Chapter 12: How to Stop Him?

As the saying goes, men and women are not tired of working together. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info Li Qingshan quickly mastered the Spanish pronunciation of some basic football terms.

In football, communication between teammates and teammates is very important. Simone was pleased with Lee's progress in Spanish. In just a few days, Li Qingshan can shout some Spanish words on the field with a non-standard big tongue.

For example, running, passing, shooting, etc.

Due to the intensity of the schedule, Li Qingshan did not have a few Spanish lessons and had to go to Valencia to prepare for the first leg of the Copa del Rey match.

The format of the Copa del Rey is relatively complex, with the first round of matches between the C-division teams and the eligible D-division teams playing a knockout round to determine the 18 participating teams. The second round of matches will be played in La Liga, where the top 20 teams from last season will decide 10 teams. In the third round, the 10 teams that won the second round and the 18 teams in the first round, 4 teams relegated from La B and 2 designated teams from La C were mixed with 34 teams to draw lots to determine 17 teams; In the fourth and fifth rounds, 7 teams from 17 teams plus 11 La Liga teams that do not have to participate in European competitions will be decided after two knockout rounds. In the sixth round, the above seven teams plus the nine teams in La Liga that have participated in the European competition form 16 teams, from here the two legs of home and away matches will be played until the winner is decided.

That is, Atletico Madrid joined from the sixth round, where they eliminated St. Andrew's in the sixth round of the Copa del Rey and reached the seventh round to meet Valencia, who also reached the seventh round.

Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, and Valencia Football Club is a traditional powerhouse in Spanish football. As one of Europe's most famous powerhouses, Valencia has a long history, with the third largest number of members in Spain, behind Real Madrid and Barcelona. Because the team emblem has a bat pattern on it, all of them are also known as the Bat Legion. Valencia won the European Cup Winners' Cup in the 80s and became the first Spanish team to lift the UEFA Super Cup, beating England's Nottingham Forest in the UEFA Super Cup.

They also won two La Liga titles in 2002 and 2004, and lifted the UEFA Cup in 2004.

In a way, Valencia has that considerable influence in La Liga.

Atletico Madrid is known as the "third pole" of La Liga, but judging from the league results in recent years, perhaps Valencia is more qualified to be called the "third pole of La Liga"

From 2009 to 2012, Valencia was second only to Real Madrid and Barcelona in the La Liga standings, and it was only last season that Atletico Madrid snatched the third place in Valencia's La Liga.

However, Valencia has not had an easy time this season, with only 23 points after the halfway point of the league and sitting in eighth place in the league, a full five points away from Sevilla in front of them, and behind them, Getafe, Espanyol, Malaga, Levante and Granada are all within three points of them.

Therefore, for Valencia, the league cannot afford to lose, and in this case, it is naturally not cost-effective to smash the Copa del Rey.

Therefore, the media generally believes that the suspense of Atletico Madrid's promotion to the next round of the Copa del Rey is not big.

Due to the dense schedule in January, throughout January, Atletico Madrid has to play eight games in the league, Copa del Rey, and Champions League, basically one game in three or four days, and in the face of such a high-density schedule, Simeone will definitely need to make a rotation.

The most interesting thing is, of course, the selection of the striker. Atletico Madrid currently have four strikers, and in addition to Diego Costa, Villa, and Li Qingshan, Adrian may be able to get a chance to play.

However, it is widely believed that due to his excellent performance in the last league game, Li Qingshan is likely to get a starting opportunity in this away Copa del Rey game. As for who his partner will be, there are different opinions.

The Chinese media are already looking forward to Li's first start at Atletico Madrid.

In this game, Villa and Diego Costa will have to rotate one of them, and the most likely will be the veteran Villa. And the remaining striker position is Li Qingshan and Adrian to compete.

In the face of competition with Li Qingshan, Adrian did not have any advantage, and halfway through the season, Adrian got more than ten opportunities to appear, but he did not score a goal. On the other hand, Li Qingshan scored a goal in 45 minutes in the last game, and also received an assist.

Judge from above.

But it may be due to the inferiority complex of Chinese players who have been absent from the top five leagues for a long time. Some media still expressed concerns about whether Li Qingshan could start.

For example, will Simeone take into account that Li Qingshan has been playing for a season in a row and put him on the bench. For example, will Simeone take Adrian's defensive aggressiveness into account and let Adrian start with Diego Costa, etc. You must know that when Li Qingshan was in Guangzhou Evergrande, except for the time when the defensive set-piece was already the opponent's long pass, there was basically no defensive task. Lippi's only task for Li Qingshan is to score!

Under Simeone, all the players at Atletico Madrid are involved in the defense. Starting from the striker, it is necessary to press the opponent's defender in the front court and interfere with the opponent's ball.

In fact, Li Qingshan did a good job, he judged the opponent's passing line very accurately, and he was tall and long, although his defensive skills were not very good, but he pressed the opponent's backcourt ball handler next to him, which can also make the opponent panic.

Valencia's head coach Pich also judged that Simeone would send Li Qingshan, a high school striker, to start, in addition to Li Qingshan's recent excellent form, there is another reason: Valencia's air defense is not strong.

Among Valencia's defenders, the tallest is the jack-of-all-trades Mathieu, who is 190 centimeters tall and can play as a left-back, centre-back and defensive midfielder. It can even be used as a winger at some point.

Other players, such as another defender, Ricardo Costa, is 183 centimeters tall, and another central defender, Victor Luiz, is only 185 centimeters tall.

In addition to the lack of height advantage, Valencia's centre-backs are not the type of person who excels at frontal interceptions and physical confrontations. Against a big center like Li Qingshan, it is really a loss.

Due to Valencia's poor results in the league this season, after the Christmas break, Valencia sacked their old coach Ernesto Valverde, and Argentine Pich became the team's new manager.

In his first game in charge, Valencia won 2-0 at home to Levante.

And the Copa del Rey match against Atletico Madrid at home on January 8 will be the real test for him. Although the Copa del Rey is not as important as the league, no team will give up a game easily. However, he can't put all his main players on the field because of this Copa del Rey game. He also needs to make some rotation to deal with the embarrassing situation of finishing ninth in the league with just 23 points. As a traditional powerhouse in La Liga, such a ranking after the halfway point is naturally failing. That's why Valencia made the decision to change the coach.

How to prevent Li Qingshan?

Pidge actually didn't have much bottom in his heart, because he only had the cards in his hand, and he didn't have a better way to face the impact of a high school striker like Li Qingshan. It is only possible to reduce the chances of Atletico Madrid's wide crosses as much as possible.