Chapter 110 Desperate

Although Villa was sad to be substituted, he quickly completed his departure. After all, Spain was two goals behind, and they needed time to score. If he wasted more time during the substitution, the impact on the team would be even greater.

Now time was on China's side.

Villa's tears seemed to stimulate the Spanish players. Or perhaps Bosque made a correct substitution. In any case, after Mata came on, Spain's attack immediately improved.

Alba crossed from the forty-five-degree angle in the midfield, finding Torres outside the penalty area. Torres chested the ball down and volleyed directly, but the ball went slightly wide and flew out of the goal.

"Torres! That was close! The Chinese team's defense had a slight problem, and Torres immediately seized it. They can't relax!" Liu Jianhong shouted anxiously.

Sun Pan also jumped up from the ground and clapped his hands vigorously, loudly reminding his teammates.

Then in the sixty-third minute, Xabi Alonso took a long shot from outside the penalty area, but it went directly over the bar and did not threaten the Chinese team's goal.

At this time, facing Spain's offensive, the Chinese team chose to slow down the pace slightly. Because Spain obviously wanted to speed up, and they couldn't let them get their way.

Leading by two goals, the Chinese team could now play very calmly and steadily, without any need to rush.

It was Spain who should be anxious.

Without Lippi giving instructions from the sidelines, the Chinese team had already made such an adjustment, counterattacking while consolidating their defense.

Lippi had arranged Yan Min, He Ying, and Wu Lei, these three fast and impactful forwards, for this kind of preparation. And Zhou Yi keenly sensed the coach's idea and made such an adjustment in advance, saving Lippi from shouting on the sidelines.

Faced with the Chinese team's defensive counterattack, even if the Spanish team knew that there was danger in attacking, they had no choice but to attack head-on. At this time, they had no other choice and no qualifications to consider anything else.

Sun Pan quite liked this tactic, because he became the protagonist.

As the number of shots from Spain increased, the number of times he could show his face also increased.

This made him very excited.

And Sun Pan was the kind of goalkeeper who got better when the crowd got wild, the more excited he was, the better his condition.

This was miserable for the Spanish players, no matter how they shot, they couldn't break through the goal guarded by Sun Pan.

In the seventy-second minute, Bosque made another substitution, replacing Cazorla with Fabregas.

Before the game, news had been revealed that Fabregas and Bosque had had a little unhappiness on the training ground. Now, Bosque certainly couldn't care about his grievances with Fabregas, restoring the glory of Spanish football was more important.

After Fabregas came on, he did bring some changes to Spain's attack.

In the seventy-sixth minute, he suddenly retreated on the left side of the penalty area after receiving a pass from his teammate and passed the ball to the far post on the right.

Rong Hao jumped up to head the ball out, but he didn't reach it!

"Rong Hao missed the header!" Liu Jianhong exclaimed.

Behind Rong Hao was Mata, who had replaced Villa, and he had already prepared to receive the ball.

Just as he was about to receive the ball, Sun Pan cursed and rushed out of the goal, pouncing straight at Mata.

And Guo Nu, who originally wanted to defend Mata, saw Sun Pan's movement and quickly ran towards his own goal.

When Mata received the ball, he glanced at Sun Pan's attack out of the corner of his eye, so he was already prepared before he received the ball. He leaned back, spread his hands to maintain balance, and then lifted his left foot to flick the ball passed by Fabregas upwards!

He shot directly!

A lob shot!

Sun Pan jumped up, but he was still a little slow. Mata's direct shot was somewhat unexpected.

Mata and Sun Pan had been teammates at Chelsea for half a season, so he obviously knew Sun Pan very well. He knew that Sun Pan's attack was very fast, so he couldn't stop the ball. Once he stopped the ball, he would lose the opportunity to shoot, so he chose to shoot directly.

Although the accuracy was not as high as adjusting and then shooting, at this time, you had to give up something and take a gamble.

He gambled on shooting directly, catching Sun Pan off guard.

When the ball flew past the tip of Sun Pan's fingers, it looked like he had won the gamble...

"Mata! Lob shot—!!" The Spanish commentator shouted excitedly, drawing out the sound.

In his roar, the ball passed Sun Pan's fingertips and fell towards the goal behind him!

That was a huge empty goal!

Spain would pull back a goal!

If this goal went in, it would also be Spain's first goal from open play in this World Cup!

The Spanish fans in the stands swept away their previous frustration and despair, and jumped up from their seats, cheering loudly.

In their cheers, the ball fell towards the goal, getting closer and closer to the goal line.

But at this moment, Guo Nu, who had chased back to the front of the goal, jumped up and performed a difficult bicycle kick!

Just as the ball was about to cross the line, he hooked the ball out!

"Guo Nu!!!" Liu Jianhong's shout made the Chinese fans in front of the TV have no doubt that he wanted to rush into the stadium to hug Guo Nu.

In fact, these fans also wanted to do so—this clearance was too awesome!

"A difficult bicycle kick clearance! Guo Nu succeeded! Too beautiful! At a critical moment! He made a successful clearance at the risk of an own goal!"

When Sun Pan saw the ball flying over the top of his fingers, his heart turned cold. He still remembered the oath he had made before the game...

As a result, he turned his head and saw Guo Nu soaring in the air, performing a standard bicycle kick, and hooking the ball out.

At this moment, he wanted to hug Guo Nu.

When the ball cleared by Guo Nu was kicked into the stands by Wu Lei again, the Spanish players raised their hands and signaled to the referee that Mata's shot had completely crossed the line, and Guo Nu should have kicked the ball out from inside the goal line.

But the referee did not accept the Spanish players' appeals and protests, and the replay clearly told those uncertain viewers that at the moment when Guo Nu cleared the ball, only a small edge of the ball was tangent to the outermost side of the goal line, and it was far from being a goal.

Guo Nu's clearance could be said to be very timely and without any problems.

"No goal, no goal!" Liu Jianhong kept repeating this sentence as if he was speaking to the Spanish players. "Guo Nu's key clearance on the goal line saved the Chinese team! He scored a goal for the Chinese team with a header before, and now he has saved a goal. It's almost like he scored two goals! Guo Nu's condition in this game is really excellent!"

The Spanish commentator watched this scene and had nothing to say: "Indeed, it didn't go in... just a little bit, alas! We have lost a good opportunity to score again! Villa's shot in the first half failed to cross Sun Pan's fingertips, and this time, Mata's lob shot passed Sun Pan, but was cleared by Guo Nu on the goal line... Spain's luck is really too bad!"

While the commentators were paying attention to the goal-line technology, Sun Pan had already given Guo Nu a hard hug.

The first time the two met, they disliked each other. Now they hugged each other for a ball.

Time flies, everyone is changing, and the feelings are getting stronger and stronger.

※※※

The fact that two certain-goal opportunities were rejected by the Chinese team in different ways had a huge blow to the morale and confidence of the Spanish players—anyone would be affected by missing two such good opportunities.

The Spanish offensive was obviously weaker.

And the Chinese team, led by Zhou Yi, took the opportunity to exert their strength and launched an offensive towards the Spanish goal. It would be great if they could score a goal, but even if they couldn't score, at least they could push Spain back and reduce the pressure on the Chinese team's defense.

At the same time, just after Mata had missed a great scoring opportunity, in another stadium.

The match between the Netherlands and Chile, which had been deadlocked, also saw a goal.

In the seventy-seventh minute, Dutch young midfielder Leroy Fer, who came on as a substitute, scored the first goal for the team, breaking through the Chilean team's goal.

Because the Chinese team was already two goals ahead of Spain, if the Netherlands and Chile drew, they would both have five points. The Netherlands had a goal difference of four, and the Chinese team had a goal difference of two so far, so the Netherlands would still qualify as the first in the group.

But Chile would be eliminated, so Chile went all out to attack, wanting to score, which was seized by the Netherlands with a high-quality counterattack, resulting in a goal.

Now Chile's days were not good. If they wanted to qualify from the group, just forcing a draw with the Netherlands would not work, they had to win. They had to score two more goals, and at the same time, they couldn't let the Netherlands score.

Chile was forced to the edge of a cliff, with an abyss behind them.

The game entered a feverish stage.