This was a free kick on the left flank, close to the byline.
The shooting angle was almost zero. Especially with two Barcelona defenders forming a wall along the front edge of the left post, every direct route into the goal was blocked.
Did that mean there was no way to score directly from the free kick?
Not necessarily.
He could curl the ball directly toward the far corner.
But this kind of shot was still extremely difficult, especially from a free kick as close to the byline as Yang Yang's.
Others had tried it before, but there had generally still been some angle to work with, around fifteen degrees or so. This time, however, it was genuinely close to zero, and the success rate of a direct shot was extremely low.
Yet Yang Yang still stood outside the byline, preparing to take the kick.
"Boss, are you really going for it directly?" Frenkie de Jong clicked his tongue in disbelief. He had come specifically to provide cover for Yang Yang.
This was a zero-angle direct free kick!
Yang Yang smiled confidently. "We're already up four-nil. Might as well give it a try!"
Uh...
Frenkie de Jong was speechless. Wasn't this a little disrespectful to Barcelona?
But it did seem to make sense. They were already up four-nil, so trying it could hardly hurt.
After spending a year together, Frenkie de Jong considered himself fairly familiar with Yang Yang. He felt that Yang Yang rarely picked fights he had no chance of winning. He must have been confident in his form and technique that night, and since he had practiced this regularly, he wanted to give it a try.
Otherwise, he could simply cross the ball into the box. De Ligt, Ndombele, Militão, and the others were all excellent