All Up to You!

Benitez was a very methodical Head Coach. To some extent, he could even be called rigid.

For example, every matchday morning, he arranged a tactical meeting.

Liverpool had arrived in Madrid the day before the match. The Iberian Peninsula was much warmer than northern England, and the sudden change in temperature left many players unaccustomed to it. With just a moment of carelessness, they could fall ill at any time.

However, Liverpool was a battle-hardened team, and most of its players were highly experienced. After years of traveling across Europe, they had long since developed their own ways of coping with away matches.

That was the difference between a mature team and young players.

On the morning of matchday, Benitez held a tactical meeting at the hotel as usual. The focus was on tactics for facing Real Madrid, but he mainly explained his ideas and framework. The specific details would not be announced until the dressing room before the match. This was Benitez's usual practice.

As he put it, he was afraid the players might accidentally leak the information.

But one thing was certain: Liverpool's chances of winning this match would rest on Yang Yang.

The Reds were known as a team belonging to Yang Yang alone. That was not an exaggeration by outsiders; even within the team, everyone tacitly accepted it. Now, with Crouch and Gerrard injured one after another, Liverpool's captain could only start on the bench for this match, which meant Yang Yang's responsibility would be even greater.

At long last, the meeting ended, and everyone stood up.

Captain Gerrard walked over to Yang Yang and patted him firmly on the shoulder. "We're counting on you for this match!"

Team doctor Mark Waller had not given Gerrard the green light to play. At most, he had agreed