Chapter 90: Final against Manchester City
Nowadays, when it comes to the ability to entertain, the fans in old Europe certainly cannot be compared with the fans in China.

On the night when Roma defeated Feyenoord and advanced to the semi-finals of this season’s Europa League, the brothers in the International Forum directly made the picture of Li Chen wearing a Taoist robe and pinching his hands to make the whole Internet popular.

From late at night to the early morning of the next day, almost all major sports forums in China were constantly flooded with pictures of “Li Xuanzong”.

What’s even more amazing is that in the evening of the next day in China, some sharp-eyed fans discovered that Li Chen’s personal account, which he registered and authenticated on a certain football emperor last season, also started to post his own metaphysical jokes.

This has made the entire Chinese football fan circle lively!

Old fans who have been following Li Chen for many years naturally know that he likes to chat online very much and has set up small accounts in major sports forums in China.

But apart from the “ancient times” of the Internet many years ago, when Li Chen made a public appearance in a forum to speak for Boas, he has never spoken in domestic forums since then.

This time, Li Chen interacted with fans in a domestic sports forum again after more than ten years.

As the most popular figure in China’s football circle and even in China’s sports circle, Li Chen’s influence in the country has long exceeded his own expectations.

With the continued support of a certain blog’s hot search, the forum post where Li Chen made the meme comment soon received more than 10,000 comments.

A large number of onlookers came to join in the fun, and various internet celebrities and self-media outlets followed up the reports diligently after smelling the traffic opportunity, helping to ferment public opinion.

Until the end, the official sports media came out to praise Li Chen’s achievements in the world’s top football league.

This time, Li Chen, who caused a sensation throughout China a few months ago by leading England to successfully win the World Cup and sparked a heated discussion among the people, was pushed to the forefront of public opinion again.

At this moment, this huge traffic is definitely a good thing for Li Chen, who has achieved excellent results.

Before the FA Cup semi-final started, Mendes couldn’t hide his excitement and called Li Chen several times, telling him that the entire Chinese market was now open to them.

And it’s not just traditional sports-related companies that are interested in Li Chen’s commercial value.

It is no exaggeration to say that almost all the leading companies in major industries in China have started negotiations on cooperation intentions with Mendes’ team.

This is also due to Li Chen’s “lazy attitude” towards accepting advertising endorsements in the past two years.

Speaking of which, since Li Chen led Manchester United to good results, he has received quite a few endorsement contracts.

At least in the entire coaching industry, he is one of the coaches with higher commercial value.

Mendes selected several established European companies with good reputations and generous endorsement salaries for him to cooperate with.

The only thing that Li Chen asked Mendes to put on hold was the commercial endorsement contract that was offered in China in the past two years.

This is not to say that Li Chen didn’t want to make more money, but that many of the Chinese companies that made offers to him at that time had more or less some problems with their reputation.

The money was enough, but Li Chen didn’t want to make a quick buck and then run away by cheating the fans who believed in him.

It was not until he took over as temporary coach and led the British national team to the Qatar World Cup and successfully won the championship that several real giants in China came forward to extend an olive branch to Li Chen.

But even at this time, Li Chen still calmly chose to wait.

He has to wait for the huge reputation brought to him by this World Cup title to continue to ferment.

He wants to wait until these giant companies truly see how terrifying his appeal is to the entire Chinese fan community.

Either resist the urge to eat it, or eat up the highest quality and most delicious cake on the market in one bite!
Now, Li Chen once again used his calmness to bring him a huge harvest.

In the face of Mendes’ excitement, Li Chen only gave his old friend one reply:
“Let’s start harvesting!”

Having received the long-awaited reply, Mendes flew directly to China’s Magic City with his negotiation team that same day.

He is going to “go to war” in the field he is best at.

The Magic City will be the city where their entire team will gain the most.

After taking over this piece of the gold market, they will also head to the capital of China and Pengcheng in the south.

If nothing unexpected happens, Li Chen’s business empire will be built and gradually expanded from Mendes’ hands in this hot summer.

And now, Li Chen, who is also excited, continues to expand his territory in the field he is good at and lay a deeper foundation for his business empire.

On the afternoon of April 4st, Li Chen led the team to Sheffield in advance to prepare for the FA Cup semi-final.

Even though the match was against Sheffield United from the Championship, Li Chen still led the team to strictly abide by the rules they set before the game.

Check into the hotel in advance, complete the site inspection, hold a group tactical meeting and take a physical therapy break.

Having completed all pre-match preparations step by step, the Newcastle players stepped onto Bramall Lane Stadium in high spirits the next afternoon.

Facing the deliberate boos from more than 30,000 Blades fans at the scene, Newcastle’s starting players ruthlessly suppressed Sheffield United from the start of the game!

Newcastle, with Trippier’s healthy return, returned to the 433 starting formation.

With full firepower, Ronaldo, who was attacking the Sheffield United defense line, tried to shoot frequently early on.

Moreover, the quality of his shots was quite good, and he quickly entered the game state, visibly.

With Ronaldo playing normally in the front, the other Newcastle frontcourt players felt very at ease.

There are always some media and fans who like to talk about Ronaldo’s number of shots and his shooting accuracy.

But they will never understand the admiration and confidence that Ronaldo’s young teammates feel every time they see him force shooting opportunities.

The two most difficult things on the football field are how to create a large number of offensive opportunities and how to seize opportunities and turn them into goals.

How many teams feel frustrated and upset because they cannot get three shooting opportunities in a game.

How many fans were extremely angry because their own forwards failed to seize opportunities and scored repeatedly.

In the current football world, there are very few forwards who can rely on their personal abilities and rich game experience to create a large number of shooting opportunities.

Now that he is 38 years old, Ronaldo is still the best among this group of top running backs.

With him, Newcastle’s young players will not have to worry about the team’s strength advantage not being able to be converted into an absolute victory through shooting suppression.

In order to get into the game state as quickly as possible, Luo Ge sometimes chooses to take some kicking opportunities to warm up.

But he wasted some opportunities, but created more opportunities.

Even now he can no longer score in almost every game.

But as long as his shooting deterrence remains, he can always help other young teammates create offensive space.

This is his most valuable tactical value.

He can shoot and dares to shoot, but the opponent has to divide his troops to guard this old star who doesn’t have the ball. Many strong teams in the Premier League are like this, not to mention Sheffield United, who were extremely pressed by Newcastle at the beginning of the game.

Seeing that Ronaldo was in great shape today, Li Chen waved his hand and signaled the players in the frontcourt to feed the ball to Ronaldo more so that he could shoot as much as he wanted.

Sheffield United will certainly not sit idly by. Newcastle’s tactical intentions are too obvious, so they will naturally have to pay more attention to defending Ronaldo.

But some things cannot be accomplished simply by working hard.

Sheffield United was very attentive in double-teaming Ronaldo.

But in the 13th minute of the first half, Ronaldo still completed a cut-in shot through a short pass and one-two cooperation with Havertz who was pulled out of the penalty area!
His shot had enough arc and power.

Sheffield United goalkeeper Fordlingham had never seen such an outrageous shooting technique.

He originally thought that Ronaldo’s shot was likely to miss the far post.

As a result, the football showed a tendency to spin and fall during its rapid flight, and finally hit the inside of the goal post and bounced into the goal behind him!
Fordlingham was completely defeated by Ronaldo’s shot.

Commentators from various countries had no time to comfort the unfortunate Sheffield United goalkeeper.

They all excitedly cheered and praised Ronaldo for scoring the first goal!
At this moment, Ronaldo, who was running lightly with his arms open on the field, seemed to be dreaming back to the “Phnom Penh Ronaldo” period.

The perfect combination of agility and strength.

During that period, Ronaldo often completed various high-quality long-range shots outside the penalty area without any reason.

After calming down a little, the Sky Sports commentator once again sincerely praised Li Chen for his rational use of veterans.

Developing a rotation plan is not a panacea for all ills.

Some veterans can maintain their game form and enhance physical recovery through frequent rotations.

But some veterans may lose their form during the rotation, and they need continuous games to put pressure on themselves and maintain their feel.

Li Chenqiang’s strength lies in his emphasis on one-on-one communication with veteran players in the team.

To put it bluntly, any one of these old guys is a genius.

Moreover, he has been playing professional football for so many years that he has already figured out the working rules of his body.

They know when they feel in good shape, when they feel in bad shape, whether they are more suitable for training with more pressure or less pressure, and the rhythm of the game.

The good thing about Li Chen’s communication style is that he communicates sincerely.

The brothers felt that his recent game form and physical condition were good, so after the team doctor checked and found no problems, Li Chen made arrangements in advance if he wanted to play more games.

They felt that they could no longer hold on and needed to take a break and rest more. Li Chen also expressed his understanding and arranged rest times for them as much as possible.

For someone like Ronaldo who has a stubborn personality, Li Chen was even more straightforward and said:

Brother, I am indeed doing this for your own good. You are old now and if you want to balance club and national team games, you will have to make compromises somewhere.

If you want to fight one last time with the national team, then listen to your brothers, take a break from the club competitions, and we will save our form for the crucial games.

Of course, if you think playing more games will help you maintain your form, then we will change the rest plan.

There is only one prerequisite, keep yourself healthy, we will do something big together next season…

Once these words are spoken, no matter how stubborn Ronaldo is, he will choose to obey.

After all, he can clearly tell who is really good to him and who is trying to use him to establish his authority or to gain benefits from him.

It was precisely because of Li Chen’s sincerity and timely communication that several veteran players in the team were able to take turns to step forward during the rotation and lead the team forward smoothly.

It looks like it’s Ronaldo’s turn today.

Ramos, who was directing the defense in the backcourt, felt a little bored, and Sheffield United was completely unable to counterattack.

If it weren’t for Van der Ven, who had started fewer games today and had to set a good example in defense, he would have rushed forward and taken a few shots to show Sheffield United what a reversing king is.

Li Chen seemed to have sensed Ramos’s inner restlessness and quickly signaled his players in the frontcourt to work harder and try to score the second goal as soon as possible.

Newcastle’s overall formation continued to press forward, allowing Sheffield United to find some counterattack opportunities.

It’s just that their young center forward Jebson is too weak.

There was no need for Ramos to increase the intensity. As soon as Van der Ven got close to him, the young man, who was less than 20 years old, became so nervous that he kept losing the ball.

The Sheffield United coaching staff, who wanted to rely on Jebson as an offensive transit point for counterattacks, were soon disappointed.

Another Sheffield United starting striker, Ndiaye, was able to create counterattack opportunities with his good speed.

But his style is somewhat unique, his passing skills and shooting skills are average, and it is difficult for him to threaten the goal guarded by Sommer.

Sheffield United only made two attempts and didn’t even have three attacks.

Newcastle continued to put pressure on the team and in the 27th minute of the first half Grimaldo seized the opportunity and shot into the far corner of the goal to score again!
Ronaldo’s pulling movement helped Grimaldo get a great opportunity to dribble into the Sheffield United penalty area.

And Fordlingham did not expect that Grimaldo had no intention of passing the ball again. He chose to shoot directly when he had the chance after entering the penalty area!

Excited Grimaldo and Ronaldo performed a set of complicated hand gestures to celebrate near the baseline.

Newcastle played in full swing and scored a goal in the first half injury time that completely killed the game.

Madison assisted Ronaldo to score with a header from behind the penalty area!
Sheffield United’s tall right center back Ahmedo Hogic failed to maintain his defensive position and was directly dunked by Ronaldo, who was almost half a head shorter than him.

Sheffield United head coach Heckingbottom shook his head repeatedly as he watched this scene, obviously having lost confidence in the game.

Fortunately, Newcastle, who had established the winning advantage, did not continue to attack Sheffield United in the second half of the game.

Li Chen used up all five substitutions in the second half of the game, killing time while also allowing several important substitute players to find their game feel.

Havertz’s header off the post and Wilson’s long-range shot that was just a hair’s breadth away became Newcastle’s most threatening shots in the second half.

In the end, Newcastle, who only attacked at full strength for half the court, still allowed Sheffield United to barely save face in their home court.

The score of 3-0 is not big, and Newcastle has taken the lead in entering the FA Cup final of this season.

The next afternoon, Manchester City, playing at home, beat Brighton 90-3 after 1 minutes of fierce battle, and also got another ticket to the FA Cup final without any suspense.

Newcastle and Manchester City, the bitter rivals this season, are set to battle for the championship again.

(End of this chapter)