On September 19, the Leicester City team went to Stoke-on-Trent, England, to play away against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium.
This team will definitely not be unfamiliar to fans who are familiar with the Premier League. They have a very resounding title, ‘City in the Sky’.
Moreover, the holder of the record for the longest goal scored in world football is goalkeeper Begovic who just transferred to Chelsea from Stoke City this year.
In the 2013-14 season against Southampton, Begovic scored a 91.9-meter long-range goal from the penalty area.
Stoke City was founded in 1863 and is the second oldest football club in the world after Notts County.
In the 151-year history of the team, Stoke City has not achieved many honors.
The 2008-09 season was Stoke City's first Premier League season.
Since the beginning of the 2008-09 season, Stoke City has remained in the Premier League and has become one of the many relegation teams in the Premier League.
But in the past two years, Stoke City's results have shown an upward trend.
In the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons, Stoke City reached the top ten in the Premier League standings, ranking ninth.
Especially the 2014-15 season, it can be said to be Stoke City's greatest season.
He defeated the popular Arsenal 3-2 at home and swept Liverpool 6-1, which disgraced the giant Liverpool and made the outside world realize that this ancient team is constantly rising.
But since the start of this season, Stoke City has been hard to win.
After playing 5 rounds in the Premier League, they achieved poor results of 2 draws and 3 losses.
But even so, no one dares to underestimate this team that has always adhered to the traditional British bombing tactics.
Because if you are not careful and do not pay attention to air defense, you will be blown up by this city in the sky!
Nowadays, even the top clubs in the Premier League are frightened when they encounter Stoke City, especially those teams with a lower average height. If they encounter Stoke City, they will shed their skins even if they don't die.
But after the game started, what made countless Leicester City and Chinese fans dumbfounded was that the old man Ranieri acted like a monster again.
I don't know what Ranieri was thinking in this game. He didn't play the double midfielder 4-4-2 formation that seems to be the best at present, but played a single midfielder 4-3-3.
Kante is the defensive midfielder, Drinkwater is the left midfielder, and Chu Zheng appears in the right midfield position.
The consequence of Ranieri's behavior is that the fans on Leicester City's side were collectively deceived by Stoke City.
In the 12th minute of the game, Mahrez pressed high in the upper right corner of Stoke City's penalty area.
Stoke City left back Eric Peters quickly turned around before Mahrez approached and sent a 30-meter straight pass from the side.
On the left wing of the center circle, Arnautovic faced the ball that was speeding close to the ground with his back. He used his tall body as a cover, waited for the ball to get close, and suddenly turned around and let the ball pass.
Just such a simple action caught De Laet, who was following him, off guard.
After the successful breakthrough, Anautovic ran long distance along the wing, directly increasing the speed of Stoke City's attack.
After arriving on the left wing of the offensive third, Arnautovic changed his line towards the ribs and continued to advance with the ball.
De Laet chased back in time and slammed into Arnautovich.
However, in the end, he was bounced back and almost lost his center of gravity and fell, while Anautovic only shook a little.
After entering the rib area, Anautovic, who was running laterally, directly hit the ribs with a kick.
His kick not only penetrated the defensive line of Linkwater and Kante in the rib area, but also penetrated Leicester City's back line.
The ball passed directly between Kante and Drinkwater and went straight to the penalty spot in the middle of the penalty area.
At the moment of passing the ball, Bojan followed up in the middle at the top of the key. Taking advantage of the moment when Morgan's attention in the top of the key was attracted by Stoke City forward Walters who was running along the ribs, he rushed past Morgan.
Slightly left of the penalty spot, Bojan received a pass from Arnautovic.
Facing Schmeichel who reached the end line of the small penalty area, Bo Yang calmly pushed the shot into the near corner and rewritten the score to 1-0.
"During this period, it can be seen that Leicester City players seem to be a little uncomfortable with Ranieri's 433 formation!"
"Yes, the players' positions are a bit loose. When Leicester City faced Stoke City's positional attack, it gave the impression that any direct pass could easily tear the defense apart."
"Stoke City is similar, leaving a lot of gaps behind Leicester City!"
"Chu Zheng also sent two very beautiful through balls. It's a pity that the front three of Vardy, Mahrez, and Shinji Okazaki haven't found the feeling of shooting today!"
In the commentary of Zhan Jun and Zhang Lu, Chu Zheng quickly launched a beautiful offensive organization against Stoke City's goal.
In the 15th minute of the game, after Chu Zheng deliberately slowed down the offensive pace, Leicester City's panic after losing the ball was greatly relieved.
Chu Zheng retreated to the center circle of his own half and received Morgan's diagonal pass from the center.
Chu Zheng took a quick glance and found that Stoke City's right back Glen Johnson was positioned away from the back line and a little forward, so he raised his foot and fired a precise through ball without saying a word.
The ball started from the center line, like a sharp knife, diagonally inserted into the left wing thirty meters away.
The moment Chu Zheng passed the ball, Glen Johnson, who was belatedly aware of his mistake, quickly turned around.
But it was too late.
Schlupp was right in front of him. Taking advantage of Glen Johnson's turn, Schlupp started to rush over.
After meeting the ball passed by Chu Zheng at the front of the offensive third area, he directly touched the ball with his first touch and used his speed to get rid of Glen Johnson.
However, what left Chu Zheng speechless was that Schlupp, who entered from the left side of the penalty area, directly chose to hit the goal.
Although the quality of Schlupp's shot from the near corner was good, in the end it was easily blocked by Stoke goalkeeper Butland, allowing center back Geoff Cameron to make a timely clearance.
When Chu Zheng saw this scene, his face turned a little dark.
He very much suspected that Schlupp's brain was all about muscles.
Obviously Vardy and Mahrez are outflanking the ball in the center and back. Wouldn't it be better if you just sweep the ball in front of the goal or in the back? Why force the goal when the opponent's center back blocks his right foot?
That kind of angle is really not a big threat to the goalkeeper.
Witnessing this wonderful attack, Leicester City fans were delighted.
Soon, Chu Zheng once again surprised these Leicester City fans and shocked the more than 20,000 home fans of Stoke City.
In the 19th minute of the game, Stoke City's central defender used a long pass in the backcourt to launch an attack directly.
The ball skipped the transitional midfield process and hit the left rib area directly in the attacking third.
Huth competed with Stoke City forward Walters for the top spot and won the ball. He tipped the ball to Chu Zheng who was two or three meters in front of him.
Chu Zheng turned his back to Stoke City at half-time.
Seeing the ball falling to his left, he quickly turned half to the left, swung his right foot over and volleyed the ball directly.
The ball landed on the arc of the center circle on the left side of Stoke City's half. After touching the ground, it quickly bounced forward and bounced past Mark Wilson's left side from Stoke City's left side.
However, it is a pity that Vardy did not expect that Chu Zheng would pass it like this.
He started slowly, and could only watch helplessly as Mark Wilson, who was scared to death, turned around and chased the ball back to the goalkeeper.
Chu Zheng's pass with an eye on the back once again made countless fans in the stands shout "miraculous".
On the sidelines, Stoke City coach Hughes was so scared that Chu Zheng passed the ball.
If Vardy and Chu Zheng had formed a tacit understanding just now, then with Vardy's speed, it would definitely be a one-way goal.
Ranieri, who was next to Hughes, was already frowning.
Ranieri was disappointed that his experiment had once again failed.
Playing the 433 formation today, he actually wanted to see if he could find another way to liberate Chu Zheng.
As a result, Chu Zheng's side seemed fine, but Vardy, Mahrez and other other players showed discomfort.
The 433 formation was popular in world football in the 1970s and 1980s.
Countless wealthy teams have used this formation.
For a long time, the 4-3-3 formation was widely considered to be the most powerful offensive formation in the history of world football.
However, with the continuous development of football concepts and tactics that pay more attention to the balance of offense and defense, 433 has lost its former style in today's world football.
But teams that dare to adopt this formation generally have extremely good players.
Ranieri thought so too, but the results seemed to be very different from his expectations.
However, just when Ranieri was about to switch back to the 4-4-2 formation in the second half, the cruel reality gave him a blow.