"Shot!"
"Straight into the goalkeeper's arms!"
"No, it's gone in!"
"What!"
"Kepa spread his arms, ready to dive left or right. He never imagined Leo Lin would shoot straight down the middle!"
For a moment, Kepa thought he had saved it. He brought his legs together to trap the ball, and his right leg even touched it, but after striking Kepa's right leg, the ball still bounced calmly into the net.
Watching Leo Lin leap into midair and bump into his teammates one after another in celebration, Kepa refused to accept it.
What kind of Leo Lin was this? Wasn't everyone always saying his shooting technique was exquisite?
Wasn't he supposed to be best at looking right and shooting left, smashing powerful shots, and hitting precise strikes?
But there was no real skill in that shot at all.
It only went in because he scuffed it, didn't it?
Kepa had gone to all that effort spreading his arms, confidently preparing to dive either left or right, using every ounce of energy in his body just to cover both sides at once. And then Leo Lin ruined his carefully prepared save with one scuffed shot?
That was not how the game was supposed to be played!
After thinking it over, Kepa decided the responsibility was not his. So he got up and started instructing his teammates.
"That's not how you defend!"
"Catch him offside!"
"Mark your man!"
Coach Kepa has entered the chat!
"The so-called manager Sarri is nothing but my Kepa's puppet."
"Liverpool have forced Chelsea into contradicting themselves. I feel like the Chelsea players don't really trust Sarri's tactics anymore."
"It's hard to find a way out of this kind of pressing, because it doesn't rely on any one player, and it doesn't rely on Liverpool having the ball either. As long as you have possession, they can execute this pressing tactic."
"I'm starting to look forward to the next time Liverpool play Manchester City. Can City deal with this new kind of pressing?"
There were not many teams in Europe that played possession football, and even fewer in the Premier League. Manchester City and Chelsea both counted as possession-based teams, but right now, Chelsea clearly could not cope with Liverpool's new pressing style.
After the EFL Cup final resumed, Chelsea still had no answer to Liverpool's pressing, and the match entered halftime amid the complaints of the Chelsea fans.
"The 2018/19 EFL Cup final has reached halftime. I don't know what Liverpool's new pressing tactic should be called. Maybe we can ask Klopp about it later."
"But at the very least, we can see that this is a pressing tactic that is practically a natural counter to possession football."
"It's not just Sarri. I think every team that likes to play possession football would be restrained by this kind of pressing."
Scholes had a feeling that Liverpool might be about to bring the era of possession football to an end.
Starting from this moment. Starting from this EFL Cup final.
Klopp was very satisfied with how effective the pressing had been.
"This is one of the…"
Before he could finish, the players had already learned to answer for him. They shouted in unison, "The best first halves we've ever played!"
Zubizarreta smiled.
"All right, all right. Since you all understand, I won't say any more."
"In the second half, keep making Chelsea tie themselves in knots!"
"We're taking this EFL Cup title!"
A quarter of an hour later.
"Chelsea are still trapped."
"I'm honestly getting a little sleepy."
"Are they planning to just muddle through like this?"
"Liverpool are playing with way too much swagger!"
Gullit fired off four complaints in a row, making his dissatisfaction with Chelsea clear.
"Sarri probably hasn't found a way to resist this new pressing style."
"Chelsea are struggling badly."
Leo Lin watched Chelsea struggle. He knew that the more people struggled in a difficult situation, the deeper they tended to sink.
Once Chelsea dragged themselves even deeper, Liverpool's chance would definitely appear again.
The 60th minute of the match.
"Chelsea might as well give up on possession. If Conte were still here, maybe they wouldn't look this miserable against Liverpool."
The Liverpool fans began singing at Chelsea's new manager, Sarri. It was a traditional mocking chant in English football, used especially to ridicule managers with poor results.
"You're getting sacked tomorrow!"
"You're getting sacked the day after!"
"Sarri's going home for dinner, because he's getting sacked tonight!"
...
Sarri: "Angry! Shaking! Freezing!"
He secretly chewed a couple more strands of tobacco to calm himself down.
The Liverpool fans' mocking also affected the mentality of the Chelsea players.
And once Chelsea's mentality was affected, it affected Leo Lin's mentality too, because the worse Chelsea's mentality became, the better Leo Lin's became.
The 69th minute of the match.
Leo Lin was controlling the ball in the back half when he suddenly spotted a gap in Chelsea's back line and quickly swung his leg.
The instant Leo Lin drew his leg back, the Liverpool players understood what tactic he was going to use. It was the stretching tactic Klopp had studied before.
Then Leo Lin looked toward Mané on the left. That was exactly who he wanted to pass to, and Mané had already started his run.
Leo Lin immediately sent the ball forward.
A beautiful long pass traced its route through the air, boarded the most punctual flight, and landed steadily at the airport behind Chelsea's defense.
Navigator Firmino received it cleanly, faced Kepa, and unleashed a fierce shot, lowering the plane's landing gear with absolute control.
The plane landed accurately, bringing the flight to a perfect end.
"Ding-dong. Congratulations, Liverpool's EFL Cup final flight has landed right on time. Liverpool score again!"
"Lin has used his signature passing trick again. He pretended to pass left, but actually sent it through the middle!"
Gullit had thought Leo Lin was trying to deceive Chelsea's defenders, until the broadcast replay appeared. Everyone could clearly see that Leo Lin had simply scuffed the long pass off the surface of his foot.
On the broadcast screen, an awkward yet elegant smile appeared on Leo Lin's face.
Leo Lin badly wanted to put on an expression that said, yes, I meant to pass it to Firmino, but he could not do it. He could not deceive such an honest and handsome version of himself.
Gullit, who had been about to praise Leo Lin's passing accuracy, swallowed every word he had prepared.
He was now thinking about how to smooth things over in a way that was not awkward, not impolite, still elegant, and still dignified.
"Well, how should I put this?"
"If it were any other player, this would definitely be a scuffed pass or a mistake. But if it's Lin, then I think he must have had his reasons!"
Gullit felt he might be showing a bit of a double standard, but not too much of one.
Beside him, Scholes and Ashley Cole immediately nodded in agreement.
The three double-standard lads successfully shifted the tone of the livestream.
"That's right. If it's Leo Lin, then he definitely had his own reasons for doing it!"
"That makes sense. Sometimes a top player's thinking really is beyond us. Lin must have meant to disguise the pass by making it look like a mistake!"
"This move of contributing an assist to a teammate through a deliberate personal mistake is simply brilliant!"
"As expected of Lin. He can always turn mistakes into miracles and turn something rotten into a goal!"