After confirming that they want to make a difference in the League Cup, Metz held the advantage of two away goals in the second leg of the 16th-finals of the League Cup and was still very active. They did not intend to defend the draw at home and then eliminate their opponents by relying on the away goal advantage, but were constantly pursuing more goals.

This has always been the football style of Fernandez playing. Although sometimes he will abandon this offensive football that pursues goals in order to win and instead plays a slightly negative, conservative and not very good-looking defensive football, in his bones, Metz is still one of the teams that pursue offensive football the most in Ligue 1. So far, they have scored forty goals in 25 league rounds, second only to Lyon's forty-four goals. In addition, Metz has also bought many players on the attack line as a supplement to the team's strength.

Metz's fans love Fernandez so much because the team he trained plays offensive football that can make people excited, rather than ugly football that can make cows fall asleep.

Of course, the person who made football beautiful on the training ground and tactical board was Jean Fernandez and his colleagues, but the players who achieved all this on the court were the players, and the key figure among the eleven players was another person called "Chu Zhongtian".

In today's game, Chu Zhongtian did not have Ramilao's close defense. Although Skibe sent someone to defend him again, he was far from Ramilao's urgency. The German boy named Gonzalo Castro (gonzalo_castro) was very young, only nineteen years old, and was far from Chu Zhongtian in terms of experience and ability. He had no way to successfully curb Chu Zhongtian.

Later, he found that Castro could not defend Chu Zhongtian. Skibe had no choice but to replace Barbaretz, and then replaced Simon Rolfes (simon_rolfes), who was injured. But although Rolfes was also a midfielder, he was a midfielder who was better at organizing offense than defense... Chu Zhongtian fought against two opponents alone, one was an inexperienced rookie, and the other was a guest engineer with injured, without any pressure.

Under his control, the Metz machine was running smoothly and in good condition.

In the end, amid the cheers of 20,000 fans at home, Metz and Leverkusen scored 3:1, and won the final victory with a total score of 5:3, advancing to the quarterfinals.

After advancing to the quarterfinals, their opponent is the Portuguese giant Benfica.

No one was afraid of this opponent, but they were looking forward to their first battle with Benfica on March 8th.

Why did I finally come to the League Cup? Isn’t it just to fight against all kinds of European strong teams? Then I defeated them one by one and finally got on the championship podium... What a sense of accomplishment that is!

Metz, who eliminated Leverkusen, has been in high morale. They beat Lorient 3-0 in the league on the 24th. Chu Zhongtian has been playing in the captain's armband in these games. He is becoming more and more adaptable to his new role. Without any reminder, he will take the initiative to let everyone go out to warm up, or stand up when he is about to play and tell his teammates that when he is at the forefront of the team, he will be the first to accept the cheers of Metz fans.

He suddenly felt that being a captain was not difficult, as long as he got used to it. In fact, it was the same as leading the team to play according to his ideas on the court, except that he used his actions on the court and his mouth off the court.

※※March 3rd is the 27th round of the league, which is also the last league game before playing Benfica at home, so Fernandez naturally rotated in the game. All the main players, including Chu Zhongtian, did not start. Chu Zhongtian just sat on the bench and warmed up in the last ten minutes of the game. At that time, his team was already 0:4 behind Lille.

When the head coach Jean Fernandez was on the court, he didn't tell him to strengthen his offense and let his teammates press on the offense, and he tried his best to create miracles, but he said to him: "Don't get hurt."

Metz, who gave up the league for the League Cup, eventually lost to Lille with a score of 0:4, allowing Lille to catch up in the league standings.

Lille has 42 points, ranking fourth, while Metz has 43 points, ranking third. Lance, second in the league, has 48 points, and Lyon has 61. The gap between Metz and first and second in the league is getting bigger and bigger, and it seems that the third position in the league is OK.

But no one in the team of Metz feels regretful or regretful. Perhaps there will be some voices in the outside world who regret their performance in the league, but Metz's team deaf ears. They have long set their highest goals for this season, just like last season's French Cup.

Once this goal is determined, no matter what the outside world says, they will not be disturbed and will only strive to advance towards that goal.

League Cup!

Nothing matters this season is more important than this.

※※※ Judging from the rosters of both sides, Benfica, who is visiting the Sanctuary Forian Stadium, is not weak, and is even slightly stronger. Because they have many long-standing veterans in the team, such as center Nuno Gomes, midfielder Rui Costa, simao, and Mikoli who came on loan from Juventus, and Greek midfielder Os_karagounis, who became famous in the European Cup in Portugal, such a team is still very combat-ready.

In a football match, the team does not rely solely on the appearance of both sides to determine the winner. Otherwise, everyone will combine the abilities of each player into numbers, and then add up the abilities of the eleven starting players in each game. The side with the larger number will win. Such a game will be too boring.

The fun of football matches is that strong teams do not necessarily win, and weak teams do not necessarily lose.

When ninety minutes later, the score hit the scoreboard at the Holy Mountain Forian Stadium, a cheer rang out from the stadium stands.

2:1, the home team is in front and the away team is in back.

Metz beat Benfica 2-1 at home.

But judging from this score, the victory of this game is not perfect because they allowed the opponent to score a away goal at home.

The goal came from a free kick kicked by Rui Costa.

Rui Costa did not start in this game, but only came on as a substitute in the 20th minute of the second half. At that time, Metz had already led Benfica 2:0. In the stands at the Forian Stadium in Saint Mountain, only the singing and cheers of Metz fans were heard, and the Portuguese fans were completely silent.

At this time, Rui Costa, the last classical midfielder on Earth, came on the field.

Ten minutes later, Chu Zhongtian fouled him in front of the penalty area and was awarded a free kick. Rui Costa personally took the penalty. The football bypassed the wall of five Metz players and drilled into the blind spot of the goal. Goalkeeper Winby made a save, but it was too late. He could fly directly from one end of the goal to the other end. Even if he was ten years younger, he might not be able to do it.

From this goal, Chu Zhongtian felt that Rui Costa, the old gang is so hot... The lead of two goals turned into one goal, and the opponent scored a away goal. It was a bit difficult to play away... The Holy Mountain Forian Stadium was a little quiet for a while, and some fans were worried that the team would equalize the score by Benfica at the last moment of the game, which was really tragic. Some fans were already considering the second round of the two sides six days later. If this score was not easy to play away... Fortunately, Metz finally defended the score and won the game 2:1, gaining the lead in the two-round knockout round.

However, the Metz players did not feel happy after winning the game. Similarly, the Benfica players were not depressed after losing the game. They even soon chatted and laughed together, as if they did not lose the game, but won the game.

Why did such a strange scene cause?

Because both players know what Rui Costa’s goal means, what it means, and what it means.

So in the mixed zone after the game, the players on both sides were also very interesting when they were interviewed. Metz's players were generally not satisfied with the score. Someone talked about the goal lost at the last moment and could only frown to answer the reporter's questions.

Benfica's players were interviewed with a smile.

"Yes, they (Mayce) did a great job, but we weren't bad either."

"With a away goal, is it more beneficial for the second leg of the match?"

"Yes, actually the task given to us by the head coach before the game was to try to get away goals..."

When Rui Costa entered the mixed zone, it attracted a lot of interviews from Portuguese media. In the hearts of Portuguese journalists, although Costa only played for twenty minutes, they were willing to choose the 34-year-old veteran as the best in this game.

"Hey, Rui. Tell me about that goal? That's such a beautiful free kick!"

"You must be in a good mood after scoring a valuable away goal for the team, right, Rui?"

More than a dozen microphones were reached in front of Rui Costa, and he stopped and answered questions from enthusiastic reporters.

"I'm very happy to be able to score goals, although I don't have much playing time. I have an away goal? Of course, it's fine. Everyone knows the use of away goals..."

Just as he was saying this, Chu Zhongtian also walked in. Portuguese reporters surrounded Rui Costa and asked questions, and the Chinese reporters naturally would not let Chu Zhongtian go.

“Will conceding a goal at the last moment be bad for the team in the second leg?”

The Chinese reporter asked this question as soon as he came up, which made Chu Zhongtian feel a little unhappy. Because the conceding was caused by his foul on Rui Costa. Isn’t this suggesting that he is responsible for the conceding? In addition, along the way, the questions he heard were almost related to the conceding, as if Benfica had that goal and won the next game... He was unhappy with the reporters' emphasis on a away goal, just a away goal, not two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine away goals. As for how he cared and nervous?

"I don't think there is anything wrong with it." So Chu Zhongtian replied with a stern face.

His unpretentious answer made many Chinese journalists unexpectedly stunned. Everyone was stunned for a moment. Taking advantage of their moment of being stunned, Chu Zhongtian finished the interview and walked over.

The interview with him was so short that when he walked past Rui Costa, the Portuguese veteran was still interviewing with Portuguese media.

"…This goal will be very helpful for our return to home games…"

Chu Zhongtian only heard this when he passed by Rui Costa.

He curled his lips.

※※※After returning to the locker room, Chu Zhongtian felt that today's locker room was much quieter than usual, and it was not like a locker room after winning the ball. Looking at everyone's brows, it looked like a locker room that lost the ball.

Chu Zhongtian could guess the thoughts of most teammates - they were all caused by this one.

Although the opponent's away goal is not a big problem, the score is really not very good... If they win this game with a score of 3:1 or 4:1, it would be okay, but 2:1 will give the opponent too much room for imagination, which will make Benfica think they have an opportunity to take advantage of it. After returning to home, as long as they score another goal, they can tie the total score and be in the lead in the promotion opportunity.

Just like the match between Metz and Leverkusen.

"It seems that our away game is difficult..." Ibisevic muttered.

"I knew we should have scored more goals before..." He knew Matthew Valbuena, who started in this game and replaced Oblaniak, but his performance in the game was average.

"I think we contracted too hard at the last moment, we should push it out and attack them!" Ribery had almost no performance in the team's contraction defense in the last ten minutes. He was also resentful of this decision. Now he found an excuse to express his dissatisfaction. "Defense is not good, offense can solve the problem!"

But this time no one agreed with him. Everyone was worried that a 2:1 score would make their League Cup road end at the Stadium of Light in Lisbon, Portugal on March 14th.

Chu Zhongtian didn't like this atmosphere. He felt that as a winner, he should have the performance of a winner, such as cheering, screaming, and Ribery was making jokes about others in the locker room... This is normal, not as dull as it is now, which can be suffocating.

The head coach asked Fernandez to go out to attend the post-match press conference. There were no outsiders in the locker room except the players. As the captain, he is now the highest-ranking person in the locker room. He should say something to fulfill his responsibilities as a captain.

He stood up and then coughed. Everyone heard his cough and turned their eyes to him.

"I'm sorry, I gave the opponent a free kick." Chu Zhongtiandao. "This free kick caused us to lose the ball."

Next he changed his subject.

"But I think... as long as we scored a goal in their away game, wouldn't their away game advantage be gone? Who said that having an away game advantage is amazing? Why are we afraid of a away game goal? They scored one goal, and we gave them at least two away games in the away game! It's just a away game goal, not three or four, what's there to be afraid of? Why do you all sit here and sigh, just like we lost the game?"

He asked with his hands spread out.

"I just walked out from outside and heard a lot of reporters asking about our conceding goals in the mixed zone. They were asking each other that there was a away goal. Will it be difficult to play in the next round? I admit that the game will not be easy to win, but this is the 18th final of the League Cup. Which game is not difficult to play? In the future, there are even more difficult to play. What should I do? Because it is difficult to play, everyone sighs in the locker room like this?"

"Does anyone remember what happened before we played Lyon last season? Are we going to make two mistakes on the same issue? The second leg hasn't started yet, and instead of complaining about what wasn't doing well enough in the game just ended, consider how to do better in the next game with them."

After Chu Zhongtian finished speaking, he felt much more relieved. These words just now, from the end of the game until now, can finally be said.

He let out a long sigh and said to everyone: "Play some music and listen to it, we are winners!"

※※※Jean Fernandez was answering questions from reporters at the post-match press conference.

"Mr. Fernandez, your team was scored by the opponent at the last moment. Do you think this is a blow to the team? At the same time, we noticed that many Metz players were not very excited after the game. Is this related to the concealment of the ball... In addition, do you still think that Chu's foul was a bit unconsidered?"

Fernandez's answer was straightforward: "No, I don't think there is any problem with this. We won the game, the players performed well, and the opponents performed well, we teamed up to contribute a great game to the fans, nothing better than this night. I think everything is good."

The reporter felt that Fernandez answered some questions, or deliberately avoided the important ones, so he asked again: "Then now Benfica has scored a away goal, which is very beneficial to their next game..."

"Of course, away goals are good for them, provided they can successfully prevent us from scoring away goals." Fernandez finally said something that interested the reporters.

Coach Metz revealed that he will continue to stick to the offensive football style in his away game... Many reporters have written this meaning in their own notebooks.

"That foul about Chu..."

"Foofing is part of the defense, just like losing a ball is part of the football game," Fernandez said with a smile. "I think he did a great job."

In front of the media, he supported his proud disciples.

There was also a reporter asking questions, but he had raised his hand and signaled that he was leaving: "I'm so sorry, everyone. I want to celebrate the victory with my players. Goodbye."

After saying that, he nodded to the press release officer, then got up and walked out.

The press officer turned to the reporters and said, "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the interview time is over, please leave!"

A group of reporters could only disperse with regret and helplessness.

But it doesn't matter. Whether this away goal can have an impact on both sides' second round game will be known in another week.
Chapter completed!