Thunderstorms can slow down Chelsea s victory, but cannot solve Benfica s own problems

The Club World Cup has finally entered the stage of looking forward to more knockouts, but the teams have learned the difficulty of this event.

In hot weather and general fatigue of players, many teams lack the ability to play intensity, and under the encouragement of high bonuses, many teams are also under pressure to play more, or are expected to play more.

This is clearly reflected in both Chelsea and Benfica.

Therefore, in this knockout match against these two teams, compared to playing their own characteristics and abilities, everyone first needs to overcome the difficulties in front of them, including Chelsea's tactical changes and Benfica's veteran endurance.

defeated yourself, and you may defeat your opponent.

Chelsea is still changing in this game.

Rees James appeared, but did not play in the midfield position, while Palmer continued to appear on the wing, but appeared on the left side, while the right winger was routinely responsible for Neto, which allowed Maresca to continue to use the three-midfield layout.

It is hard to say that the three-midfield trend that began to appear in the Club World Cup was Maresca's considerations for the defensive stage, because shortly after the game began, they could still allow Benfica to complete long-distance dribbling without any pressure:

On Benfica's side, although they defeated Bayern in the group stage, they ushered in the fourth game with two veterans Di Maria and Otamendi, and the team's combat effectiveness always needs to be questioned.

Therefore, although Benfica has ideas, he is inevitably at a disadvantage in the field. The ball is down and the midfield control is also behind, and there are many problems in defense. After the whistle sounded, Chelsea continued to use their physical fitness to hit the back:

, then began to expose its wing space, and Chelsea continuously made crosses:

Although most of the crosses lack precision and threat, it is dangerous to continue to expose the space. After all, Chelsea's offense does not choose to cross every time:

What's more, Chelsea can also oppose their opponents to make mistakes, thereby making a chance to steal the offense:

The problem here is actually the problem of Benfica not being bothered.

The team did not press enough at high positions, which made it difficult for them to interfere with Chelsea's goal and propulsion, so it was difficult to cover enough space as much as possible. The head coach Lager also knew this very well. He knew that the team needed to pull back a midfield player to make up for the width disadvantage, but it was Di Maria that it would be difficult for you to evaluate:

You should know that the few threatening attacks in the first half of Benfica were the result of Di Maria's deep participation:

Under such circumstances, Benfica would find it difficult to continue to be upset, and missed the team's relatively best physical condition in the first half. The subsequent games will only become more and more difficult for them.

Time will not stand on their side.

Therefore, although Chelsea's arrangement still cannot withstand scrutiny, as the opponent faces greater difficulties and at least Chelsea can capture the wing space stably, Chelsea is naturally getting closer to the goal.

By the second half of the first half, Chelsea's offensive threat had become increasingly significant:

However, at this time, a thunderstorm temporarily interrupted the game.

From Benfica's perspective, this is a greater benefit for them, because key veterans can use this to supplement some physical fitness, so as to try to play a good goal or two with very little time left after the game is restored.

Just like Benfica's handball foul after the game resumed:

However, this opportunity and this goal came too late.

With Benfica's own strength, their upset game can only be like the last game, when their physical fitness is not at a disadvantage, and then continue the lead until the end of the game.

However, in the last game, in addition to catching the stubborn problem of watching the ball but not watching people at the back point, the opponent's output intensity did not reach the highest, which is also a reason that cannot be ignored. Bayern rotated many main players in that game. Even if some main players were replaced in the first half, the result of the loss was not unacceptable.

So after considering this, it was difficult for them to play obvious opportunities in the first half of the two halfs of the game. In fact, they were already very lucky to be able to take advantage of this penalty and get an opportunity to overtime.

And in overtime, Benfica's problem will only be more obvious.

If you don't replace people, the intensity will only decrease. If you substitute people, you will have a clear gap in your ability. Chelsea can also ensure that the substitute players you replaced have considerable strength, but they may not necessarily adapt to Maresca's system..

When the Guagen coaches are willing to accept the system dissatisfaction caused by this and borrow the strength gap of the players to create an advantage, in fact, many games will lose suspense more obviously.

So, Benfica had more time for himself, but could not stop the physical and abilities impact brought by Chelsea substitutes, so in a short period of time, they lost three goals in a row:

and lost the game.

Strictly speaking, Benfica's loss is not an accident. Their strength is relatively limited. Although two experienced veterans lead the team, when the knockout stage, the veterans will be close to being exhausted.

In addition to the veteran, it is difficult for other players to replace them temporarily, which makes Benfica's threatening attack in this game and fails to seize Chelsea's several backcourt mistakes, so the possibility of an uproar will naturally be greatly reduced.

This is not a particularly strange result for them.

And on Chelsea's side, with the help of the lineup thickness, the team beat Benfica in 120 minutes, which is their due advantage, but they still have shortcomings in this game.

Even though the penalty kick is considered bad luck, the team's positional combat efficiency is still very low within 90 minutes, which makes them only able to use one free kick to gain a lead before making a mistake.

Compared with other Gua teams, Chelsea is also actively exploring space on the wing and ribs, but I don’t know why Maresca’s team is so devoted to direct crossing from the wing and grabbing points in front of the goal, rather than laying out the offensive power of the second line in the inverted triangle area. From this perspective, this is indeed the biggest difference between Maresca and other peers.

However, this difference has not benefited Chelsea. They still need to face the dual challenges of their opponents and themselves in the future.