Paris Saint-Germain's frontcourt duo has almost no coordination.
No matter it's Mbappe or Neymar, as long as you get the ball, you just go it alone.
The individual combat capabilities of the two men are definitely at the top level in the world. However, FC Barcelona, who has taken precautions for a long time, is not afraid of individual combat.
Barcelona's offensive and defensive system is actually a triangular formation of offensive and defensive transitions formed on the court.
When attacking, three players stand on the three corners of the triangle and move continuously to form an irregular triangle.
Therefore, Barcelona's attack is very sharp because their offense is unconventional. Through frequent movement and passing control, the opponent has no way to defend.
When defending, especially when counterattacking after losing the ball, these triangles are still used to quickly recover the ball after losing the ball. Therefore, Barcelona has many opportunities, which are generated by the quick attack after losing the ball in the frontcourt.
The individual operations of Mbappe and Neymar can deal with one Barcelona defensive player or two Barcelona defensive players. However, when faced with the Barcelona system of triangular defense formed by the front and rear flank attacks, their offense is as if they are in a quagmire, unable to move forward.
Off the field, Paris Saint-Germain's head coach Pochettino frowned. He did not expect that in such an important game, the two main players of the team would not pass the ball to each other on the field.
When the ball was dead, Pochettino called the captain Kimpembe in front of him and asked him to tell Neymar not to continue to have conflicts with Mbappe. The game is the most important now.
After all, Neymar has successfully renewed his contract now, so it is easier to talk to him.
Kimpembe informed Neymar of the head coach's intentions.
Neymar frowned, but he also knew the importance of this game.
In the next attack, while Neymar continued to move forward, he suddenly passed the ball to a gap in Barcelona's back line.
Mbappe basically gave up when Neymar was dribbling the ball, slowly wandering in the frontcourt, and had no intention of moving.
When Neymar passed the ball, Mbappe was also shocked, but it was too late to make another move.
Neymar passed this ball very trickyly. If Mbappe really gets into position, it will definitely be a rare opportunity.
Barcelona's defense was also shocked and broke into a cold sweat.
After Neymar passed the ball, he saw that Mbappe was not moving, so he turned around and walked back without saying anything.
The two of them basically had zero communication.
Barcelona's next attack was Messi's shot, which was blocked by Navas.
After the offensive and defensive transition, Neymar took the ball and passed it to Verratti on the right, and then he continued to run forward.
However, his running route seems to overlap with Mbappe.
Verratti swung away from the angle and passed the ball to Neymar who was running.
On the line where the football is rolling, both Neymar and Mbappe are on this line.
However, Neymar, who was actively running, got more attention from Barca Ronaldo. Two players double-teamed towards his position, trying to stop his progress.
But what everyone didn't expect was that when Neymar was about to touch the football, he stepped directly over the football, allowing the two defenders who were rushing over to miss him.
The football continues to roll forward, Mbappe is waiting on this line.
After Neymar passed the football, he accelerated his speed and rushed forward. The two defensive players had stopped and completely lost their defensive position.
After Mbappe received the ball, facing the defense of two defenders, he raised his right foot high and made a move to shoot directly.
Mbappe stood on the arc of the penalty area and made such an action. Eric Garcia and Mingueza could only block it.
Mbappe's right foot, which was raised high, did not hit the football hard when it came down. Instead, it flicked under the football very lightly.
The football flew over the heads of the two defensive players like a clever elf.
In the ribs between the penalty spot and the small penalty area, Neymar watched the football falling from the sky, concentrating on it.
Ter Stegen also abandoned his own door and quickly jumped out of the small penalty area.
But it was too late. Facing the attacking Ter Stegen, Neymar aimed at the falling football with his right foot and fired a volley. The football passed by the attacking Ter Stegen and hit the goal behind him like an arrow.
After scoring the goal, Neymar excitedly greeted Mbappe who passed the ball to him, and they went to the stands behind to celebrate together.
After Mbappe saw the goal, he let go of his grudge, rushed to Neymar's side excitedly, and celebrated with everyone.
Before Neymar caught the ball, Barcelona's players all raised their hands to signal that Neymar was offside.
However, the flag in the linesman's hand was not raised.
The referee also pointed his finger directly at the center circle after Neymar shot into the goal, indicating that the goal was valid.
Pique expressed great dissatisfaction. Neymar The ball was definitely an offside kick, so he kept putting pressure on the referee and asked the referee to make a judgment through VAR.
The referee frowned and asked the video assistant referee whether the ball was suspected of being offside.
The video assistant referee, as another eye on the court, has a lot of responsibilities.
Under normal circumstances, it is rare for the video assistant referee to intervene. The most important thing is whether the goal is valid.
Just like the situation just now, before the goal was scored, was Neymar in an offside position?
This can be determined through VAR replays.
If in the VAR replay, Neymar was indeed in an offside position before the goal was scored, then the referee can decide to cancel the goal after watching the VAR replay.
Therefore, when the referee decided to watch the VAR replay, the faces of the Paris Saint-Germain players who had already started celebrating turned black.
Damn it, you're doing this after you're halfway through the celebration, that's too much!
Everyone on and off the court was very nervous. This ball was very important to both sides.
If the equalizing goal is blown away, it will be a bolt from the blue for Paris Saint-Germain, and it is likely to affect the trend of the entire game.
The referee came to the video playback area on the sidelines, picked up his headphones, and watched the replay of the game.
At this time, the fans watching TV at home saw the replay footage of just before the goal appeared on the TV screen.
The moment Mbappe's right foot came into contact with the football, a line was drawn in front of Neymar and the last defensive player.
Neymar is a red line, Pique is a blue line.
These two lines almost overlap.
However, after zooming in and refining the screen, everyone clearly discovered that the blue line represented by Pique was closer to the goal. In other words, at the moment when Mbappe passed the ball, Pique was the person closest to the goal.
Therefore, Neymar is not offside and the goal is valid.
The referee did not come to a conclusion easily, but called up a video replay from another angle.
In the playback from this angle, it is even more obvious that Neymar is indeed half a shoulder behind Pique.
The fans in the audience saw the referee put down his headphones and knew that the final decision was coming. They all looked at the referee with bated breath.
The referee first drew a square in front of him, and then pointed his right hand in the direction of the center circle.
The goal is valid.
Paris Saint-Germain's players all breathed a sigh of relief.
However, amidst the cheers of the fans, the Paris Saint-Germain players were a little embarrassed. Due to the intervention of the referee, their ecstasy and excitement just now disappeared.
They could only hug each other to ease the awkward atmosphere.
It's like when you were about to fart, you were startled by someone and the fart didn't come out. When you wanted to fart, you couldn't feel it anymore.
Very unpleasant!
Pique After seeing the referee's gesture, he shrugged indifferently. Anyway, he was just making trouble. If the referee was dazzled, wouldn't he take advantage?
Anyway, the current results are no different for Barcelona.
1:1, in the 38th minute of the first half, Paris Saint-Germain equalized the game through a powerful shot from Neymar.
The rest of the first half was a bit dull. Perhaps due to the influence of VAR just now, Paris Saint-Germain did not take advantage of the victory to pursue the victory.
With the referee's whistle, the first half of the game ended, and the score remained unchanged, still tied at 1:1.
Of course the fans of Barcelona are very dissatisfied with this score, but the fans of Paris Saint-Germain are definitely quite good.
After returning to the locker room, Paris Saint-Germain's head coach Pochettino called Neymar and Mbappe together and explained to them again the importance of today's game. He hoped that the two of them could cooperate sincerely and defeat Barcelona.
Neymar and Mbappe looked at each other, stretched out their fists, touched each other, and finally made a decision.
The atmosphere in the visiting team's locker room seemed a little dull. In the first half of the game, Barcelona did not show their dominance.
Although the defense against Mbappe and Neymar was very tight, they allowed the opponent to score a goal through exquisite coordination.
In the frontcourt offense, Li Mingyu's state is still very good despite the support of the system.
After all, this is Li Mingyu's second season of competition. Li Mingyu hardly got much rest time in this season's competition. Frequent competitions in the league, Champions League, Copa del Rey, and the national team made Li Mingyu feel that his body has reached a certain limit.
The system is very powerful and can make Li Mingyu's body strong quickly, and his physical strength can also be very abundant.
But there is only one thing: the system cannot help Li Mingyu alleviate psychological fatigue.
Two games a week, or even three games a week, such intensive games put Li Mingyu, who has only one year of playing in the top league, feeling tremendous psychological pressure.
Now, Li Mingyu has suddenly become a super star in the entire Europe, and even in the entire world football.
A whole year of wonderful performance has put Li Mingyu on the forefront.
Watching the media praising him every day, watching the fans motivating him, and watching everyone putting Barcelona's revival on his shoulders, this huge pressure makes the young Li Mingyu a little breathless.
Seeing Messi's anxiety, Messi has talked to Li Mingyu about his past experiences more than once when the two of them were alone.
When Messi first joined the Barcelona first team, it can be said that he was loved by everyone. His transition was very smooth. Head coaches Rijkaard and Guardiola both entrusted Messi with important responsibilities.
In the end, Messi became the banner of Barcelona until today.
However, because Barcelona's performance on Champions League has been too ugly in the past six years, everyone has put the blame on Messi.
Messi did not defend anything. As the banner of Barcelona, Messi can only try his best to help the team.
However, what disappoints Messi is that Bartomeu, the former chairman of Barcelona, is simply a "traitor" and an out-and-out "liar"!
Due to being deceived by Bartomeu many times, in some recently released text messages of Bartomeu, the last message sent by Messi to Bartomeu was found.
"You're leaking secrets again, you're fucking me again, damn it."
In 2019, Messi once asked Bartomeu whether Barcelona had signed a contract with Griezmann and whether Neymar could return to Barcelona.
Bartomeu swore to tell Messi that the team has not signed Griezmann yet, and the possibility of Neymar returning to Barcelona is very high.
However, within a few days, the news that Neymar had renewed Paris Saint-Germain's contract made Barcelona feel bad.
The arrival of Griezmann also made Messi completely lose trust in Bartomeu.
Last season, when Koeman took office, Messi and Koeman had a meeting. During this meeting, Messi expressed that he was very likely to leave Barcelona.
The content of this meeting was quickly known by the media.
The leak points directly at Bartomeu.
Hence, the content of this furious text message from Messi.
Bartomeu was imprisoned, and Messi finally showed a long-lost smile on his face.
It's dawn.
However, Messi's heart after leaving Barcelona has not changed. At that time, Barcelona had completely disappointed Messi.
But the emergence of Li Mingyu rekindled the hope in Messi's heart.
Last season's championship gave Messi firm belief in staying on the team.
The summer's proactive salary reduction allowed Messi to gain respect and give the team a chance to breathe.
As Li Mingyu said to the media, I want all the championships. Isn't that Messi's wish?