at home and faced the challenge of their archrival Manchester United in the eighth round of the Premier League.
This is a game worth 6 points: if Manchester United wins, it will lead Liverpool by 4 points; if Liverpool wins, it will lead Manchester United by 2 points.
However, the main players of both sides have just finished playing in the World Cup preliminaries. This double-red meeting is the first game of this round of the Premier League. Everyone has not had enough rest. Both sides are not in good condition in this game.
Moreover, some players were injured during the national team games, such as Liverpool's Mane, Manchester United's Carrick and Fellaini, etc. Therefore, the offensive power displayed by both sides in this game was very limited, and the pace was not very fast.
However, Liverpool has Villard, who has already qualified from Argentina and is at full physical fitness, and it is playing at home, so Liverpool still has some advantages.
Despite the improved defensive capabilities of the Red Devils under Mourinho and the outstanding performance of goalkeeper De Gea, Manchester United maintained the 0-0 score until the end of the first half, but they still suffered a fatal blow from Liverpool at the beginning of the second half. Fight back.
In the 49th minute of the second half, Willard pressed Ashley Young in the backcourt, causing the opponent to make a mistake in a hasty pass, and the ball was intercepted by Alberto Moreno.
Under the high-pressing and total-attack tactics, Liverpool's five players, Velarde, Wijnaldum, Firmino, Salah, and Sturridge, turned around and started a quick attack.
Although Manchester United was not slow in returning to defense, they failed to stop Liverpool's counterattack this time. Villard and Salah broke through one person each to break the game. In the end, Salah cut in from the right and passed the ball in an inverted triangle. , Willard followed up in the middle and shot from the top of the penalty area, scaring Manchester United defender Phil Jones and midfielder Herrera to rush to block the hole of the gun.
As a result, Velarde did not kick the ball out. Instead, he faked a shot and passed the ball into the open area on the left side of the penalty area. Firmino followed up from the left, pushed the ball without stopping, and steadily pushed the ball into the far corner.
Goalkeeper De Gea was first shaken by Velarde's fake shot and passed the ball. After seeing him passing the ball, he hurriedly rushed to the left. When he saw Firmino's push shot into the far corner, he turned around and attacked back. It's too late. The opposite direction of movement of the center of gravity caused De Gea to freeze on the goal line. He couldn't even make a save and watched the ball roll into the far corner.
Liverpool finally broke the deadlock and took a 1-0 lead.
The balance is broken, and Manchester United will naturally not be able to defend it. They were previously ranked second in the standings, ahead of Liverpool. If they lose this game, they will be overtaken by Liverpool in points and rankings.
Therefore, neither Mourinho nor the Manchester United players are willing to lose. After all, they are only one goal behind now, and there is a chance and possibility of equalizing. A goal, sometimes an accidental shot or a lucky ball, might go in.
So in the remaining time, Manchester United strengthened their offense through substitutions, but neither the body nor skills of Lukaku and Mkhitaryan, nor the speed of Ashley Young and Martial, could help Manchester United advance. ball.
The presence of Willard and Van Dijk, coupled with the assistance of Lovren, Arnold and others, basically did not give Manchester United too many threatening offensive opportunities.
Especially Arnold, a rare starter, was very excited. Not only was he very active in defense, but he also had a strong willingness to assist and often went forward to assist.
In the 78th minute, Arnold interrupted the defense and intercepted the ball that Martial made a big mistake. Then, instead of passing the ball directly, he passed the ball past Martial, who was counterattacking, and then dribbled the ball forward at high speed. , causing a burst of applause and cheers from the Liverpool fans in the stands.
Arnold was encouraged. Although he passed the ball when he was intercepted by a Manchester United player in the middle, he did not go back. Instead, he bypassed the opponent and continued to advance along the wing.
And Emre Can, who received the pass from Arnold, did not disappoint Arnold. He passed the ball back decisively and helped Arnold play a one-two against the wall. Then he successfully passed the ball and helped Sturridge score in the middle. Extended the score to 2-0.
This score sealed the victory. Therefore, Liverpool has also begun to make substitutions one after another to rest some of the main players who have experienced the suffering of international football matches.
Although Manchester United attacked aggressively in the last ten minutes, they were unable to score a single goal due to their poor state and the strong defense of Willard and Van Dijk.
After three minutes of injury time, the referee blew the whistle to end the game. Liverpool defeated Manchester United 2-0 at home and won the eighth round of the league.
Unfortunately, in another game later, Manchester City made no mistakes and beat Stoke City 7-2 at home, giving Liverpool no chance to overtake the points.
After the 8th round, Manchester City ranks first in the standings with 22 points from seven wins and one draw, Liverpool ranks second with 21 points from seven wins and one loss, Manchester United ranks third with 19 points from six wins, one draw and one loss, followed by Todt. Naham Hotspur, Watford, Chelsea, Arsenal.
Among them, Watford has four wins, three draws and one loss, with 15 points, beating Chelsea and Arsenal to rank fifth in the standings. It also has a 2-1 record with Arsenal, which is really unexpected.
However, the league is a 38-round competition, and the results of the first 8 rounds alone cannot be determined. If Watford wants to truly perform a dark horse miracle, they must continue their outstanding performance.
After finishing this strong dialogue between the two clubs and improving their ranking to second place in the standings, on October 17, it was time for Liverpool to challenge Maribor away from home in the third round of the Champions League group stage.
Before the start of this game, everyone knew that as a Slovenian team, Maribor would definitely not be able to stop Liverpool's indiscriminate bombardment and would definitely lose.
But no one expected that the final score would be that big.
Only 4 minutes into the game, Willard dribbled the ball through the middle, passed three people and then entered the penalty area and scored. Liverpool led the home team Maribor 1-0 away from home.
Although this was a lightning goal, Velarde didn't even show any excitement after scoring the goal. He just hugged and high-fived his teammates who rushed up to celebrate briefly.
Because it’s too easy to get in.
Even some of the home fans in Maribor applauded Willard's goal. Obviously, they had known for a long time that their team could not beat Liverpool, so the real purpose of coming to watch the game was to watch the performance of superstar Willard.
In the 13th minute, Liverpool made a comeback. After passing two people, Willard passed the ball outside the top of the penalty area. Milner, who was the left midfielder in this game, made a pass. Willard rushed into the penalty area and jumped high. Starting from the start, he overwhelmed the opponent's two central defenders and headed the ball into the goal.
Willard scored twice to help Liverpool lead 2-0.
Only five minutes had passed since the second goal. Velarde once again broke through and caused panic among many people in Maribor. As a result, Velarde did not break into Longtan alone this time, but passed the ball decisively. The pass is passed to Salah who is in a better and more open position.
Salah did not disappoint Willard's kindness. While receiving the ball, he pulled the ball forward and passed Suler, the last defender in the attack. He formed a semi-lone opportunity in the penalty area. Facing goalkeeper Handanovic blocking the near corner, Salah pushed decisively into the far corner, successfully avoiding Handanovic's fingers and sending the ball into the lower left corner of the Maribor gate.
Before the game had even played 20 minutes, Liverpool had already sealed the victory 3-0, shocking the eyes of fans and spectators. Although it was already expected that Maribor would not be an opponent of the six-time champion Liverpool, they did not expect to concede three goals in less than 20 minutes.
You must know that they drew with Spartak Moscow in the first round at home. I didn't expect to be so vulnerable when facing Liverpool.
But Liverpool's attack did not stop and continued.
Everyone was playing like crazy, and Willard hoped to use this game to score goals and gain experience, so naturally he would not hold back.
In the 28th minute, even full-back Alberto Moreno rushed up and hit a long shot from the left side of the penalty area. Unfortunately, the angle was too right and was saved by goalkeeper Handanovic.
Just when the Maribor players and fans wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, Velard suddenly burst out of the crowd, made a flying tackle, and scooped the ball in before defender Laisevic was trying to clear the ball. goal.
"Goooooooooooooooooooooooal..."
"The ball went in again!"
"hat trick!"
"Alberto Moreno's long shot hit the goal frame. Goalkeeper Handanovic saved the ball, but it didn't go far. Velard, who rushed into the penalty area, made a supplementary shot with a flying tackle and shoveled the ball back. The goal."
"The game has not even played 30 minutes and Alan Willard has already scored a hat-trick."
"Liverpool leads the home team Maribor 4-0 away from home, and Maribor's goal has been beaten into a sieve."
"It's so surprising. Even though I knew Maribor couldn't beat Liverpool, I didn't expect the score difference between the two sides to be so big."
"You know, this is the Champions League."
"After all, Maribor was the champion of the Slovenian First Division last season, not a weak relegation team."
"I didn't expect it to end up like this."
"The gap between Europe's top clubs and ordinary teams is indeed too big."
Indeed, looking at this score and thinking about the current time, Maribor players, fans and coaches are all a little discouraged.
I originally wanted to compete with the European giants Liverpool, but it looked like it would be better if they didn't get beaten into double digits.
After the game restarted, Maribor didn't even have the intention to counterattack. They made a slight attack. As soon as the ball was lost, everyone including the forwards immediately retreated frantically to participate in the defense.
They have put all their thoughts on defense, just want to lose a few fewer goals and not let Liverpool lose by double digits.
