On the sidelines, Ranieri looked at the court expressionlessly, but Everton coach Martinez kept smiling.
Judging from the situation on the field during this period, his tactical strategy was successful.
Before the game, Martinez repeatedly watched the games of Chelsea, Manchester United and Leicester City to observe how Van Gaal and Mourinho restricted Chu Zheng.
But unfortunately he didn't find the answer.
After watching the game, Martinez came to the conclusion that Chu Zheng would never be able to be completely restrained without relying on numbers.
Chu Zheng is extremely fast, physically strong, has balanced feet, has good dribbling and breakthrough skills, and his vision is like having a God's perspective. Nowadays, almost everyone in England knows about Chu Zheng's characteristics.
So he found another way and used an overall attack to suppress Leicester City, making Chu Zheng fall into an endless defensive quagmire.
To put it simply, Martinez expanded his defense from one point to another and used a new method to restrict Chu Zheng from the overall situation.
Ranieri's defensive counterattack strategy of giving up possession of the ball can be said to have helped him.
As for whether such continuous pressure will lead to a complete physical collapse of the players in the second half, Martinez has already been prepared.
Once they score the first goal, he will switch from offense to defense, taking advantage of Leicester City's attack and counterattack defensively.
At that time, not only can we avoid the disadvantages of attacking too hard and grabbing too much in the first half, but we can also turn passivity into initiative.
Although Lukaku's weight has soared due to gaining muscle, this guy's physical talent is really terrifying, his speed has not dropped much, and his impact is even more terrifying than before.
Once Lukaku rushes forward during a defensive counterattack, Martinez feels very happy just thinking about it.
However, Martinez seems to have forgotten that the reason why stars are stars is because they have unlimited creative ability and can single-handedly reverse the situation of both parties.
And who is Ranieri?
Although this guy is not famous in the world, in the football circle, his gorgeous resume is difficult to match with Guardiola, Klopp and Mourinho who are now in full swing.
Although Ranieri has not won any top championships, he has coached so many wealthy teams and achieved good results, which is enough to show his coaching ability.
Soon, the scene Martinez was looking forward to happened.
In the 16th minute of the game, Everton slightly restrained its aggressive style of play, but the danger suddenly arrived at this moment.
Seeing that the team's formation was pressing past the center line, most of his teammates were in the Leicester City half. Mory took the ball in the left rib at the top of the backcourt and dribbled the ball along the rib to the center line.
But this time Morrie learned the lesson.
Before the triangle surrounded by Shinji Okazaki, Chu Zheng and Mahlis was formed, Barry, who was blocked in the front, quickly spiked the ball and turned back, passing back to Barry on the back right.
Barry brought the ball into the center circle and was happy to see that Vardy and Shinji Okazaki in front of him and Shinji Okazaki were not able to attack him.
After adjusting his pace, Barry turned to the right, raised his left foot and knocked the ball across the right rib of Everton's right center back Stones.
Stones took the ball and before Vardy came up to press him, he quickly moved forward and passed straight to Coleman who was more than ten meters away.
Fox moves to the wing to mark.
But before he could reach the goal, Coleman made a cross about 378 meters from the penalty area.
In front of the end line of the restricted area on the right side of the arc, Cone and Coleman formed a perfect pass and run.
Chu Zheng also didn't expect that Everton's attack would be so simple this time, with the pass coming from such a distance.
"N'Golo, follow him, don't let him turn around!" Chu Zhengxun, standing at the top of the arc, shouted to Kante behind Cone.
Kanter followed closely, but facing the 181cm tall Cone who rushed to the landing point early to seize a favorable position, Kanter had no chance of winning the ball.
So Kanter was stuck behind Cone, otherwise Cone would turn around.
However, the next second, there was a blind pass from Cone's side.
With his back to the center, Cone took off in front of Kante, headed the ball directly and then hit the front area on the right side of Leicester City's small penalty area!
This turn of events caught Kanter off guard!
Chu Zheng was also shocked!
"Riyad!!!!" Seeing Mahrez running towards the top of the arc following Cleverley, Chu Zheng pointed to his feet to give Mahrez a signal, then quickly turned around and rushed into the penalty area, heading straight for Morgan and Vasile.
Lukaku was sandwiched in the middle by Fitzgerald and left.
However, Lukaku didn't give Chu Zheng a chance at all.
When Lukaku, who had his back to the goal, saw the ball coming, he quickly took a step forward, temporarily got rid of the guards of Morgan and the two, quickly raised his left foot, and pushed the ball into the top area of the arc with the inside of his foot.
At the same time, in the top area of the arc, Cleverley on the right side of Mahris suddenly burst out, pushing Mahris, who was just walking in front of him, aside to play.
Suddenly there was chaos in the Leicester City penalty area!
When Chu Zheng saw Mahrez being broken through so easily, he was so angry that he wanted to vomit blood.
He knew that Mahrez was a poor defender, but he thought of it anyway and let people come over him so easily. Isn't this a lie?
On the left side of the penalty spot, Simpson was marking Barkley behind him.
Seeing that Cleverley was about to get the ball, he really panicked.
Because at this time Cleverley has two options, hit the goal directly, or distribute the ball to the unoccupied left side of the penalty area to Barkley behind him.
0.5 seconds later, seeing Cleverley hesitating after stopping the ball, Simpson made the third choice and went straight for the ball.
But this is what Cleverley was waiting for!
The next second, Cleverley got ahead of Simpson and used the toe of his right foot to poke the ball towards Barkley on the left side of the penalty area.
After Barkley caught the ball, he raised his left foot and swung it.
This realistic shooting action deceived him to follow up and Vasileski, who was filling in for Simpson, fell to the ground and slid to block the ball.
Then Barkley faked a shot and made a real dunk. After Vasilevskiy slipped past him, he quickly switched to his right foot and swung his leg in place to shoot.
At this time, Simpson also came over, fell to the ground and stretched out his feet to block.
But Barkley's shot was a steal. The ball went from Simpson's right leg and stuck to the turf and went straight to Schmeichel.
Seeing Barkley's shot, Schmeichel sat down and blocked the ball back with his left heel.
Barkley hit again with his left foot and the ball went straight to the center of the goal.
At this time, Chu Zheng had already appeared on the goal line.
Facing the ball flying towards him, the turtle looked directly at him, and the ball blocked it again.
On the sidelines, Martinez held his head in his hands with an expression of disbelief on his face.
The Leicester City fans and Everton fans looking around in the stands also screamed one after another due to the continuous hits.
However, before the Leicester City fans could rejoice at the consecutive clearances, the ball blocked by Chu Zheng flew directly to Lukaku on the right side of the small penalty area.
Facing the incoming ball, Lukaku raised his left foot and hit it.
Kanter in front of him raised his foot to block the ball and was a step too late.
Seeing this scene, everyone's hearts suddenly rose to their throats again!
On the goal line, Chu Zheng has transformed into a goalkeeper.
Seeing that the ball was coming back, Chu Zheng, who was standing in the middle of the goal, quickly jumped to the right.
In full view of everyone, Chu Zheng rejected Lukaku's shot with his face this time.
However, what made all Leicester City fans vomit blood was that after the ball was blocked by Chu Zheng with his face, it hit the knee of Schmeichel who turned around and climbed up to rush back, and then bounced directly into the Leicester City goal.
.
"Goal!!!!!!!!!!!!" In the commentary box, the Everton commentator raised his arms and cheered!
“Oh yo!!!!!”
“Own goal!!!!!!!!!!!”
In the live broadcast room of the sports channel, Zhang Lu and He Wei immediately exclaimed! Both of them had a look of dumbfounding on their faces!
In the stands on all sides, Leicester City fans who were so excited by this scene that they almost died of sudden death spontaneously applauded after being annoyed!
This warm applause is obviously dedicated to Chu Zheng who made two rescues on the goal line!
Everyone can see that Chu Zheng tried his best!
Therefore, they don't blame anyone for this missed goal. If they want to blame, they can only blame themselves!
"Chu, are you okay?" In front of the goal, Schmeichel pulled Chu Zheng up because he was in trouble. Seeing Chu Zheng's yin and yang face that was red on one side, he burst into laughter.
Chu Zheng rolled his eyes, patted his butt and left.
On the sidelines, Martinez's heart was still pounding! It was too exciting!
He looked at Chu Zheng on the field with an extremely incredible look!
He saw it clearly just now.
As soon as Lukaku made a move to shoot, Chu Zheng, who was standing on the goal line, quickly moved to the right. This obviously determined in advance that Lukaku would hit the left side of the goal.
This is really incredible! This kind of defensive sense amazed Martinez!
"What an incredible player!" Martinez sighed after a long time!
In fact, when Chu Zheng was playing for Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga, he left a very deep impression on Martinez.
Martinez really didn't expect that the young central defender with obvious advantages and disadvantages would quickly grow to this point after just one season.
Not only did he play well at the center back position, he also played even better after being transformed into a defensive midfielder.
Based on Chu Zheng's reaction in a very short time just now, Martinez realized that Chu Zheng could also do it if he played as a goalkeeper.
"Teacher Zhang, as a goalkeeper who has retired for many years, what do you think of Chu Zheng's two wonderful goal-line saves?" In the live broadcast room of the sports channel, a cheerful He Wei turned to look at Zhang Lu.
Zhang Lu chuckled, pointed at Chu Zheng on the TV, and said with a smile: "Chu Zheng can actually consider the position of goalkeeper!"
"He can do it!"
"Hahaha!!!" He Wei laughed loudly!
After the joke, Zhang Lu said again: "Leicester City can't continue fighting like this. Now it's just defense without counterattack!"
"Yes!" He Wei nodded, "Leicester City played a little too passively today!"
"I don't know if Mr. Zhang noticed that although the Everton players did not guard Chu Zheng tightly today, once Leicester City gets the ball, there will be players who cut off the direct connection between Chu Zheng and the ball carrier!"
"If Chu Zheng wants to get the ball, he often has to pass it several times before the ball comes to Chu Zheng's feet!"
"This is Martinez's brilliant move. Football is a team sport, so Martinez starts from this aspect. He does not play man-to-man like Manchester United and Chelsea. He uses the whole to limit Chu Zheng's performance!"
