Chapter 186: Walking the Road Yossi Walked Left Him Nowhere to Go
"Barcelona 0–1 down to Arsenal for now. Although Barcelona are overall stronger than Arsenal on paper, Arsenal struck first — that's football."
"If anyone judges Arsenal will be knocked out purely by paper strength, they should be careful about their face after two legs."
"Football is more about performance on the night — that's why the underdog often beats the favorite."
On the pitch,
after the celebration,
the battle reignited!
Barcelona, having conceded, launched a fierce attack right from the restart.
Luis Enrique is a pragmatic coach. Without Xavi, Barcelona's possession play can no longer flow as seamlessly as before.
Luckily the Messi–Suárez–Neymar (MSN) attacking set is monstrously dangerous, so Enrique took a shortcut from Pep Guardiola's possession approach and added quick counter-attacks — each action crisp and decisive — making MSN's offense more lethal and able to blow opponents away.
Simply put: this Barcelona attacks sharper than the old MSN era, but their ball control is weaker and their defense more vulnerable.
On the pitch, with over eighty thousand Barcelona fans screaming wildly, Barcelona attacked down all three channels.
Facing Mario Balotelli's press, Andrés Iniesta first dipped his left shoulder — a "Messi drop shoulder" feint to the left.
Balotelli bit and lunged right.
At the moment Balotelli lunged, Iniesta's dipped left shoulder sprang back, and as his body recoiled his left foot rolled the ball neatly onto the outside of his right foot.
Iniesta's right foot was on Balotelli's left side; Balotelli's lunge to the right left the left side open.
Iniesta flicked the ball with the outside of his right foot and, pushing off with his legs, slipped past Balotelli.
"Yeah!!!"
Just one dribble and Iniesta had ignited Camp Nou.
But a second later, the crowd fell silent, then erupted into a furious roar of hatred: "Yellow-skin monkey, you're looking to die!"
"Yellow-skin monkey, xxx…!"
On the Tencent live stream commentators Zhan Jun and Zhang Lu almost spoke in unison:
"Beautiful!"
"Beautiful recovery."
"Xia Qi and Mario Balotelli are like two guardian generals. When Balotelli pressed, Xia Qi quietly came to cover for him. Iniesta finally beat Balotelli only to run straight into Xia Qi's pocket."
"As soon as Iniesta lost his footing after the dribble, Xia Qi reached out and poked the ball away; Iniesta tried to pull the ball back and fell over himself."
"That's classic drop-back defending. Double-pressing isn't always a two-man squeeze; one man presses forward while another covers back can be just as effective."
"Barcelona's attack ends there. Arsenal begin the counter."
"Feels like Barcelona haven't used their home advantage — the tempo has fallen into Arsenal's rhythm."
"Too early to draw that conclusion. Let's watch Arsenal's counterattack."
On the pitch,
the instant Xia Qi won the ball, Arsenal players abandoned their man-marking and surged straight toward Barcelona's goal.
Compact three-line attacks are the basic requirement of top teams — Arsenal went full throttle.
Arsenal's two wings — Mario Balotelli and Theo Walcott — were sprinting their hearts out. (Balotelli usually plays centrally, but with Xia Qi coming into the middle to defend he was pushed out to the left wing.)
Kevin De Bruyne made a crisscross run behind the two wingers, pushing hard through the center.
From above the three formed a "<" shape, with De Bruyne at the rearmost point of the trident. The taste of the previous goal had hooked De Bruyne; he wanted to pour everything into the run.
Barcelona's front line were stunned by Arsenal's counter; Neymar even didn't stop his sprint and kept running into Arsenal's area.
Barcelona's backline wasn't in great shape either; many defenders didn't step in to intercept right away, except for Sergio Busquets.
He quickly made a defensive read on the pitch and realized that trying to stop any single member of the trident would be wrong —
only by stopping Xia Qi could Arsenal's attack be halted.
"Counter! This is Arsenal's counter!" Zhan Jun shouted. "Xia Qi didn't pass — he robbed the ball and drove it himself into Barcelona's half."
On the pitch, carrying the ball didn't slow Xia Qi's leopard-like speed; he charged forward at pace.
Boos exploded around Camp Nou.
Although Barcelona's center-backs were still in place, seeing Xia Qi charging made Camp Nou fans uneasy…
Busquets charged straight in and, without much argument, slid in with a late long sliding tackle.
While sprinting at high speed, Xia Qi toe-tapped the ball up and leapt with ball and body together,
safely avoiding Busquets' tackle. On landing he accelerated again, bolting forward like a cheetah.
"A reckless tackle!" Zhang Lu shook his head on the Tencent broadcast; Busquets' tackle was wishful thinking and fell below top La Liga standard.
Xia Qi chased down the ball at full speed; the boos at Camp Nou reached a peak,
and on TV Zhan Jun and Zhang Lu couldn't hear the Spanish commentators' calls inside the stadium.
They joked about off-field anecdotes of Xia Qi because camera shots limited their ability to explain why Xia Qi didn't pass and chose to solo instead.
Actually even the Spanish colleagues couldn't explain it from their perspective — they couldn't conceive that Xia Qi would be driven to violence by the chanting of "yellow-skin monkey."
In Camp Nou's VIP box Joan Laporta's mouth lifted in a restrained smirk as he raised his wine glass to Nasser and Florentino Pérez.
"This kid's good. Few can escape Busquets' interception — Busquets' interception rate is over eighty percent…"
He sounded like he was praising Xia Qi, but it read as praise for his own players.
Nasser nodded along and Florentino smiled with obvious contempt beneath it.
Clearly these two love the idea of football more as business than as passion.
Otherwise they would see this was only the beginning…
In the north stand Arsenal fans all rose to their feet; they were all too familiar with this scene.
The emperor sits down at the table and starts to feast.
Arsenal fans immediately put a dining march to the "child-eating emperor" — the "complete solo goal" song echoed above Camp Nou.
After hearing the lyrics, Barcelona fans grew even angrier and shouted: "Break that yellow-skin monkey's legs!"
Unaware that their shouts fueled Xia Qi's fire.
Xia Qi's adrenaline surged with every insult. With no provocation, he produced a sudden second burst of acceleration, carrying the ball past Ivan Rakitić who had rushed across from the other side to try to stop him.
His speed caught Rakitić off guard; Rakitić couldn't react defensively and only stood there bewildered, left asking himself: Why did I come? For a farewell?
In the VIP box, Laporta choked on his wine at the sight. He laughed awkwardly: "Piqué and Javier Mascherano are excellent center-backs. Leo said Piqué is the toughest defender he's faced — no exception. I'm grateful I retained Piqué at Camp Nou."
Nasser, intrigued, asked: "How much is Piqué worth?"
"Oh, brother, that's — oh shit!!!"
Laporta enjoyed Nasser's flattery but shouldn't have glanced back at the pitch.
On the field, Gerard Piqué burst out of the box intending to stop Xia Qi outside the area, even if it took a yellow card.
He didn't go for Busquets' type of long slide; instead he moved in close and didn't get too close — wary of being "eaten" alive.
He kept a distance of about two paces, watching Xia Qi's feet, waiting for the right moment to drop and slide.
In Piqué's mind the tackle was almost certain.
But reality was different:
It was like a movie scene pre-blocked between them — the moment he slid, Xia Qi suddenly executed a sharp stop and change of direction,
Piqué missed!
He slid past Xia Qi's side.
Laporta in the box gasped: "Oh shit! Piqué!!!"
Nasser glanced at the replay on the box TV: "I think you were fooled by Yossi. You need better defenders; I just happen to have one…"
Laporta nearly spat blood; he told himself: don't get angry at money power…
On the pitch, Xia Qi dribbled toward Javier Mascherano as his teammates tightly marked the other Barcelona defenders, preventing any double-team on Xia Qi.
Mascherano didn't dare to commit to a sliding tackle; he was Barcelona's last line and had to be cautious.
He retreated a step at a time, attempting to slowly reduce the gap to the goalkeeper.
Plan: bring the goalkeeper into a two-man press on Xia Qi!
Xia Qi didn't indulge him. He winded up his right leg and struck at the ball.
A long-range shot!!!
Mascherano stopped retreating and charged at Xia Qi.
Xia Qi raised the foot as if to strike, then gently set it down — he didn't hit the ball cleanly. The ball dropped to his right side. He twisted his ankle, lightly tapped from right to left; the ball moved to Xia Qi's left. Xia Qi leaned his body to the right at an angle worse than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, planted his right foot and swung his left.
Such an angle — this time it really looked like a shot.
Everyone thought so.
Arsenal fans tightened fists, ready to explode a second later.
Mascherano, brilliant, managed in tenths of a second to re-balance his body and launch himself to the right.
But
Xia Qi also completed the impossible re-balance.
Like before, he raised and eased his movement, nudged the ball back to his right foot.
This back-and-forth adjustment of direction, defying gravity and balance, is Yossi's specialty.
But Yossi (short, low center of gravity) differs from Xia Qi's 1.88 m frame;
this repeated directional shift is far harder for Xia Qi and at the same time more graceful and fluid — very reminiscent of Real Madrid's Redondo.
Florentino admitted he was moved in that moment — he remembered a blond youth, the pre-Raúl Bernabéu prince. If the Bernabéu prince had a successor, this boy would be the second generation.
And the dark-haired youth before him would surely be the next Bernabéu prince; Paris? Ha — nobody will wrest the sixth generation of Real Madrid from him!
Florentino snorted: "This 'lateral drag and shift' is far from Xavi's. Leo… forget it — whoever you sell him to, it won't be to me."
Nasser's eyes lit up as he looked at Laporta: "Leo–Yossi…"
"Third one!"
"Fourth one!"
"Mascherano's been nutmegged."
"That leaves only goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen! Will Xia Qi shoot or keep going all the way…?"
A choice had to be made.
Ter Stegen, having learned from pain, decisively abandoned his line.
Xia Qi used one extra change of direction to get past Mascherano. By the time he left Mascherano behind, Ter Stegen was already close.
During the high-speed run Xia Qi suddenly slowed his tempo and lifted his right foot.
A shift in rhythm convinced Ter Stegen that Xia Qi intended to shoot,
so he opened his body as much as possible and went down to block.
Then Ter Stegen saw Xia Qi's right foot simply brush the ball, a lateral layoff, a trot, an acceleration — all in one smooth motion!
"Fifth one!"
"He's beaten the keeper!"
"Empty net!"
Amid Zhan Jun's excited calls, viewers saw Xia Qi face the empty goal, gently nudge the ball with his instep and watch it roll in a straight line into the net.
"Dinner's served!!!"
"Xia Qi got past five players and tucked the open net for Arsenal's second."
"Arsenal first took the lead at Camp Nou using tiki-taka, now Xia Qi retraced Yossi's route to dribble through five and score again."
"By walking the path Yossi walked, Yossi now has no way to stop him!!!"
"Tonight's Arsenal come from a Murong clan." (a mocking flourish)
…
…
At the instant Xia Qi scored,
a thousand Arsenal fans jumped from their seats, punched the air in unison and shouted: "Enjoy your meal, Your Majesty!"
Other stands of Barcelona fans put their hands to their heads in disbelief, thinking the teams had worn each other's shirts by mistake.
That scoring boy should have been Yossi.
Camp Nou went silent again.
After the goal Xia Qi ran like crazy, ripping at his shirt and pounding his chest, screaming nonsense into the air…
To others this five-pass take-on and finish was just another of his long-distance goals,
but Xia Qi knew it was different — it was completed without help from an Al-level teammate and was a retaliation against racial insults.
He ran toward the south stand, leapt onto the advertising boards and held his hands aloft like a monarch accepting his subjects' cheers…
Barcelona fans exploded in fury, threatening, cursing, and making obscene gestures…
Barcelona players were stunned — they hadn't expected to concede so quickly.
But they are a world-class side and soon composed themselves.
Play resumed and Barcelona kept their shape, launching forward under their original tactics. (END CHAPTER)
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