May 22, Calderon Stadium, Madrid.
The Copa del Rey final: Real Madrid versus Barcelona.
In the thirty-fourth minute, Real Madrid won the ball in their own half. Javi Martínez sent a long pass forward, and Suarez dropped back to contest the first ball with Busquets. He nodded it on, sending it behind Barcelona's defensive line. Yang Yang tried to sprint forward at top speed, attempting to pierce through Barcelona's defense.
The center-back Mathieu stayed glued to Yang Yang, chasing him relentlessly and trying to use his body to shove him aside.
Although Yang Yang was shorter than Mathieu, he had maintained a strict strength-training regimen all these years, and his upper-body strength was no joke. When he and Mathieu collided shoulder to shoulder at the top of the penalty arc, Mathieu not only failed to shove Yang Yang away, but was instead knocked off balance by him.
Yang Yang merely stumbled, quickly regained his balance, and kept charging forward without losing momentum.
At that instant, Mathieu was stunned. Acting on instinct, he reached out and grabbed him.
That grab caught Yang Yang's jersey at the chest. Without a second thought, the French center-back exerted all his strength. As he fell, he tried to drag Yang Yang down with him, preventing him from reaching the ball that had entered the penalty area.
After playing so many matches in La Liga, Mathieu knew better than anyone that if Yang Yang entered the penalty area, he would become a wild horse freed from its reins, unstoppable as he broke through one-on-one. Barcelona would be facing a nightmare.
What surprised him even more was that although he had indeed grabbed Yang Yang's jersey, Yang Yang did not fall immediately. The elastic jersey stretched almost to its limit as Mathieu went down. Under the force,