From the man behind the football king to the football king

Chapter 36 Attention
If the main attacking Portugal U20 is unable to attack for a long time, they will definitely be anxious.But now that they have broken the deadlock on the court, it is the opponent's turn to worry.

Sure enough, after Portugal U20 opened the scoring, the young people of Belgium U20 became a little anxious and invested heavily in the offensive end.

Although Portugal U20's defense is relatively poor, Belgium's U20's offensive ability is very average. This pairing is like Wolong meeting Fengxiao, the fight is very lively, but the results are very few.

Bruno is also not good at defense. When Belgium attacks, although he returns to his own half, he is always at the front of the penalty area, symbolically assisting the defense in the middle, but his focus is on counterattack.

Belgium increased its offensive intensity, but its offensive capabilities were limited. As a result, Portugal had more opportunities to counterattack.However, because Portugal's offensive power was insufficient at this time, several consecutive counterattacks failed to score.

This further fueled Belgium's arrogance. They felt that Portugal's counterattack ability was not good enough, and the midfield and backfield players were pushed further forward.

No. 70 In the second minute, Portugal once again stole the ball in the backcourt and launched a counterattack.Right back Mika Pinto stepped forward to assist. Bruno raised his hand to ask for the ball again. After stopping the ball, he took two steps laterally and suddenly passed diagonally to the left with his left foot.

Esgao, the left winger who caught up with the ball, happened to be unguarded. Without being polite, he just hit him with his feet.Football was in Belgium's goal again.

2: 0!

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Two passes that were regarded as unpredictable by Portugal's U20 teammates helped Portugal gain a two-goal lead, which completely impressed these proud young people.

In the previous training, Bruno's skills really amazed them, but the shock to them was far more than his performance on the real field.

Even the coaching staff on the sidelines were shocked by Bruno's broad vision.Although they have studied some videos of Bruno's games in Novara, the videos are still videos after all and are far less realistic than the experience of watching the game live.

Continuous goals stimulated the emotions of the young people of Portugal U20. They became unprecedentedly confident and completely suppressed Belgium on the scene.

In the 703rd minute of the game, Ramos made his third substitution adjustment. Midfielder Ricardo Alves came off and Agostino Cha came on as a substitute.

Just 5 minutes later, in the 78th minute of the game, Bruno received the ball on the right side of the penalty area, got rid of the defensive player and distributed the ball to the right side of the penalty area. The team's right winger Bruma and the assisting captain Joao Mario scored In cooperation, Joao Mario knocked back from the baseline, and midfielder Agostino Cha, who had just come on as a substitute, shot into the empty goal.

3: 0!

A hearty victory made the young people of Portugal U20 very happy.They have never found that winning can be so easy and enjoyable.

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However, Portugal, which was full of confidence, soon suffered a heavy blow.

The schedule of the Toulon Cup is very tight. Just two days later, the third round of the Toulon Cup group stage begins. Portugal faces the powerful Brazil U20.

Although the Brazilian National Youth Team will miss the World Youth Championship in Turkey, which will start later this month, there is no doubt about their strength.

Facing an opponent whose comprehensive strength is stronger than its own, the weaknesses of Portugal's defense are fully exposed.In the 10th and 11th minutes of the game, Brazil completed two lightning strikes against Portugal.The goals were scored by 18-year-old talented forward Mamut and 17-year-old talented midfielder Danilo Barbosa.

The time interval between the two goals was only 1 minute and 25 seconds!
Portugal U20 were completely stunned!

Fortunately, the Brazilians are not Germans. After scoring two goals in a row, they did not pursue the victory but relaxed their offensive. This allowed Portugal U20 to breathe a sigh of relief.

If they were facing the Germans, given the desperate state of Portugal U20 after conceding two goals in a row, they would definitely continue to concede goals and then be beaten and collapsed.

The Brazilian's mercy allowed Portugal U20 to survive the half without conceding any more goals.

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At the end of the halftime break, Portugal made substitution adjustments, and Bruno went into battle again.

The Brazilian team's defense was about the same as Portugal's. They didn't concede a goal in the first half, entirely because Portugal seemed to be sleepwalking throughout the first half and did not play any threatening offense at all.

After Bruno came on the scene, this situation changed.Then, it was the Brazilian team that was defeated. From the 66th to the 72nd minute of the second half, in just 6 minutes, Bruno scored two shots and passed a ball, leading Portugal U20 to reverse Brazil.

This is how the youth team lacks stability. Due to their young age, U20 players are more easily affected by emotions and their performance fluctuates greatly.This is especially reflected in the Brazilians. It is also the reason why they, who were the champions of the 2011 World Youth Championship, missed the current World Youth Championship.If in the first game, Bruno showed his excellent vision and passing ability, then in this game, he showed his strong ability to seize opportunities.

In fact, Brazil U20 did not ignore his defense, but when his teammates were in poor condition, Bruno stepped forward and showed his strength to the world. The two goals he scored were basically It was obtained by carrying the opponent on his shoulders.

In the past year, Bruno has been implementing a physical training plan tailored for him by the training master system, which has made him no longer the thin image he had when he just traveled through time.

His height has grown to 1.8 meters and his weight has reached 77 kilograms.Although he is far from those muscular men, he is very well-proportioned and his resistance ability has been greatly improved.Maybe he can't compare with those strong men in the five major leagues, but it's no problem to bully his peers in Brazil's U20.

Seeing Bruno's strong scoring ability, his young teammates in the Portugal U20 were once again shocked.They never expected that the gentle-looking guy they had been in contact with in the past two weeks would have such a tough side.

At the same time, they also realized that Bruno's 21 goals and 32 assists in the season in Serie B were not because the league level was too low, but because of his strong and comprehensive abilities.

Portugal, which has won two consecutive games, has surpassed Brazil and risen to first place in the Group B standings. It is even very likely that it will be the final first place in Group B. Next, Mexico and Nigeria should be difficult to stop Portugal's progress. .

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Although he had long known that Portugal U20's defense was poor, before he really saw it, Bruno could not imagine that their defense was so bad.

If the two goals conceded against Brazil were due to Portugal being stunned in a short period of time and being caught off guard, then in the next game against Mexico, they showed Bruno how capable their defense was. How bad.

In the first minute of the game, the Portuguese defense, which was not yet firmly on its feet and had not yet entered the game, conceded the ball for the first time.Mexico opened the game with a blitz, easily breaking through Portugal's defense and scoring through winger Marco Ontiveros.

The subsequent game became completely turn-based.

In the 31st minute, Bruno launched a counterattack in the middle, and through the combination of the side and center, center Aladeji finally scored and tied the score to 1:1.

Shortly after the start of the second half, Portugal's defense made another mistake. Fanjul successfully countered offside and broke through Portugal's goal, exceeding the score again.

Three minutes later, Bruno assisted Aladeji and quickly tied the score to 3:2.Then in the 2nd minute, Caballero, who came off the bench, scored a goal and the score exceeded the score.

However, the tenacious Mexicans equalized the score again in the 81st minute.

3:3, after a goal battle, the two sides shook hands and made a draw.

In another game, the Brazilian team seemed to have not yet recovered from the shock of being reversed by Portugal. It drew 1:1 with Nigeria, which was considered a big upset.

The war in Brazil ended here, with 4 games, 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. Although they scored 7 points, they almost missed the first place in the group.

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On June 6, in the fifth round of the Toulon Cup, Portugal defeated Nigeria, the last opponent in the group, with a score of 7:2 as expected. As a result, Portugal won the first place in Group B with an unbeaten record of 1 matches, 4 wins and 3 draw.

In this way, they will compete with the first team in Group A for this year's Toulon Cup championship on the evening of June 6.

In Group A, which ended the competition a day ago, Colombia U20 unexpectedly defeated the host France U20 and ranked first in the group with an impressive record of 4 consecutive victories.

The Portuguese want to win the Toulon Cup again after ten years, and there is a lot of pressure.

But no matter what, through 4 group matches, Bruno successfully attracted the attention of scouts from all over the world.

Previously in Novara, Bruno's reputation basically stayed in Italy due to the influence of Serie B.Even in Portugal, not many people pay attention to him.

However, as the cradle of newcomers, the influence of the Toulon Cup is far from being comparable to that of Serie B.

In the four games, Bruno came on the bench in 2 games and started 2 games, scoring 2 goals and 5 assists. He was the most dazzling star during the group stage.

This performance naturally attracted the attention of scouts from all over the world who came to Toulon.

(End of this chapter)