In the tunnel at Wembley Stadium, two former Chelsea players from Leeds United were chatting with Chelsea players.
Scott Parker joined in January 2004 and left Chelsea after one and a half seasons. He came to Leeds United on the recommendation of Leeds United's current chief scout. Now he is chatting with Glen Johnson, one of the few players he still knows in this Chelsea team. Other Chelsea players he knows well have either left or did not start today.
Robben, who had just joined Leeds United, was different. He took the initiative to find Mourinho and chat with him.
"Coach, why aren't you on the main team today?"
Mourinho, who was originally chatting with George Lee, was interrupted by Robben's work and turned back to look at Robben.
"Oh, Aryan~" Mourinho took the initiative to hug Robben and then explained to him, "The main thing is to test the new players. You have to be gentler today."
"That won't work. Our leader gave me an order. One must come in."
After speaking, Robben also looked at George Li on the side.
And Li spread his hands towards Mourinho.
In fact, in the chat just now, Li George had already heard Mourinho's words indicating that he wanted to leave Chelsea. It's just that he didn't say it directly, but said that he was tired of the club's power struggle and that he didn't want to be an obedient head coach. In that case, he would not be Jose Mourinho.
Avran Grant, an Israeli, has just been appointed by Abramovich as the team's director of football department, but today he can actually sit on the coaching bench behind Mourinho.
It really made George Li feel incredible.
^^^
After the game started, Leeds United immediately implemented their usual thinking and started passing the ball in the backcourt, gradually pushing the defense forward and compressing Chelsea's defensive formation.
New aid Pizarro, who was Chelsea's starting striker today, stopped trying after his first two steals against Leeds United had no effect, and slowly retreated into his own half.
When retreating, Pizarro also looked at his teammates on the left and right sides, Malouda, who was also a new aid, and Kalu, who was the right winger today. Neither of them had any idea to follow up and press Leeds United's central defender, and just stood in their respective positions.
The ball passed between Leeds United's centre-backs, full-backs, and midfielders, and finally came to the feet of right-back Milner.
Milner found the opportunity and transferred a long pass to the left.
Today, Baynes on the left did not advance too far, and the ball was passed to Smith, who was retreating.
Smith stopped the ball firmly with his chest and began to observe the situation on the court.
After confirming that Parker was not advancing, Barry began to move towards Smith, preparing to respond.
Kuyt, on the other hand, walked from inside the penalty area to outside the penalty area, preparing to take away Carvalho who was defending him.
Chance!
Smith had already seen a white figure running from the penalty area to the penalty area after Kuyt took Carvalho away.
Smith took a look and realized that the new No. 8 was very promising. Because if this opportunity is given to Smith, Smith will definitely do the same.
He flicked the ball with his right foot, and before his opponent Glen Johnson could defend him, he kicked the ball directly into Chelsea's penalty area.
Because he was afraid of Cech's attack, Smith passed the ball with little force and aimed at the forward point.
In the penalty area, Sneijder was about to run to the spot where the football would land. When he saw Benheim, another Chelsea center back, coming over to defend, he was thinking whether to choose to header the ball himself or give the ball to his teammates.
Just when he was hesitating, before the final decision was made, the ball had already flown.
Sneijder no longer thought about it and jumped up to shake his head, preparing to head towards the goal.
It's just that the ball was headed too straight, and Sneijder was interfered by Benheim when he was heading the ball, and was eventually held firmly by Cech in front of the goal.
However, this first goal kick after the start still made the Leeds United audience stand up and applaud.
"The ability to push forward is still not comparable to that of Smith." Brian Kidd saw Sneijder's forward push and made a comment.
"At least he has this awareness. He failed 9 times out of 10 times, but he only succeeded once. And if you look at his 170cm, 70kg body, he dares to do this. Doesn't it mean that he is not afraid of the confrontation in the Premier League? "?" George Li was very satisfied with Sneijder's move just now.
Sneijder immediately got up from the ground, gave Smith a thumbs up and started to defend. He is not the type of attacking midfielder who holds the ball. He does not stick to the ball when attacking, and quickly passes the ball to his teammates, breaking away and shooting from long range. When defending, he is also willing to actively defend, instead of standing and watching like a classic attacking midfielder, waiting for his teammates to intercept the ball and pass it to him.
"Take the initiative to find the ball yourself, or grab the ball yourself, so that you can launch a counterattack faster. After you get rid of it properly, pass the ball to a teammate who is in a better position, and then move on."
This sentence was said by George Lee in the first training session after Sneijder joined Leeds United. He called Sneijder aside and told him alone.
Sneijder also understands that George Lee wants to train him to become Leeds United's playmaker, but not the past playmaker like Zidane and Riquelme. Although he understood it, he had only mastered a little bit of the skills in less than two months of training and joint training.
But just this little bit of knowledge is enough for Chelsea today.
In the 21st minute of the game, Chelsea's pass in the frontcourt was intercepted by Leeds United's Woodgate due to insufficient tacit understanding among the frontcourt players.
Pizarro immediately counterattacked on the spot, but Leeds United passed the ball back to Schmeichel, who started today.
Pizarro once again went to grab the ball from Schmeichel. At the same time, he observed that his teammate Malouda was also grabbing the ball. He had already spotted Leeds United's right back Milner and blocked Schmeichel from going to the right. The route of the ball.
Kalu on the left also came up and came between Matteisen and Bynes, one person staring at the two. Lampard and Joe Cole also came forward to get close to Leeds United's two defensive midfielders.
It seems that Leeds United's backcourt ball routes are blocked, but in fact their frontcourt pressure is simply child's play for Leeds United.
Schmeichel first passed the ball back to Woodgate in front of Pizarro, and then quickly moved to an empty position when his opponent turned around, and received Woodgate's pass again.
At this time, Pizarro no longer had the desire to grab the ball, and was simply being walked around like some kind of animal.
It was replaced by Kalu to press Schmeichel.
It's just because of this that Mathisen's place became vacant.
Schmeichel Jr. showed good passing skills and passed the ball directly to a few positions in front of Matheson, allowing Matheson to directly dribble the ball forward.
Because Lampard and Joe Cole were brought to the back by Barry and Parker respectively, Matteison could actually play forward calmly.
Finally, after Essien added to Parker's side, Joe Cole was freed to defend Matteisen. Otherwise, the Dutch defender might have dribbled the ball into Chelsea's half alone.
It's just that Joe Cole's defensive ability is really unflattering. As soon as Matteisen leaned directly on him, Joe Cole had no way to grab the ball.
Seeing that a central defender was about to dribble the ball into his own half, everyone at Chelsea began to chase back, trying to get the ball back.
Mathisen knew that he could no longer hold the ball, and something might happen if he continued to dribble the ball, so he started looking for his teammates.
"here!"
When Mathisen heard a friendly Dutch word, he passed the ball in the direction of the sound without thinking. After all, there were no Dutchmen at Chelsea today.
At this time Sneijder has sneaked to the left.
Smith's advance forced Johnson to retreat, exposing a large gap behind Smith.
So after receiving Matteisen's pass, Sneijder was completely unguarded when he advanced with the ball.
4 versus 5 in the frontcourt.
Smith, Kuyt, and Robben pushed forward crazily in front of Sneijder, while Leeds United's No. 8 advanced diagonally from the left toward the center.
Here at Chelsea, the four defenders are retreating, and Essien, who is in the defensive midfield position, also runs diagonally from the left side of his team to cover Sneijder.
Just when the front three of Leeds United were about to reach the Chelsea penalty area, Sneijder, who had been advancing, passed the ball.
A slash to the front right seemed to be passed to Kuyt.
But Kuyt ignored the ball and chose to let it pass because he knew the ball was not passed to him.
Behind him on the right, Robben got ahead of Ashley Cole, tapped the ball with his left foot first, and then jumped to avoid Cole's tackle.
Then facing Benheim, who is the only one left after Kuyt has involved Carvalho, all Robben needs to complete is the task assigned to him by George Lee.
"Why do I let you play on the right? I just want all opponents to know that Robben wants to cut inside, but he just can't prevent it."
Continuous broken steps, mixed with fake moves that look like shots and changes of direction.
Did Benheim not understand Robben, or he carelessly chose to stretch his foot.
The rest is even simpler. Robben moves his left foot again. This time he can move the ball a little wider. Because he is really going to shoot next, not a fake move.
Cech, who knew that his former teammate was powerful, moved ahead of time. Guessing that Robben was going to use the instep of his left foot to shoot into the far corner, he started to move a step to the right.
Who would have thought that Robben would choose the near corner this time.
The ball was not fast, but it was very tricky. Cech had no time to change his center of gravity. I could only watch as the football rolled into the goal against the near post.
1 to 0.
After scoring the goal, Robben ran past Chelsea's coaching bench with one finger extended. He didn't want to piss off Mourinho, he just wanted to show Chelsea's senior management.
Arjen Robben, who you don’t want, scored, but it was Chelsea’s goal.
