"Oh, here he comes, here he comes! He's bringing out the Pendulum Dribble!"
"What a beautiful Pendulum Dribble! Bounou looked like a clown who'd been made a fool of."
"That's the second one! After Huesca's goalkeeper was sent the wrong way by Li in the last match, he's now the second goalkeeper to fall victim to Li!"
"To all the goalkeepers in La Liga, I hope you can keep your footing against Li!"
"Imagine how incredible it would be if Li sent every goalkeeper in La Liga the wrong way at least once!"
"Haha, now that you mention it, I'm wide awake! I can already picture it!"
Less than ten minutes into the match, Sevilla, playing at home, had already conceded two goals to Barca.
Every Sevilla player was stunned.
Wasn't Barca supposedly beset by internal conflict this year?
Hadn't they said we could win because Messi wasn't playing?
Liars! You're all liars!
Sevilla's head coach, Lopetegui, had gone green in the face. He hadn't expected their number 36 to be this formidable.
While they waited to kick off, he hurriedly called over his captain and several defenders, then began furiously giving them instructions.
Sevilla's ability to adjust was truly impressive.
After the restart, the confusion on the Sevilla players' faces had disappeared, replaced by grim determination. They were also more composed on the ball.
After pressing relentlessly for several exchanges and seeing no results, Barca's players gradually retreated to their own half. That kind of intense pressing took a tremendous amount of energy, after all!
After about fifteen minutes, Li Mingyu was already drenched in sweat. He'd been the most aggressive in the challenges, and his lack of stamina was now painfully obvious.
"Oh, it seems our Barca player Li can't keep going as long as he looks!"
"Right. With that kind of speed, it's probably unrealistic to expect him to have great stamina too!"
"Haha, I bet both coaches have already noticed the problem. Now it's a question of how they play their cards!"
That was right. Both coaches had noticed Li Mingyu's problem.
Koeman looked rather troubled. He hadn't expected Li Mingyu to have such poor stamina. He'd only been running for a little over ten minutes and was already gasping for breath. How could that possibly work?
Young man, being handsome won't help you. If you don't have the stamina, nothing else matters!
Lopetegui, meanwhile, wore a sly smile. He went to the touchline and began directing his team, shifting the focus of their attacks entirely to Li Mingyu's side.
Li Mingyu wasn't expected to help defend, but with the pressure coming from his side, he had no choice but to track back.
After a few exchanges between attack and defense, Li Mingyu felt as if his lungs were about to burst.
He was only a rookie who'd just been promoted from the reserve team; he simply couldn't adapt to the intense pace of attacking and defending in the top division.
In reserve-team matches, 70 stamina was enough to get through the whole game.
But in the top division, the pace of play was several times faster. With 70 stamina, he could barely last half a match. Even with the halftime break, he'd be completely exhausted after ten to fifteen minutes of the second half at most.
Generally speaking, most first-team players needed stamina of at least 80 to last beyond the 80th minute. Only those with stamina above 90 could make it through an entire match.
Barca's defense had been a real problem this year. Among the league's top five teams, they had conceded the most goals.
Sevilla's initial strategy had actually been sound: use their attack to overwhelm a Barca side without Messi.
The main reason they'd fallen behind by two goals was that Barca had taken advantage of their two early chances.
Once Li Mingyu's stamina began to fade and he could no longer put pressure on Sevilla's defense, their attacks surged toward Barca like a rising tide.
Li Mingyu knew his stamina was a serious problem. On Koeman's orders, he'd stopped trying to defend and started jogging to recover.
It was practically as if Barca were playing a man down.
For a while, danger loomed over Barca's defense. Sevilla's midfielders and forwards had pinned Barca inside their own thirty-meter area, leaving them unable to move.
Li Mingyu stood near the center circle. Griezmann and Dembele had both dropped back to defend.
Sevilla stayed extremely vigilant. Their two center-backs remained deep, denying Barca any chance to launch a direct counterattack with a long pass to Li Mingyu.
Watching his team's goal come under threat again and again, Li Mingyu angrily thumped his thigh.
Train his stamina!
That was Li Mingyu's next goal.
Messi, sitting in the stands, shook his head in disappointment. He hadn't expected Li Mingyu to have such poor stamina. With stamina like that, he had no chance of becoming a regular in the first team.
He still had a long way to go!
Koeman's expression was grim. They had to win this match. Messi would be back for the next one, and then the team's attack would be complete.
Li Mingyu could be used as a secret weapon and brought on in the second half. That would solve his stamina problem while giving the team another attacking option.
In the 30th minute, Barca's defense was finally caught out. Sevilla midfielder Jordan played a cleverly disguised through ball, and striker En-Nesyri charged into Barca's penalty area from the wing.
Barca's defenders all raised their hands to signal offside, but the assistant referee kept his flag down.
En-Nesyri proved why he was Sevilla's top scorer. With a composed low shot, he beat Ter Stegen and sent the ball through his hands.
1–2. Playing at home, Sevilla had pulled one back.
Standing near the center circle, Li Mingyu let out a long sigh.
With their key defender Pique injured, Barca's back line had lost all its coordination. They'd tried to play En-Nesyri offside, but the right-back had been playing him on, allowing him to charge into the box and score with ease.
Barca's captain on the pitch, midfielder Busquets, clapped his hands hard. "Get your heads in the game! We're Barca, and we're going to win!"
The words Li Mingyu had blurted out in the previous match had now become a regular refrain among Barca's players.
Ter Stegen scooped the ball out of the net and threw it forcefully toward the other end of the pitch, shaking his head.
Seeing the opposition celebrate, De Jong beckoned Li Mingyu, Griezmann, and Dembele over to him.
The moment their team scored, the entire Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium erupted in celebration.
The fans in the stands were ecstatic. Their team had now begun to dominate Barca and push forward on the attack.
They had never seen anything like this in the past decade or more.
Just having Messi on the pitch had been enough to keep Sevilla from daring to cross the line.
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