Defense came easily to George Wood.

“George Wood’s header lifted the siege! Barcelona’s corner kick did not pose any threat to the Forest team goal!”

“I think the reason Tony Twain was so full of confidence for this game must be because George Wood can play now. Wood has demonstrated his ability in the English Premier League, but Barcelona is clearly unfamiliar with him.”

While the commentator praised Wood, Ronaldinho thought about how to get rid of the annoying target in front of him.

It was the time for Barcelona’s counterattack, but George Wood followed the Brazilian like a shadow. Wherever Ronaldinho went, he went. Wood had not left his side since he had gotten rid of him that once time.

Now, Ronaldinho could only organize offense by passing the ball.

He tried to keep the ball as little as possible and send the ball as much as possible. That was Ronaldinho’s current countermeasure.

Was there no other way?

Of course not. What kind of player was Ronaldinho and what kind of team was Barcelona? It would be shocking if they were at their wit’s end because an entanglement with George Wood.

Rijkaard bit his finger as he thought about a countermeasure. Ronaldinho was the core of the team. Almost all offense revolved around him. If he was immobilized by George Wood, how was he going to adjust the team’s offense?

※※※

Twenty-five minutes had passed, and the score was still 1:0. The visiting Nottingham Forest team was temporarily ahead.

Barcelona relentlessly attacked and did not falter in the face of the failures in their successive attacks.

Tony Twain clearly underestimated Barcelona’s energy. They were not demoralized because of their fruitless efforts. Instead, they were in high spirits and continued to threaten Forest’s penalty area. It was a great dishonor in the eyes of the Barcelona people to be behind by one goal at home by the opponent they did not want to lose to the most. How could they be willing to take things lying down?

Ronaldinho realized that George Wood had no intention of leaving his side to go defend against the others, so he suddenly came up with a scheme.

Xavi passed the ball forward and the Brazilian transferred the ball to Deco with his back towards George Wood. He ran towards the side and George Wood followed suit.

Ronaldinho led George Wood away and the center-front area of the Forest team’s penalty area was immediately vacant. Xavi cut in and Deco quickly passed the ball to him. There was less trouble in front of the Forest team’s penalty area without Wood.

Xavi made to look like he was going to pass the ball to the side, but he suddenly swung his leg to shoot instead.

Edwin van der Sar reacted quickly and flew to catch the football.

Even though the attack still had not cracked the Forest team’s defense, the Barcelona players saw hope — Ronaldinho was no longer the heart of the offense, but he could divert the defensive hold on Barcelona. George Wood would be wherever he was. Once George Wood was lured away, the pressure on Barcelona’s attack in the front would reduce significantly. Xavi’s shot just now was the example.

Rijkaard got up from his seat to applaud Xavi’s long shot; the team had done a good job.

George Wood stood beside Ronaldinho and looked back at Edwin van der Sar, who was just getting up off the ground.

He knew he had been led away from his defense area by Ronaldinho, which then initiated the opponent’s long shot at the goal. He was aware. But what could he have done? Should he remain in his spot and wait for the opponent to attempt another long shot the next time he faced this situation? The Barcelona players were not idiots. They would certainly pass the ball to the unmarked Ronaldinho.

Was this a dilemma of choices?

George Wood did not know. The boss told him to restrict Ronaldinho, so he restricted Ronaldinho. As for the rest, he could only leave it to his teammates. He was not an almighty God and could not take on all the responsibilities for defense.

Who was more dangerous, Ronaldinho or the other Barcelona players? George Wood chose the former.

As a result, Barcelona’s offense turned into Ronaldinho taking Wood around a circle and constantly passing in a triangular formation to create opportunities for his teammates. Other than doing quick passes, he had nothing else to do.

Xavi and Iniesta became the team’s real offensive organizers. Eto’o was caught up in the Forest team’s compressed defensive formation, and Messi became the most active striker.

Gareth Bale put all his energy into defense and still struggled a little against Messi, who was too much of a threat on the flank.

“Messi bypassed Bale, terrific… He has breached the penalty box! And he shoots! The shot is blocked by Piqué! That was really close!”

“Messi dribbles the ball to the side, Bale follows him… Foul! Barcelona receives a free kick in the front of the penalty box. This is a good location, and Ronaldinho comes up to do the kick — we finally get to see him again — Ah, what a pity, the ball brushes past the crossbar and flies out of the end line!”

Such things kept happening in the second part of the first half.

Twain could not sit still and do nothing.

He got up from his seat, went out to take a walk around and returned.

“Tony…” Kerslake looked up at Twain, standing in front of the coaches’ seats.

“I don’t know if this was Rijkaard’s idea…” Twain said as he turned his head to look at Barcelona’s technical area next door. “Sacrifice Ronaldinho to drag George out of the fight. They don’t have Ronaldinho, but they still have Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Deco… Damn it! The player who is supposed to freeze the others has been frozen instead.”

When he heard Twain speak, Dunn turned his wrist to look at his watch. There were still fifteen minutes before the end of the first half.

Piqué shouted on the field to get his teammates to put their efforts into defense. George Wood was entangled with Ronaldinho and the team’s defensive line required everyone’s help. After all, Barcelona’s offense was just too strong. Any slight oversight would cause them to lose the ball.

“Or… do we just let Wood give up on marking Ronaldinho for a while?” Kerslake suggested.

Twain vetoed his suggestion on the spot. “No, Ronaldinho is an extremely dangerous figure. We can’t relax the defense against him. I’d rather sacrifice George… no big deal, we will just go 10v10! Our defense doesn’t just rely on George. We won’t be paralyzed without George. Piqué is doing a good job. He’s in good form today.”

“It’s exciting for him to come back to Barcelona to play.” Kerslake said.

“We’ll hold on for fifteen more minutes and consider what adjustments to make during halftime.” With that, Twain turned around and returned to the sidelines. The game was really tough to play.

※※※

Everyone could see that Barcelona’s tidal wave of offensive threatened the Nottingham Forest goal with wave after wave. If their luck was better, they might have breached the goal guarded by Edwin van der Sar.

Twain adopted a strategy to withdraw the defense to counteract Eto’o’s speed. However, as a result, it left Barcelona with a lot of room to maneuver in front of the penalty area.

The Barcelona players passed the ball back and forth in this area, mobilizing the Forest team’s defensive line. Then they suddenly passed the ball to the flank while the Forest players focused their energy on one point. Eto’o had already left the middle and repositioned to the flank to play. He and Messi were on the left and right flank, ready to receive the ball and cut inside.

There was a sudden straight pass in front of the penalty area, a move Barcelona was very good at. The Forest team had to raise all their attention to guard against this penetrating pass. Once the football was allowed to pass through, it would almost become a bad situation for the goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar to face the opponent one-on-one. Van der Sar could not be expected to be able to strike in time to defuse the crisis at every instance.

Ronaldinho became a center forward and appeared in the middle time and time again, attracting George Wood and the others ‘ attention, and then would suddenly move away to create opportunities for the others.

As the time passed, the score was fixed at 1:0.

Rijkaard also got up from his seat and headed for the sidelines.

He could not allow this score to continue to the halftime interval. It would be a blow to the team’s morale. If they could, they had to try and equalize the score before the end of the first half, which was a good way to tamp down on the Forest team’s morale.

Rijkaard, who stood on the sidelines, constantly used hand gestures to indicate to the players on the field to press on again and again. He wanted them to set off a frenzy of offensive at the last minute.

On the other side, Twain yelled to get the players to watch their defense. He also knew that it was best not to concede any points before the end of the first half.

George Wood could not tolerate Ronaldinho pulling him out of his defense zone again, and watched helplessly as his opponent wreaked havoc in front of the penalty area.

When the football was passed to Ronaldinho again, Wood chose to suddenly go around the side of the rear to defend from the front.

Ronaldinho did not think George Wood would move so fast. He could not send the ball out, but had to figure out how to protect the ball from being intercepted by his opponent and directly fight back.

When he felt Wood bump into him from behind, Ronaldinho was smart enough to choose to fall forward. George Wood knocked into him again and extended his leg out to kick out the football, but he heard the referee blow his whistle. He had fouled!

“George Wood has fouled! Ronaldinho protected the football well and Barcelona now receives a free kick at a distance of… about twenty meters from the goal. It may be an opportunity. Ronaldinho had a free kick before that was just slightly above the crossbar.”

George Wood felt a little aggravated. When he played in the English Premier League, he did a lot of denying the ball. Even if he had squeezed the opponent to the ground, the referee rarely whistled for a foul. But he did not go to try to reason with the referee. He was good at it.

He took a leaf out of Albertini’s book. He stood in front of the football to be on guard against Barcelona from sending the ball out early. But he was overly cautious. The Barcelona players did not intend to take this opportunity to launch a sneak attack. The players ran forward. Ronaldinho and Deco both stood in front of the ball as they quietly looked at the Forest team formed a wall and waited for the referee to blow the whistle.

When Wood saw that they had no intention of kicking off immediately, he returned but did not join the human wall. He stood on the other side and stared at Messi.

Deco stood in front of the ball with his head lowered and discussed with Ronaldinho on how to play this kick.

Xavi huddled in the Forest team’s human wall, intending to use this spot as a breakthrough point. The Forest players tried to push him out and both sides had some physical contact, which the referee ran over to mediate. As a result of the mediation, Xavi successfully took a spot on the leftmost side of Nottingham Forest’s human wall.

Deco retreated as he did not plan to kick this ball. Now everyone’s eyes were on Ronaldinho. This was a direct free kick, so he could choose to shoot directly or pass… But would he choose to pass the ball?

No.

Ronaldinho moved back to open up the distance to run up.

George Wood kept one eye on Ronaldinho and the other eye on Messi beside him to guard against the kid from taking advantage of the opportunity to assist the shot.

Ronaldinho was frozen by George Wood for the entire first half. Other than a wonderful individual breakthrough, he had that nasty fly buzzing around him all the time which was annoying. Now that there was no George Wood around him, he could comfortably put his legs to action.

He looked at the Nottingham Forest’s human wall and took another look at the goalkeeper, Edwin van der Sar, waiting behind the wall. Then he glanced at the referee who had retreated to one side, and finally he turned his sights toward George Wood in the crowd.

There was a slight smile on his face when he saw Wood standing next to Messi.

This time you’re finally not going to stop me.

“Ronaldinho revealed a confident smile! When this happy football magician smiles, it means he must be in his best form! Let us take a moment of silence to admire his performance.”

Nottingham Forest placed lot of importance on the penalty kick and lined up a six-man wall. Clad in the red-and-blue Barcelona jersey, Xavi appeared on the left side of the wall like a gap in the wall. The Forest players pressed towards Xavi, intending to squeeze him out and quickly cover the gap once Ronaldinho kicked.

Otherwise, once Ronaldinho kicked the football, Xavi would run to the side and the Forest team’s wall would immediately break in the middle. They decided that half of them would stay in place to stop the football from easily crossing their heads, and the other half would squeeze to the left to seal the gap created by Xavi’s departure — they thought Ronaldinho would definitely shoot the football to here. If not, why else would Xavi try to squeeze in here?

However, they all miscalculated. The football did not fly toward the left side of the wall, but directly at the middle to penetrate through the split between the two halves of the wall!

Edwin van der Sar’s view was blocked, coupled with the fact that he had no idea that Ronaldinho would shoot the football through there. He could not save it in time and could only watch helplessly as the football bypassed his hands and flew into the net.

“What a terrific goal — Ronaldinho! King of Barcelona!”

Camp Nou instantly erupted in thunderous cheers and applause. Rijkaard held his arms high and jumped.

Whereas, on the other side, Tony Twain brandished his fists in frustration, with only a flash of disappointment on his face. Although he was somewhat disappointed, conceding a goal was well within his expectations.

The Barcelona players heedlessly celebrated on the field. Edwin van der Sar picked up the football from the net and kicked a long shot to the front.

George Wood turned his head to look at Ronaldinho, who was surrounded by the Barcelona players, before he turned around and ran into the center circle.

He is indeed powerful.