Barcelona's counterattack is very sharp.
De Jong quickly moved forward after stealing the ball.
Li Mingyu and De Jong made a one-two hit the wall near the center circle, and De Jong continued to dribble forward.
Li Mingyu pulled to the left, causing Atletico Madrid's defensive lineup to collapse in an instant.
Li Mingyu on the left, Messi on the right, and Griezmann in front.
De Jong suddenly dribbled the ball in, leaving Atletico Madrid's defensive players at a loss.
Last season, when De Jong was in the midfield and frontcourt, he cooperated very well with Li Mingyu in the frontcourt.
However, after this season's tactical adjustments, Li Mingyu moved from the winger position to the central midfielder position, while De Jong was arranged by Koeman to the midfielder position to enhance the team's defensive strength in the midfield and backfield.
De Jong In fact, the position he most hopes to play is definitely the midfielder, but he has no objection to the head coach's arrangement.
Since De Jong came to the defensive midfielder position, he has performed conscientiously and relieved a lot of pressure on Busquets.
And De Jong has always been eager to attack in his heart, so whenever there is an opportunity, he will quickly jump in, whether he can touch the ball or not, he will run tirelessly.
Just like this time, Li Mingyu understood De Jong's thoughts very well, so he was willing to play a supporting role to help him open up Atletico Madrid's defense so that he could continue to advance in the middle.
Atletico Madrid's defense was a bit difficult. De Jong dribbled the ball forward five or six meters, but no Atletico Madrid player came up to defend.
Simeone on the sidelines was so angry that he jumped up and shouted "defend", and midfielder Koke could only push forward.
Koke's advance made Atletico Madrid's midfield and backcourt completely disconnected.
De Jong did not continue to stick to the ball, but kicked the ball through and handed the ball to Li Mingyu, who had already run to the ribs of the frontcourt.
Li Mingyu received the pass from De Jong, used his body to feel the defensive position behind him, turned around very quickly, and moved the football to his side with his left foot.
The defensive players behind did not expect Li Mingyu to turn around so resolutely, and immediately lost their defensive position. They could only watch helplessly as Li Mingyu half-turned, faced the goal, and fired an angry shot. The football flew between the two center defenders towards the goal.
Atletico Madrid's goalkeeper Oblak was very focused. When Li Mingyu received the pass, he was already ready.
Seeing Li Mingyu's quick turn, although the central defender didn't expect it, Oblak had already noticed it.
Li Mingyu's shot was from a very tricky angle, hitting the upper left corner of Oblak.
Oblak quickly moved two steps to his left, using both legs as hard as a roc spreading its wings. He stretched his body completely in the air, stretched out his left hand, and with a strong push, he blocked Li Mingyu's heavy shot.
Oblak, who was in the air, looked back at the goal and saw that after being lifted by him, the football changed direction, hit the upper edge of the goal crossbar hard, and bounced off the baseline.
The whole Wanda Metropolitano Stadium suddenly sounded a huge inhalation sound.
All Atletico Madrid fans looked scared.
Li Mingyu's kick was really exciting.
Of course, Oblak's save was even more outstanding.
After Li Mingyu saw his shot saved by Oblak, he also held his head in disbelief.
The kick just now, Li Mingyu, felt very good, the angle and strength were perfect, it was a sure goal.
Unexpectedly, Oblak performed so well and was able to save such a ball. He is worthy of being the best goalkeeper of La Liga in many years.
After Oblak saved the ball, he was also excited and roared loudly.
The two central defenders also rushed over with frightened faces and high-fived Oblak.
What a life-saving grace!
An excellent goalkeeper is equivalent to half the team.
Nowadays, in the entire football world, excellent goalkeepers are a scarce resource, and goalkeepers who can be called goalkeepers are rare.
If a team can get a goalkeeper of godly level, it is worth more than getting a top forward.
Oblak's save just now showed his quality as a top goalkeeper.
For so many years, Oblak has been working hard in team Atletico Madrid. Many top teams wanted to get him, but Oblak was not interested at all.
Generally speaking, the goalkeeper position, especially the main goalkeeper, is rarely transferred.
Li Mingyu came to the corner flag area with regret on his face, ready to take the corner kick.
Li Mingyu's high-quality curve ball flew directly to the back of the small penalty area. There, the tall Pique overwhelmed the opponent's defender and hit the goal with a powerful header. Oblak, who was in full form, directly suppressed the ball under him.
Two consecutive must-goals were resolved by Oblak, which made Barcelona's morale a little low.
But Atletico Madrid's morale was ignited by Oblak's wonderful performance.
Although Atletico Madrid's attack still failed, after falling into positional defense, Atletico Madrid's defensive toughness was obviously strengthened.
In the rest of the first half, Barcelona was unable to get another better chance.
With the referee's whistle, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid ended the first half with a score of 1:1.
When Li Mingyu returned to the locker room, he saw Oblak outside the players' tunnel.
Looking at the 29-year-old Slovenia goalkeeper, Li Mingyu couldn't help but frown.
Today, Oblak's condition is really good. Barcelona's several shots, whether it was Messi or Griezmann, could not break the goal guarded by Oblak.
Moreover, these high-quality shots made Oblak's condition get better and better.
I wonder if Oblak can continue its wonderful performance in the first half in the second half.
During the halftime break, Koeman redeployed the tactical arrangements for the second half, especially telling the midfielders and backfielders to be careful of sudden attacks from the opponent.
In Atletico Madrid's locker room, Ibrahimovic was sitting on a chair, leaning against the back of the chair, putting a towel on his face, quietly listening to the deployment of head coach Simeone.
In the first half of the game, Ibrahimovic did not consume much energy.
After all, in two consecutive duels with Li Mingyu, Ibrahimovic was replaced because he was exhausted at the last moment. He could only sit on the bench and watch Li Mingyu beat his team twice.
That feeling of powerlessness made Ibrahimovic very unhappy.
Therefore, in today's game, Ibrahimovic spent much of the first half conserving energy for the second half.
Because, this time, Ibrahimovic wants to take revenge on Li Mingyu and use his own goals to tell Li Mingyu, boy, you are still too young!
In the stands outside, the fans of both sides were also singing crazy fighting songs. All along, Atletico Madrid's enemy was not Barcelona, but Real Madrid, the mortal enemy in the same city.
The previous Atletico Madrid was to Real Madrid, just like Espanyol was to Barcelona, and was not taken seriously by these two powerful giants at all.
But over the years, Atletico Madrid took advantage of the internal exchanges between Real Madrid and Barcelona to quietly catch up, repeatedly threatening the two teams' dominance of the La Liga league.
Last season was the closest Atletico Madrid had come to the championship in the past few years. However, it was snatched away by Barcelona at the last moment. From that moment on, Barcelona also became one of the most hated teams by Atletico Madrid.
Before this game, not only the players and coaches of the two teams were madly fighting each other, but also the fans were also madly fighting each other.
Today, there are hundreds of security personnel inside Wanda Metropolitano Stadium, fearing that there will be some conflict between the two teams.
Chelsea was directly punished to the point of vomiting blood by UEFA due to the previous fan conflict. Therefore, many teams now pay great attention to security measures.
When the players from both sides finished their rest and walked out of the tunnel, the entire stadium once again rang with the cheers of fans from both sides.
During the halftime break, both sides did not adjust their lineups.
As expected by Koeman, at the beginning of the second half, Atletico Madrid launched a quick counterattack.
As soon as the ball kicked off, Ibrahimovic knocked the ball back to Llorente, and then Atletico Madrid's formation began to press towards Barcelona's half.
Ibrahimovic and Suarez are like two swords, piercing Barcelona's heart.
However, fortunately, Barcelona's players listened to Koeman's words and did not relax their vigilance at the beginning of the second half. The double interception by De Jong and Busquets's midfielders prevented Suarez from stopping the ball comfortably.
Seeing that the sudden attack had no effect, Atletico Madrid's players did not press high in Barcelona's backcourt, but retreated like a tide.
Suarez had a strong desire to attack today. He was pressing madly in the frontcourt alone.
Ibrahimovic also pressed forward at the right time, so that Barcelona's backcourt pass was not so arbitrary.
However, Li Mingyu's retreat to catch the ball made Suarez and Ibrahimovic's pressing ineffective.
With two consecutive quick passes, Suarez finally gave up the pursuit and slowly retreated to the midfield.
But these ten seconds of high-speed running consumed Suarez's physical strength so much that it was not worth the gain.
Ibrahimovic is still smart. He just pretended to face this meaningless frontcourt press.
Li Mingyu moves forward with the ball.
Barcelona's formation slowly pressed forward.
The two teams are too familiar, so it is basically difficult for Barcelona to take advantage in positional offense.
However, the current offensive tactics of Barcelona are very similar to that of the "Universe Team" team. They use frequent passes to control the ball, allowing the opponent's defensive players to run back and forth with the ball, luring them to come out to steal, or by pulling, making it difficult for the defensive players to look at the head and tail, leaving gaps.
The passing sound of tiki-taka is like hypnosis, causing the defensive players to relax their vigilance and form a certain inertial thinking during Barcelona's non-stop passing. Then Barcelona suddenly speeds up or changes the direction of attack, which suddenly makes the defensive players unable to react.
This is the reason why Barcelona's games back then were criticized as being very boring, but they were always able to win the games.
In the first ten minutes of the second half, Atletico Madrid's defense was able to keep up with Barcelona's pace.
But as time went by, Atletico Madrid's players kept following the ball and making "ineffective" runs.
This kind of running consumes a lot of physical energy, and this kind of physical consumption is a very passive consumption of physical energy by the players, and the huge defensive pressure makes their psychological pressure even greater. In this way, their physical consumption is even greater.
In less than seventy minutes, many Atletico Madrid players were unable to run.
It's not that their physical strength is unqualified, but that their continuous and ineffective running has overdrawn their physical strength without even realizing it.
Normal professional players will pay great attention to their physical distribution during the game.
But in the face of Barcelona's suffocating passing and control tactics, it is difficult for the players on the defensive side to allocate their physical strength.
Because the rhythm of the game is at the feet of Barcelona. If they want you to be slow, you can be slow. If they want you to be fast, you must speed up.
When facing many teams, Barcelona's ball possession ratio can reach 70% or even 80%.
Such a huge difference in ball possession ratio is also the biggest magic weapon for Barcelona's victory.
Letting the opponent play at their own pace is a tactical success.
As long as Barcelona's attack success rate is not low in this kind of game, then it will definitely win the game smoothly.
But between tomorrow and the accident, you never know which one will come first.
Li Mingyu's very concealed through ball created a huge gap in Atletico Madrid's defense.
When the central defender was defending, he suddenly made a mistake in marking. Griezmann went around the blind spot of the opponent's two defenders, quickly made a semicircle from the offside position, and retreated to a safe position. At this time, Li Mingyu's pass arrived.
Griezmann started again, no offside at all.
After receiving the ball, Griezmann already appeared near the penalty spot.
A one-shot ball!
Facing Oblak's attack, Griezmann wanted to make a clever move and used the arch of his foot to kick the ball directly between Oblak's legs.
However, Oblak, who was in excellent condition, immediately discovered Griezmann's intention. With his legs together, the football was blocked by Oblak's left foot and bounced high.
Griezmann didn't care about his worries and hurriedly stepped forward, preparing to make a follow-up shot with a header.
But the football was too close to Oblak, and Oblak immediately took the football into his arms with a diving jump.
Griezmann put his head in his hands, with a look of regret on his face.
But after Oblak landed, he rushed forward, threw the ball with a strong hand, and threw the football towards the midfield.
Ibrahimovic is already waiting there!