On May 7, with the joy of returning to the top of the list, Wolfsburg ushered in the Europa League semi-finals at the Volkswagen Arena and played against the Ukrainian Super League club Dnipro.
The Volkswagen Arena was overcrowded again for this game.
Because every Wolfsburg fan wants to witness the team create history again and advance to the Europa League final.
In the eyes of Wolfsburg fans, they have never heard of the Dnipro team.
Almost everyone thinks that Dnipro was lucky enough to reach the Europa League semi-finals.
In fact, this is indeed the case.
Dnipro scored a total of 9 goals from the play-offs to the quarter-finals.
Wolfsburg has scored 26 goals from the group stage to now.
Regardless of the individual abilities of the players or the overall strength of the team, Wolfsburg is enough to beat this club from the Ukrainian Super League in an instant.
But the outside media are not as optimistic as Wolfsburg fans.
Because Dnipro is too evil.
Although there are cases every year in world football where dark polo teams overturn the traditional powerhouses.
But if you study carefully, you will find that during a certain period of time, these dark horses are not inferior to those traditional giants in terms of tactical literacy, technical ability and player fighting spirit, and are even much better in some aspects.
And Dnipro also meets these conditions.
Although their players are not as good as Wolfsburg in terms of technical skills, their tactical literacy, discipline, and fighting spirit are not inferior to some of the strong European teams.
As for Wolfsburg, although their results this season are very good, their form has fluctuated a lot, and they often inexplicably falter at critical moments.
Moreover, Wolfsburg's old problem of not scoring when winning games has been going on for a season, and Dieter Heijing still hasn't been able to solve it.
Therefore, in the eyes of some professional football media people, this game is actually full of suspense.
For example, there was a very special spectator in the stands today.
Famous Italian head coach, Claudio Ranieri.
Although he is not well-known in world football now, he is a well-known figure in the industry.
Ranieri debuted very early and became famous in the early 1990s.
From 1989 to 1991, Ranieri led Cagliari from Serie C to Serie A.
Since then, Ranieri has coached Naples, Fiorentina, Parma, Juventus, Roma, Inter Milan, Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Monaco and other clubs.
In the past 20 years, he has had his ups and downs.
But if you carefully study his coaching resume, you will find that Ranieri's results in his coaching career are not bad, but he is always fired, and always leaves the team just before the best era.
Make a wedding dress for the successor.
Therefore, when the Italian was coaching Chelsea, he was also given the unpleasant title of 'tinker' by the English media, and was defined as 'a coach who constantly tries to change formations and lineups'.
Last May, Ranieri, who brought Monaco to Ligue 1, was fired again by Monaco's senior management.
After two years in Monaco, Ranieri brought Monaco from Ligue 2 to Ligue 1 in the first year.
In the second year, he led Monaco to the Ligue 1 runner-up, and scored 80 points in the 2013-14 season, second only to Paris Saint-Germain.
But he was fired again!
In November last year, Ranieri received an invitation from the Greek national team to coach the national team for the first time, filling the gaps in his resume.
However, just four months later, Ranieri was fired again due to a 0-1 home loss to the Faroe Islands, ranked 187th in the world.
After several months of layoff, Ranieri recently returned to work.
This time, it was an olive branch offered by the Premier League club that he longed for. The Premier League club had just changed to a new owner, Leicester City.
And today he came to the scene just for Chu Zheng.
Since negotiating a coaching contract with Leicester City last month, he has been looking for players for himself.
Before coming to Germany, he had just visited Caen, a city in northern France.
Chu Zheng is the last player on the signing list he submitted to Leicester City Club.
Sitting in the stands belonging to neutral fans, watching Chu Zheng warming up on the field and chatting and laughing with his teammates, there was no smile on Ranieri's kind-hearted face.
"Sir, do you have any dissatisfaction with Chu?" Steve Walsh, the Leicester City scout next to Ranieri, asked with a frown.
"His worth has risen too fast!" Ranieri shook his head and smiled, but that was half of what he said.
Steve Walsh suddenly realized that Ranieri was worried about this.
Indeed, although Chu Zheng has never entered the transfer market, his worth has been estimated on the German transfer website to have reached 20 million euros.
Although this is just an evaluation, if Chu Zheng wins the Bundesliga championship with Wolfsburg, then Leicester City will probably spend a lot more if they want to buy him.
Steve Walsh has been tracking Chu Zheng for a long time.
He has seen Chu Zheng's performance, and he personally feels that it will be difficult for them to take away this young talented player from Wolfsburg for 20 million euros.
Not long after, the match between Wolfsburg and Dnipro started.
Dieter Heijing did not underestimate his opponent in this game. He sent all his main players to strive to advance to the finals.
After the game started, as expected by the media before the game, Wolfsburg took full advantage and bombarded the Dnipro goal indiscriminately.
In the 6th minute of the first half, De Bruyne sent a second pass.
Perisic fired a long shot from the left side of the arc.
Perisic's angle was very tricky, but he still couldn't break Dnipro goalkeeper Boyko's fingers.
Just three minutes later, De Bruyne hit the back post from a corner kick.
Chu Zheng hit the goal with a header from close range, and the result was another success for Boyko.
This guy actually raised his hand from close range and blocked the ball out of the penalty area, making a world-class save.
Chu Zheng was stunned when he landed on the ground!
Since then, Wolfsburg's long-range shots, free kicks, crosses from the wing, and inverted triangles have all flourished.
However, there is no result.
Either he missed the goal or was blocked by the goalpost, or he was helping Dnipro to train the goalkeeper, allowing Boyko to show his crazy state to the fans one after another.
As for Dnipro, they pushed their defense to the extreme of their ability, and the players firmly implemented the defensive counterattack tactics of head coach Markovic.
In the second half, after halftime adjustments, Dnipro's defense was strengthened again.
In the 55th minute of the game, Dnipro, which stubbornly resisted Wolfsburg's offensive, got a chance to counterattack quickly through the right wing.
It's a pity that they can't beat Chu Zheng.
Their pass allowed Chu Zheng, who came back in time, to directly block the bottom line.
Subsequently, Dnipro's corner kick was sent to the back post.
Dnipro forward Kalinic won the duel with Knoch and headed the ball across the middle, followed by right center back Douglas with a header.
Douglas hit the ball with extremely high quality!
The ball went straight to the upper right corner of the goal.
However, although the ball escaped Benaglio's fingers, it failed to score in the end.
Because Chu Zheng magically appeared next to the goalpost again, he jumped up and pushed the ball back to the top of the arc.
