Chapter 820 Dominance
Sometimes, when the tactics are right in a football match, the players can score goals when they feel comfortable.
When the game reached the 45th minute, when the first half was about to enter injury time, Bruno was double-teamed by Mazraoui and Gravenberch during an attack, and failed to create a threat, so he passed the ball back to Luke Shaw on the left.
The latter made a cross to the back of the penalty area, and Harry Kane grabbed the first point and headed the ball back into the penalty area.
Bellingham followed up and shot directly, but the shot was interfered by Klaassen and hit Blind.
There was a melee in the middle, Harry Kane and Rashford went to grab the ball, and Ajax's midfielder and central defender also joined in the pressing.
And somehow, someone poked the ball, but the ball rolled towards Bruno.
Bruno was on the left, and was also a little surprised when he suddenly faced the ball, but he reacted quickly.
Tadic rushed towards him fiercely, but Bruno was very calm at this time. Instead, he took a step to the middle of the road, avoided Tadic, and hit a ground ball with his right foot.
The football flew from Tadic's side to the lower left corner of the goal.
When goalkeeper Onana reacted, he made another side dive, but this time, the Cameroon goalkeeper could not save Bruno's shot like before, because this shot was very fast and sudden. By the time he reacted and dived sideways again, the ball had already rolled into the goal.
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“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLL!!!!!!”
“In the 45th minute, Bruno seized a sudden opportunity and broke through Ajax’s goal with a ground ball. This was really a very sudden goal.”
“Manchester United’s goal came very suddenly, but it also reflected that Bruno’s ability to seize opportunities at critical moments is indeed very stable, and he now looks more relaxed and at ease when playing.”
“This is Bruno’s 77th Champions League goal, and his total number of Champions League goals has reached 80 goals, which ranks third in the Champions League’s historical scorer list. In front of him, only Yosi scored 115 goals and C Ronaldo scored 130 goals! And including Raul, Lewandowski, Benzema and others All the current or retired superstars have been left behind by Bruno! "
"This is only Bruno's sixth season in the Champions League. In the past five Champions League seasons, Bruno has maintained a very high scoring rate. In his 56 Champions League games, he scored 76 goals, which even exceeded his scoring efficiency in the club. He seems to be born for big scenes! "
"The reason for this is not only because Bruno's scoring efficiency in the Champions League is very high, but also because he has maintained a higher scoring efficiency than ordinary games in all major competitions. "
"Take the Champions League as an example. Of his 77 goals, 42 were scored in the knockout stage, accounting for 54.5%! "
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After scoring, Bruno rushed out of the stadium quickly and celebrated the goal crazily.
The whole process of the goal was replayed through the TV live broadcast slow motion. At that time, the front of the entire penalty area was in a melee, and no one knew where the ball would come from.
And through the slow motion replay, it can be seen that Harry Kane kicked the ball to Bruno's side.
"Tadic was not in good form tonight. He should have been more stable this time and shouldn't have jumped so hard. As a result, Bruno was very smart and went to the middle and easily passed it." Davis seemed very disappointed.
As a former Ajax youth training product and an experienced all-round midfielder, Davis knew very well that the mistake in this goal was that Tadic failed to block Bruno and he jumped too hard.
"This is the role of the key star." Van Persie praised, "Give him a little chance, Bruno can create a goal, and he also caused a lot of trouble for Ajax's defense throughout the first half."
Lisandro was injured, Tadic's yellow card, plus the goal just now...
"This is still Bruno who is not in the best condition." Van der Vaart said helplessly.
Rather than saying that Bruno performed too well, it is better to say that Ajax is in a slump, especially Tadic, and Ten Hag's tactics were completely suppressed by Mourinho, causing Ajax to be passive across the board.
"If we continue like this, we will suffer in the second half sooner or later." Davis said worriedly.
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The goal at the end of the first half allowed Manchester United to enter the halftime break with a 1:0 lead.
Mourinho was very satisfied with the team's performance in the first half, especially Bruno. He believed that Bruno's performance basically met his requirements. Rashford and Mbappe also received Mourinho's affirmation because they successfully formed an impact on Ajax's defense.
The madman expressed the hope that Rashford and Mbappe would continue to impact Ajax's defense in the second half and use their speed to create threats.
Others tried their best to cooperate with Manchester United's frontcourt attack group.
After the second half, Manchester United still adopted the same tactical play in the first half. The Red Devils still adopted the high-pressure pressing tactics and collectively exerted pressure on Ajax.
Manchester United is already familiar with this style of play. When to grab, when to lock, when to go up, when to go down, the players have already used it freely.
Although Gundogan is there, Kante and Jebruno are still in the midfield, and Bellingham, the young player, also performed well, which made it easy for Manchester United to occupy the advantage after the second half.
Less than five minutes into the second half, Bruno got the ball on the left, quickly started to dribble inside, and passed it diagonally to Harry Kane.
The English center forward just got the ball and was about to pass it back to Bruno, but Tadic suddenly fell to the ground and shoveled, showing his studs.
Harry Kane was shoveled to the ground, and the referee quickly blew the whistle and gave Tadic another yellow card, and then two yellows turned into one red, and he was directly sent off.
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One injured and one red, Ajax's two core players in this game were sent off.
Ten Hag quickly made adjustments, replacing Kudus with Labiyad. The team began to change tactics, adopted a 4-4-1 formation, decisively contracted defense, and retreated very far back.
Obviously, Ajax had no way out and turned to a solid formation.
6◇9◇Book◇Bar
This is something that no one in Manchester United wants to see.
Bruno even felt that, to some extent, this red card was not a good thing for Manchester United.
Without a red card, the number of players on both sides was equal. Ajax fell behind by one goal and would definitely try every means to attack and try to equalize the score. But now a red card completely cut off Ajax's counterattack idea, and they would only hold on to this score.
The subsequent game seemed to confirm Bruno's guess. Ajax began to defend the half and the penalty area, allowing Manchester United to attack, but never left Manchester United with many opportunities.
The Red Devils took the advantage and began to press Ajax, but never broke through Ajax's solid formation.
If a team is determined to defend, it will be difficult for the opponent to easily break their goal, not to mention that Ajax is not weak in itself.
Even though Manchester United seems to have occupied a tactical high point like Harry Kane, and although they have created several threatening attacks, there is no real absolute chance.
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In the end, Manchester United defeated Ajax 1:0 away from home and won a key victory in this Champions League group stage.
When the referee blew the whistle to end the game, Bruno sat on the bench and breathed a sigh of relief.
He was replaced by Mata in the 70th minute. In the last 20 to 30 minutes, Manchester United did not put in too much energy at all, and more wasted the game time.
Losing to Manchester United 0:1 at home, Ajax did not play a satisfactory score, and even the process seemed to lack competitiveness, and Ten Hag's deployment was completely suppressed by Mourinho.
Although it was only the first group match, in fact, Manchester United was full of confidence and believed that if nothing unexpected happened, the team would successfully advance as the first in the group.
As for Ten Hag, the head coach who coached Manchester United in another time and space, Bruno could see that although he had some things, they were not many. Such a head coach may be able to achieve some results with a luxurious team in a second-rate league with low competitiveness, but it is difficult to succeed in a highly competitive top league like the Premier League.
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Manchester United won a small victory over Ajax 1:0 away, but they were not able to occupy the top spot in the group standings, because in another group match of the same group that was being held at the same time, Atalanta swept Midtjylland 4:0 away, thus suppressing Manchester United with a goal difference advantage and taking the first place in the group.
In this round of the Champions League group stage, the first group match was exposed as a super upset, that is, Real Madrid, known as the king of the Champions League, actually lost to Shakhtar Donetsk 2:3 at home!
In the first half, Tite passed and shot + caused Varane's own goal, and the miners led 3:0; in the second half, Modric scored a world wave to get back a goal, and Vinicius scored a goal just 15 seconds after coming off the bench. In the end, Real Madrid unexpectedly lost to the opponent with a score of 2:3, creating the biggest upset of the day.
The Premier League teams all performed well. Manchester City defeated Porto 3:1 at home, and Liverpool defeated the powerful Atletico Madrid 2:1 away. Only Chelsea failed to win. They were tied 0:0 at home by the Europa League king Sevilla.
In the Europa League, the Premier League teams performed more dominantly. Arsenal beat Viana Rapid 2:1 away, Leicester City beat Zouave 3:0 at home, and Tottenham also beat Linz 3:0 at home.
In 7 games, 6 wins and 1 draw, the Premier League proved to the world why they are the first league!