I AM the Football Star-Chapter 532 - 145: Defense Matters, But Defense Isn’t Worth Much
Ness player: Hey, I don’t shoot, can you not mock us?
For a moment, it was San Remo, who had just scored a "lucky goal," that showed even more dominance.
Team momentum is a mysterious existence.
Sometimes, even when one side is weaker, their momentum makes people feel like they will win, they will score goals.
Lu Yang carried the ball from the backfield to the frontfield, actively seeking out Kaint and using a dribbling trap.
However, Kaint shrewdly recognized Lu Yang’s trap and cleverly set up a defensive trap in response.
Kaint had calculated and made consecutive feints to press, withdraw, and then press forward.
He actually managed to steal the ball from Lu Yang’s feet.
But Lu Yang was not someone who hadn’t lost the ball before.
Boss Mei loses possession more than twenty times a game, and since Lu Yang moved to a forward position, losing the ball became commonplace.
Lu Yang’s strength wasn’t in never losing the ball, but in his incredible ability to counter-press after losing it. Don’t forget his running ability and defensive skills.
Lu Yang chased after Kaint, yet maintained a certain distance.
The average person couldn’t understand Lu Yang’s intentions, but sweat was already forming on Kaint’s forehead.
Too strong!
Kaint kept exclaiming inwardly, Lu Yang was practically an octagonal spider!
He completely covered all of Kaint’s passing routes!
Every single one!
Kaint dribbled along the sidelines because the defensive pressure there was much less.
Dribbling through the center would face pressure from multiple defense angles.
Normal midfielders can actually handle this kind of pressure.
But Kaint couldn’t.
It’s not that his vision was poor, unable to pay attention to multiple enemies.
But his passing ability was too weak; when unadjusted, it became even weaker—when surrounded, he could hardly pass the ball.
Even the previous goal was seen by everyone; it was still his cross after adjusting while under no pressure.
If unadjusted, where the ball would fly was truly unpredictable.
By the sidelines, he only needed to deal with defenders on one side, making it much easier.
But Kaint didn’t expect Lu Yang’s presence to turn his correct choice of going near the sidelines into a dead end.
"Pass, Kaint!"
"Engels! Over here!"
"In the middle, someone’s open!"
"I’m behind you, Kaint!"
"Through pass, right ahead!"
Teammates around Kaint shouted all sorts of instructions to him across from Lu Yang.
But Engels continued to dribble with his head down, not passing at all. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
He didn’t even look up to see his teammates.
Kaint’s teammates couldn’t understand his behavior at all because as they saw it, with only Lu Yang following Kaint, why wouldn’t Kaint pass?
Can one player truly mark another player out of the game?
Anyone who has played football knows this is almost impossible!
But...
Kaint’s teammates had no idea what Kaint was experiencing at this very moment.
There’s a passing route up front, a good chance, and so on... Lu Yang was preparing to accelerate, he saw that opening! Passing now would have over a ninety percent chance of being intercepted!
What about a chip pass through the middle? The teammate’s position is great... No, no, no, that would be delivering the ball to Lu Yang, he just moved laterally away from my side while running, did he see behind him?
Behind, behind should be... No way! Lu Yang’s ability to stop and start is even better than mine, none of my recent accelerations have shaken him, my pass can’t get through!
Kaint was sweating on his forehead in panic, yet completely helpless.
Because he knew Lu Yang, and Morici too, are players with extremely strong vision talent!
This is the mutual recognition among geniuses.
An excellent attacking player needs to possess a variety of skills, but when one particular skill is exceptionally prominent, even with other skills lacking they can still be very strong, like players of Bai Zhami’s type.
But defensive players are different—they have one hard requirement.
It’s not height and weight, nor is it direct tackling ability, but... vision!
Top-level defensive players absolutely have god-like vision!
This probability is easier than finding vision gods among top-level midfielders, as the vision of some top midfielders isn’t particularly outstanding.
Thus, all the passing routes Kaint saw, Lu Yang also saw, and practically implemented "defensive coverage" on Kaint!
Of course, this also had to do with Kaint’s poor individual passing ability.
For Kaint, the difficulty of passing more than ten meters was extremely high, and over twenty meters was not within his "precision pass" range, even if it went through, the deviation would be great.
Thus, Kaint’s passing options were extremely limited.
If it were Morici, even with such coverage from Lu Yang, he could easily pass the ball out, even doing so without hindering the team’s offensive momentum.
Because Morici’s passing radius is over thirty meters, with proper positioning, he can practically cover the entire field without blind spots.
But what Kaint was going through, only he, Lu Yang, and the nearby Morici, who was trying to cover some distant defensive gaps Lu Yang couldn’t manage, knew.
Two vision gods joined forces to blockade the third vision god.
In that moment, Kaint wished he hadn’t stolen the ball from Lu Yang.
Now the ball was just a hot potato to him.
Bam!
Finally, during Kaint’s hesitation, Lu Yang slid in!
Kaint’s dribbling was equally not outstanding.
A swift, clean slide tackle to retain the ball!
