On September 27, at the Spartak Athletic Stadium, at 9:45 local time in Moscow, the first round of the Champions League group match between Spartak Moscow and Liverpool kicked off with a whistle from the referee Tremont.
"The formation of Spartak Moscow has undergone huge changes in this game. It is actually 541, so when they attack, it may become 343. Depending on the position of the players, hehe, this is a semi-main lineup.
Many players’ positions are actually temporary guest positions!”
"Carreira is forced to have no choice. Many core players in the team are injured and no one is available. Judging from the first few minutes of the game, Carrera's idea for this game is to solidify the defense and then seize the counterattack.
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"As for Liverpool, Klopp's formation has also changed in this game. From the changes in the formation on both offense and defense, it can be seen that when Liverpool defended, Mo Yang came to the midfielder position, Fabinho retreated and
Henderson formed a 4231 formation with two midfielders on the left and right, which was also the first tactical change made by Klopp since winning the Premier League last season."
"Yes, this way, Mo Yang won't have to retreat frequently to participate in defense during the game, and can devote all his energy to offense!"
But before Zhan Jun finished speaking, he was slapped in the face!
Because Liverpool switched from offense to defense on the court, Mo Yang retreated directly from the attacking midfielder position to the top of the key to assist Henderson and Fabinho in defense.
"Moyang now has a high degree of freedom in Klopp's tactical system. This is a privilege given to Moyang by Klopp. Because of his super high football intelligence and top-level awareness at the tactical level, he can make his own decisions.
Do you need to retreat to participate in the team's defense?" Zhang Lu explained.
On the field, within the first five minutes, Sparta made a strong start and began to retreat across the board. The nine players in the defense and midfield were closely connected.
Although Liverpool played the away game and began to gain an advantage in attack, they tried several times but failed to break through Sparta's double defense.
As time went by, Klopp's smile gradually disappeared on the coaching bench.
Because he found that the team's old problems seemed to have happened again. Salah and Mane on the front line began to waste the shells sent by Mo Yang again and kept shooting there. Even Ibrahimovic was a little bit infected.
In the 8th minute of the game, Mane received a through ball from Mo Yang, passed Kutepov on his bicycle on the left side of the penalty area, entered the penalty area and passed the ball low, but Ibrahimovic failed to hit the target due to interference from the defender.
In the 12th minute of the game, Matip on the right side of the backcourt received a long pass from Mo Yang and passed the ball to Arnold on the right.
Arnold and Salah had a wall-to-wall cooperation in the ribs. Arnold, who entered the penalty area, received Salah's return ball and shot hard low through the dense crowd. The ball once again missed the left goal post.
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In the 16th minute of the game, after receiving the ball in midfield, Mo Yang broke through two Spartan midfielders and then made an extremely sudden overhead pass.
Salah's timing of passing and running was just right, and as a result, his header in front of the goal hit the crossbar, then bounced down and was hugged by Rebrov.
In the 22nd minute of the game, Mo Yang was sitting in the middle, attracting three Sparta players and then suddenly passed the ball to the right wing. Arnold took the ball and crossed from the wing. This time Ibrahimovic was extremely tricky, leaving Rebrov to stare.
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But after the goal, before the Liverpool players had time to celebrate, the linesman raised the flag to indicate that Ibrahimovic was in an offside position at the moment Arnold passed the ball.
Continuous attacks failed to score a goal, which made countless fans watching the game feel that Liverpool seemed a bit unlucky.
In the 24th minute of the game, under Liverpool's overwhelming offensive, Spartak Moscow, which patiently fought back, finally caught Liverpool's mistakes and got an excellent counterattack opportunity.
Liverpool successfully counterattacked on the left and quickly formed a four-on-three situation on the wing.
Mo Yang received a cross from Moreno, and without thinking, he passed the ball through to Mane in front.
It was indeed a gap. As a result, the ball passed and Mane arrived, but before Mane could catch the ball, he was squeezed away by Spartak center back Kutepov.
After Kutepov stole the ball, he directly passed the ball to Spartak midfielder Ferrando in the frontcourt.
Ferrando turned the ball around and quickly passed Fabinho to the right of Liverpool's backcourt with a long pass.
Spartan forward Adriano moved to this side to receive the ball, and then drove the ball directly towards the Liverpool penalty area.
Liverpool returned to defense very quickly. Van Dijk ran all the way to the penalty area and handed Adriano to Arnold.
Arnold lived up to expectations, entangled Adriano, and gave Matip enough time to retreat into the penalty area.
Adriano relied on his strong body to protect the ball, dribbling the ball laterally toward the center, waiting for his teammate on the other side to step in and catch the ball.
Not long after, Sparta's right wing back Samedov came up with Mo Yang.
Seeing the ball coming, Mo Yang fell directly to the ground and slid the ball to Van Dijk.
A very crucial and clean defense.
But the bad thing is that Samedov was taken down.
And after the bastard fell to the ground, he let out a shrill howl, as if Mo Yang had broken his leg, which shocked Mo Yang.
Referee Tremont obviously didn't think this was a clean defense either.
He directly blew the sharp foul whistle, then ran over and showed Mo Yang a yellow card, and warned Mo Yang that his defensive actions had the intention of hurting others.
This penalty made Mo Yang extremely dissatisfied, and he went directly to the referee to explain.
Klopp spread his hands on the sidelines with a speechless expression, indicating that he did not understand the penalty.
But the more than 40,000 Spartan fans present gave the referee warm applause, even though they saw clearly that it was a misjudgment.
"Boy, I can see clearly with my eyes that you tackled the ball before it hit him!"
"No! You saw it wrong. I tackled the ball first. He was just brought down. He was diving, Mr. Referee!"
"Are you questioning my judgment?!" Tremont took a step back and stared at Mo Yang impatiently.
Seeing Mo Yang pestering the referee, Henderson quickly stepped forward and pulled Mo Yang back.
He found that Tremont's face was not very good, and it would be tragic if he continued to pester Mo Yang.
In football matches, the referee is limited by his own positioning and perspective. Such low-level misjudgments are too common. It is meaningless to argue with the referee, and it will only attract the next yellow card.
In the end, this misjudgment not only gave Mo Yang a yellow card, but also gave Sparta a free kick from the top of the arc to the right, within 25 meters.
"Oooh!"
"The ball is in!"
"One kick to the world, Ferrando, Brazilian midfielder!"
In the live broadcast room, when Ferrando took the free kick and the ball hit the right post of Liverpool and entered the goal, the two people exclaimed in unison.
"Ferando's ball is fast, has a tricky angle, and has a wide arc. It almost hits a blind spot. Not to mention Mignolet, even Karius and Alisson probably can't save this ball."
!" Zhan Jun laughed.
"It is a pity that Liverpool attacked wildly for nearly 30 minutes in the first half, but it was Sparta who was passive and scored first."
"So the referee can often dictate the direction of a game. You can't say that he made this penalty on purpose. From the slow-motion replay, we can see that Tremont had a problem with his position selection on the field, and his vision was limited from that angle.
"Yes." Zhang Lu said with a look of regret.
The only shortcoming of Liverpool in this game is that the conversion rate of goals is very low.
In these thirty minutes, Liverpool was completely suppressing Sparta. Whether it was in the middle or on the wing, Sparta was completely restrained in the speed of attack and counterattack. In the end, this was the result.
But this is precisely the charm of football, because it is round, and it does not mean that you will win if you have the advantage!
