Seventeenth minute.
Ronaldo once again tried to pass after receiving the ball, but this time the opponent rushed over and knocked him down.
The referee blew the whistle and awarded Moreirense a free kick in the attacking half.
However, after knocking Ronaldo over, the opponent said, "Boy, this isn't a circus. Stop your funny and ugly dance performance! You look like a monkey jumping up and down!"
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"What did you say?" Ronaldo stood up.
"What? Are you here to fight?" The other player puffed out his chest.
He was taller and stronger than Cristiano Ronaldo. With a full beard, you could tell at a glance that he wasn't someone easy to mess with.
Ronaldo was a little intimidated and didn't say anything.
Fortunately, his teammates rushed over immediately and pulled him away.
He was still just a fifteen-year-old kid who had stepped into professional football too early and was now facing a full-on dimensionality reduction attack. It was normal for him to feel a bit lost.
This wasn't timidity—it was unfamiliarity.
If something like this happened in a youth match, even if the opponent was stronger, Ronaldo would fight back or even start a fight, because he knew how things worked in that environment.
This is like how many boys in their twenties, who have just entered the workplace, instinctively say "Hello, aunt" when addressing women in their thirties.
They mean to be polite, but it ends up being offensive.
The main reason is that they're not used to calling someone "sister," not that they don't know how.
After this clash, Ronaldo's dribbles decreased. He started passing backward more, causing the team's left side to fall into a deadlock.
Ronaldo felt like he didn't know how he should play anymore.
Deng Kai noticed Ronaldo's confusion, so he began shifting the ball to the right, changing the attacking focus.
Thirty-first minute.
After receiving Flavio's return pass on the right, Deng Kai suddenly played a forward ball into space.
Alex, the right back who was pushing forward, accelerated, using his speed to beat the opponent's left back and successfully reach the ball.
Alex cut inside and pushed forward. After a slight feint, he delivered a direct cross.
The move wasn't fancy, but it completely caught the opponent off guard.
The ball curved into the penalty area.
Boom!
Anderson beat the opposing center-back and scored with a header.
"Goal! Anderson! What a beautiful header!"
"I didn't expect Alex to have this kind of cross. He didn't show this in the first half of the season."
"Deng Kai's lob pass was perfectly weighted, giving Alex enough space to sprint. Did they plan this beforehand? It would've been hard for anyone else to reach that ball—at least Flavio couldn't."
"If Moreirense can get three points today, they will jump from last place to third, because the other two bottom teams have already lost."
Deng Kai thought everything would improve after the goal.
Because once momentum builds, intensity naturally rises, and scoring again shouldn't be difficult.
However, this Moreirense team was different from any team Deng Kai had played for before. After scoring, the entire team became extremely unified… and negative.
How should he put it? The whole team dropped back.
This must have been a tactical habit left by the previous coach.
But this approach was obviously wrong.
Because even defending deep requires technique.
As mentioned in "Arteta's Tactical Whiteboard," the essence of positional defense is not positioning, but defending.
Defense is a verb.
When you defend, you must take the initiative.
You need to press the opponent and compress their space and reaction time.
But what about Moreirense?
Their understanding of "defending deep" was simply staying close to the edge of the penalty area and not allowing breakthroughs.
At the same time, they prepared to deal with crosses from the wings.
But can you just let them cross freely? At least you shouldn't let them cross so easily, right?
These problems are hard to notice during normal training, but once exposed in a match, it's already too late.
In the ten minutes after Moreirense scored, Penafiel launched a fierce offensive. In just ten minutes, their number of attacks exceeded the total number of attacks by both teams in the previous thirty minutes.
Did Penafiel suddenly become stronger?
Deng Kai felt extremely frustrated.
How is this any different from the future Manchester United?
Can't that shitty Manchester United score goals?
They can—but they're always ahead.
Can't they hold the lead?
They can—but they always get equalized or overtaken.
Why?
Because after scoring, they feel more uncomfortable than when conceding. The entire team drops back and stops defending proactively. It's like they assume the opponent can't attack, so they help them attack instead.
In this situation, it's almost like they voluntarily break their own forward and midfield lines, completely exposing their defense and letting the opponent tear them apart.
A defense like this will naturally be full of holes.
Even if you put four of the world's best center-backs there, they'd still get torn to pieces.
"No, we can't play like this. Stay up front," Deng Kai told Ronaldo not to track back.
Because both the center-forward Anderson and right winger Flavio had already dropped deep.
The team's structure was completely compressed by the opponent, losing all layers. Any pass from the opponent could cut through the entire team.
So Ronaldo stayed forward.
There were some boos from the crowd.
Because everyone else was defending, but Ronaldo alone stayed upfield. Do you think you're Ronaldo or something?
But fortunately, Ronaldo's personality meant he never feared criticism. Since Kai told him to stay forward, there must be a reason.
Forty-second minute.
Fonte made a crucial interception. If he hadn't stopped the ball, there were two Penafiel players behind him ready to shoot from the penalty spot.
Ricardo would have had no chance.
Boom!
Fonte passed the ball to Deng Kai.
Boom!
Deng Kai half-turned and volleyed the ball forward without even looking.
The tempo of the match suddenly exploded.
Normally, the rhythm of play goes: defense, retreat, tackling, clearing, controlling, waiting for movement, advancing, and then creating chances…
But Deng Kai skipped all those steps and turned the ball recovery directly into an attacking pass.
Too many steps were cut out.
This is the role of a midfield metronome in transition.
It's also the effect of that "stream-of-consciousness" passing that allows Deng Kai to play like this.
"Ah!"
After passing the ball, Deng Kai was knocked down by the opponent's number 8.
It was clear the opponent intended to take him out from the start and not let him organize anything.
But the opponent was just a step too slow—or Deng Kai was simply too fast.
The referee signaled advantage.
Because up front, Ronaldo was already sprinting wildly.
Penafiel's defense was too high. Within three seconds of Ronaldo's run, he was completely through.
The ball was too far ahead for the goalkeeper to come out. He could only watch Ronaldo control it and charge toward him.
After entering the penalty area, the goalkeeper tried to interfere.
But Cristiano Ronaldo stayed calm. He moved sideways to create space and then slotted the ball in with a low shot.
He didn't waste this chance.
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