Chapter 73: All Elements Present, Formula Established, Time to Rest

At Philips Stadion, the Dutch Cup quarter-final match between PSV Eindhoven and Utrecht kicks off.

"Hoo..."

Tang Ye stood in the player tunnel, exhaling a long breath.

Having missed two league matches due to injury, suddenly standing in the player tunnel now gave Tang Ye an incredibly complex feeling.

This feeling was roughly similar to, hmm... a middle-aged person suddenly coming out of retirement?

"You look very excited!"

Haller said, having seen Tang Ye inexplicably pacing in place.

"Yes, Haller, do you know why I'm excited?"

"Why?"

"I feel like I can score today."

Tang Ye waved his fist, brimming with killing intent.

"Match started!"

"I won't criticize Ten Hag in today's match because he has placed Tang Ye in the starting lineup!"

"Starting immediately after recovering from injury fully demonstrates Ten Hag's high regard for Tang Ye and is his act of atonement!"

Wang Chao regained his previous excitement.

The previous two matches against Roda JC and Twente had caused Wang Chao to lose his shirt, directly turning him into an anti-fan of Ten Hag.

But it didn't matter; Ten Hag clearly knew he was wrong and hurriedly put Tang Ye back in the starting lineup.

Today's match was a day of atonement for the Dutch!

"OK, let's first introduce the starting lineups for both teams, starting with the home team, Eindhoven."

PSV Eindhoven (4-3-3)

Goalkeeper: Pasveer

Defenders: Brenet, Jeffrey Bruma, Héctor Moreno, Willems

Midfielders: Pröpper, Hendrix, van Ginkel

Forwards: Narsingh, Luuk de Jong, Locadia

Head Coach: Cocu

The match has begun!

【Is Meng's ankle healed already?】

【Nice, nice, the fans are celebrating like it's New Year!】

【??? Recovered from injury and straight into the starting lineup, is Ten Hag that bold?】

【This is why they say Ten Hag is capable; this is the decision a famous coach should make!】

【Ten Hag knows he's about to get fired, so he hurriedly pulled out my Brother Meng to save him, haha!】

【Damn Utrecht, give us our money back!】

【Calm down, calm down, haven't you seen the People's Ball King has returned?】

The livestream room was lively; many bean warriors were unusually hostile, obviously having lost quite a bit of money recently following Wang Chao.

They were waiting for redemption!

Redemption from Utrecht's number 99!

"Go, just go!"

Ramselaar directed Tang Ye to press forward while he dropped back to support, controlling the ball passed by Van der Mareel.

Utrecht's wing attack was initiated by Ramselaar!

Van Ginkel and Hendrix both came over to defend!

Ramselaar dribbled forward himself first!

With a teammate under pressure while dribbling, Tang Ye glanced left and right before running to the right touchline, positioning himself ahead of Ramselaar.

Got it!

Suddenly spotting an opportunity to break the deadlock, Ramselaar's eyes lit up, and he quickly passed the ball to Tang Ye's feet.

Tang Ye trapped the ball, then signaled Di Di Bala to run toward the baseline.

Tang Ye had originally intended to pass to Di Di Bala, but Eindhoven's players marked too quickly; before Tang Ye could turn, the passing lane between him and Di Di Bala was already cut off by the opponents.

With no other choice, Tang Ye had to look for other opportunities.

Glancing at the left flank, Haller was making a forward run!

Perfect!

Tang Ye bit down on his gum, flicked the ball forward with the outside of his foot, and played a layoff pass.

This was the Modrić outside-of-the-foot template; Tang Ye had inherited Modrić's proficiency with the outside of the foot but had added his own ideas into it.

Pa!

The ball flew over the heads of Eindhoven's two center-backs, hit the ground, and after bouncing, landed perfectly against Haller's chest.

Wow!

This is exactly the feeling!

The long-overdue perfect pass made Haller somewhat excited.

He lowered his head and knocked the ball to the ground!

Continue dribbling forward!

Watch for the timing!

He kicked out directly!

"Gooooo——aaaaa——llllll!!!"

"Goal! Goal! Perfect!"

"Allé! Utrecht leads 1:0 away from home... Hey, wait!"

Wang Chao stopped speaking halfway through his sentence.

This was because he saw the linesman raising his flag.

That was an offside pass!

Hiss—

Tang Ye clasped his head with both hands.

Damn it!

So infuriating!

"It's fine, it's fine, just play like this! Just play like this!"

Ten Hag clapped and cheered.

He had a clear view from the sidelines.

It was exactly like this right now.

Scoring a goal against the opponent out of nowhere.

This was Utrecht's strongest state!

The sudden offside goal made Cocu's heart hang in suspense; he hurriedly signaled the PSV players on the field not to lose track of a single marking target.

They had drawn once with Utrecht in the league, which was a humiliation for PSV, one of the Big Three.

Cocu could not accept a second draw!

"Vooruit nu rood-witten (Forward, Red and White Army!)"

"Vooruit PSV (Forward, PSV!)"

"Wat een s'doude glorie!"

"..."

Allé's long-range shot did not result in a goal; instead, it stirred up the excitement of the home fans.

The PSV fans began singing their team anthem.

Like coach Cocu, they did not want to be forced into another draw by PSV!

The match reached the 23rd minute!

"I've got it!"

Bruma made a sliding tackle, blocking Josten's long-range shot outright; the flying ball landed right at the feet of the defensive midfielder Propper.

Trouble!

Ramselaar sensed danger and quickly told his teammates to fall back, but the PSV players were clever; after Propper gained possession, taking advantage of the sparse defense in Utrecht's backfield, he played a precise low long pass to Luuk de Jong.

Luuk de Jong passed sideways to Narsingh.

Narsingh pushed the shot!

"Goal!"

"Narsingh! Beautiful!"

Seeing the home team player score, Wang Chao excitedly waved his fists, but he soon noticed something was wrong.

He had bet on Utrecht for this match!

"Wait!"

"Was there an offside!"

"Referee, aren't you going to check this? I feel this ball was offside!"

"Hmm? No offside!"

"Damn! Narsingh, I've been your fan for three years, why did you have to score at this exact moment!"

After Narsingh scored, cheers erupted from the stands of the Philips Stadion, and Narsingh and De Jong ran together toward the stands to celebrate.

Tang Ye stood with his hands on his hips, sighing along with Ramselaar.

PSV's counterattack was simply too fast!

As the first half continued, with a one-goal lead, Cocu issued a new order to his players: shut down Utrecht's midfield!

Because of this new tactic by PSV, Tang Ye, playing as the attacking midfielder in the center, immediately felt immense pressure.

The moment he received the ball, a teammate shouted directly.

"Someone on the right!"

Tang Ye turned his head to look; Locadia was running swiftly toward him.

Holy crap!

Startled, Tang Ye quickly turned and played a through ball to Allé's feet; Allé then passed the ball to Josten. Utrecht's coordination in the front field was actually quite smooth, but the problem was that neither Allé nor Josten possessed much ability in off-the-ball movement.

Possession kept shifting among the several forwards, yet there was no substantial advancement.

On the contrary, PSV, riding the momentum after taking the lead, nearly expanded the score to 2:0.

The match reached halftime.

【Sigh, I feel these three Utrecht forwards are truly too weak; there's no way they can bring out my Brother Meng's strength.】

【What's so great about Tang Ye? A midfielder who can't control the ball, what kind of midfielder is that?】

【The person above had better close their DMs; I can feel you're about to get blown up.】

【Ten Hag is just a stupid donkey! Can't you come up with some useful tactics?】

In the locker room, Ten Hag's expression was serious; during the first half, he and Fan Fan Dejiahe had discussed playing with five defenders, but in the end, they did not do so.

The reason was simple: if they played with five defenders, Utrecht would essentially be giving up the chance to defeat PSV Eindhoven.

The arrogant Ten Hag would absolutely never do that!

Ten Hag scanned all the players in the locker room; under the deficit, everyone's expressions were far from good.

!

Hmm... except for one Tang Ye.

Right now, Tang Ye's eyes were blinking, and no one knew what he was thinking.

"I've checked; we still need to penetrate through the middle. Remember, both wingers must move toward the center. Hendriks and Bruma are excellent defenders, but you can target their weaker feet. Hendriks's weaker foot is very weak."

"By the way, which foot is his dominant one?"

"Left foot!" Tang Ye gave the answer immediately.

"Okay, okay. Then there's that center-back, Bruma; his weaker-foot ability is also relatively weak. We can exploit that."

Ten Hag turned to look at Fan Fan Dejiahe: "Which foot is his dominant one?"

"It's the right foot!"

Before Fan Fan Dejiahe could answer, Tang Ye blurted out the response directly.

"No?"

Ten Hag's gaze shifted to Tang Ye as he walked over step by step: "Is your memory that good?"

"No, this can be looked up."

Tang Ye took out his phone and showed Ten Hag his operation.

In the FIFA game, entering "psveindhoven" brought up roughly thirty player cards, each filled with recorded characteristics of that player.

"Bruma's weak foot is three stars; Hendriks's weak foot is only two stars!"

Tang Ye added.

"Hahaha!"

Ramseelaar kept laughing on the side, while Ten Hag covered his head with his hand.

Wait, how can you be so smart?

"Ahem, anyway, just remember: when playing through the middle in the second half, you can deliberately break through in the direction of the opponent's weak foot. Many of the opposing players' weak-foot abilities are very poor."

Tang Ye put his phone back in the locker and kept raising his eyebrows at Ari: "Wait for me to pass you the ball!"

Uh...

Ari nodded.

He looked a bit unreliable, didn't he?

Can this really work?

The second half was about to begin.

Since the referee had not yet blown the whistle, Tang Ye was not in a hurry; first, he swapped in a new piece of gum and put it in his mouth.

Okay, time for the second-half performance!

As the side kicking off first, PSV Eindhoven launched an attack against Utrecht.

Still attacking down the wings.

Clearly, they were very confident in their wing players!

The opposing attack was moving very fast, and of course, Tang Ye did not stand still; he immediately ran back.

His task was to occupy the position at the top of the arc before Luuk de Jong.

"Williams, just dribble a few steps!"

"Long pass directly to Narsingh!"

"Narsingh again! Jansen is marking Narsingh one-on-one!"

"Damn! PSV Eindhoven's wing one-two combination is extremely fast! Jansen has been completely outmaneuvered!"

"..."

"Pass to the middle, Locadia!"

"Goal!"

"PSV Eindhoven has extended the score!"

Bang bang bang bang bang!

In the live broadcast room, the sound of Wang Chao violently smashing his mechanical keyboard echoed.

At the same time, there was his own impotent rage!

In the previous round of the league, Utrecht and PSV Eindhoven drew; coach Cocu had clearly learned a lesson from that match.

Actually, dealing with Utrecht was far from as difficult as imagined.

A single wing attack was enough!

"Ten Hag, what are you doing!"

"What is the opposing head coach doing, and what are you doing!"

"Damn it, Ten Hag, what use are you!"

The second goal of the second half was kicked off; the match reached the 50th minute, and at this moment, Ten Hag stood motionless on the sideline.

To be honest, he felt somewhat uncomfortable right now as well.

Just then, the on-site big screen displayed the possession statistics for today's match.

Utrecht: 37%

PSV: 63%

"Haha!"

With possession rate far ahead, Cocu was now extremely happy.

As the new head coach of PSV Eindhoven, Cocu was facing pressure to be sacked.

If he failed to secure first place in the league this season, Cocu would very likely be fired immediately, but he had done well; PSV Eindhoven was now top of the league!

Unlike Ten Hag...

He turned to glance at Ten Hag.

Hmm?

Cocu's expression suddenly froze.

After seeing his own team trailing in possession, Ten Hag suddenly broke into a smile!

Ten Hag's smile gave Cocu an ominous feeling, but with PSV Eindhoven leading by two goals, Cocu felt no great pressure and simply sat back down on the substitutes' bench.

In the camera shot, Ten Hag stood with hands in pockets, then, just like Cocu, sat down on the substitutes' bench seat!

Second half, trailing in possession, Tang Ye starting.

All three elements were present; the formula was directly fulfilled.

Wasn't this a sure win now?

Rest for a while first!

The match reached the 62nd minute of the second half; Locadia dribbled inward toward the center.

Acting so cocky?

Tang Ye couldn't bear to watch any longer, so he secretly sneaked over.

"Someone behind you!"

Hendrix shouted loudly; Locadia spotted Tang Ye beside him and quickly passed the ball away, while Tang Ye immediately turned and sprinted toward the attacking end.

Although the tackle failed, Tang Ye had already achieved his objective.

Just now, Locadia had cut into the center alone, which meant there were no teammates near him.

If he passed in panic, the probability of losing possession would be extremely high.

As expected, Leechet suddenly rushed forward, intercepted Locadia's pass to Narsingh with one kick, and then sent the ball upfield.

"Wow? A counterattack by Utrecht!"

"Utrecht's counterattack isn't as fast as PSV Eindhoven's, but I feel there's still some chance!"

"Joosten, drop back to receive the ball!"

"Pass to Tang Ye!"

"Beautiful! Joosten was very clever! He made a very wise choice!"

"Tang Ye!"

"Spread it to the wing! To Di Di Bala!"

"Utrecht's counterattacking play is very fluid!"

"..."

"Goal!"

"Tang Ye's touch was very clever, assisting Joosten to score!"

"2:1, Utrecht pulls one back!"

???

Cocu stood up from his chair on the substitutes' bench.

He glanced at Ten Hag next door; Ten Hag was still sitting in his chair!

Damn, something seems off?

(End of chapter)