Villa charged at Van Bommel, and Van Bommel immediately played a diagonal pass forward.

When Rakitic got the ball, Xavi was already rushing up.

But Rakitic wasn’t flustered at all, because he’d long since seen Huang Kaiwen standing right beside him.

Without waiting for the ball to settle, Rakitic decisively spun, used his body to block Xavi, and nudged the ball with the inside of his foot.

Huang Kaiwen took the pass and burst forward straight away.

Iniesta was beaten by Huang Kaiwen in the blink of an eye.

"Boo!"

"Boo!"

"Boo!"

A huge wave of boos erupted around Camp Nou Stadium.

Mixed in with it was the cheering of the Milan Fans.

Guardiola stood there feeling as if he were in another world.

Back when he was still the youth-team coach, he’d sat in the stands and watched Huang Kaiwen, wearing Milan’s No.10 shirt, burst onto the scene; later, when he became first-team coach, Huang Kaiwen had changed into white, but what stayed the same was that he was still Barca’s nemesis.

After that, Chelsea’s blue strip had brought him and Barca plenty more painful memories.

He’d never imagined that once Huang Kaiwen put the red-and-black stripes back on, he himself would be happy about Huang Kaiwen’s performances.

Life is really full of twists you can’t predict; a year ago he’d never have thought he’d be standing where he is now.

This time Barca’s back line didn’t panic and retreat en masse, but Alves kept backing off.

Huang Kaiwen’s early touches had left too deep an impression on him, so Alves didn’t dare stick a leg in lightly.

"Javier, press him!"

Puyol shouted from the other side.

Mascherano charged straight at Huang Kaiwen; even if he couldn’t win the ball, he had to buy time for his teammates to get back.

Pa——

Just as Mascherano was about to close him down, Huang Kaiwen subtly lifted his left leg, snapped his calf, and poked the ball away with the tip of his left boot.

Alves instinctively stuck out a foot but was still a step late, and the onrushing Mascherano also couldn’t react in time.

The ball found the onrushing Kaka, while Torres was still darting around wildly near the box.

Fuck!

Puyol didn’t even think; he just sprinted toward Torres—Piqué’s explosiveness couldn’t match his.

Alves turned and sprinted back.

Seeing Busquets recover, Mascherano also dropped back into position.

Kaka, carrying the ball, laid it back to Huang Kaiwen again.

Huang Kaiwen, shuffling forward in little steps outside the box, suddenly exploded; Busquets, low over his center of gravity, hurriedly ran with him, but before he could get tight, Huang Kaiwen rolled his body on his right foot, then used the inside of his foot to push the ball onto his left.

Shifting his right foot to complete the turn, Huang Kaiwen swung through and whipped the ball into the penalty area.

Torres took it and accelerated but couldn’t shake off Mascherano at the first step.

At the edge of the six-yard box he lifted his left foot to fake a shot, but Mascherano didn’t bite at all, going to ground quickly with a sliding tackle and knocking the ball over the byline.

Seeing the danger cleared,

Messi, who had tracked all the way back to halfway, finally exhaled in relief.

Today he’d been running a lot, joining in on the defensive side as well as in attack.

But playing like this really burns through your stamina.

Looking at Huang Kaiwen’s back, Messi let out a sigh.

Never mind technique—why is the gap in stamina this big too?

Seeing the fourth official on the touchline raise the stoppage-time board, Messi finally relaxed a little.

They should be able to protect their aggregate lead until halftime.

Besides,

with Kevin running this much in the first half,

in the second half his stamina shouldn’t be able to support him playing like this again, right?

"Kevin, are you taking the corner?"

Ramos called out.

Huang Kaiwen shook his head and pointed at Rakitic.

Right now the best man on the pitch for it was Rakitic.

Ramos was much more dangerous attacking the ball inside the box.

Busquets went straight to mark Huang Kaiwen.

He scared Huang Kaiwen so much that he simply stepped out of the box.

If Professor Bu was too close to him, Huang Kaiwen couldn’t help feeling a bit wary.

If Professor Bu really pulled some ruthless acting job and got him sent off, the Yellow Ball King would have nowhere to cry about it.

Fortunately Busquets didn’t follow him out of the area, instead picking up Sven Bender.

Barca only had a few strong aerial threats; they had to prioritize marking the most dangerous ones.

Rakitic took his run-up and swung the ball straight toward the back post, because he’d noticed there were fewer defenders there.

The ball was hit quite high, so no one at the near post got a touch.

But the timing of the drop was a bit off, and it fell out toward the side away from goal.

Lars Bender, standing on the flank, was completely stunned when the ball fell to him in the Big Penalty Area.

In a UEFA Champions League semi-final do-or-die match, he’d honestly never imagined he’d be receiving the ball in the box like this.

The next second,

Lars Bender snapped out of it and saw Puyol charging at him like a furious lion.

Without thinking, Bender just swung his right leg through the ball.

Puyol’s sprint speed was too high for him to turn his body; he only managed to twist slightly before Bender’s full-blooded swing thudded straight into his chest.

The ball cannoned off Puyol’s chest and bounced out of the box.

Players from both sides swarmed toward it.

Huang Kaiwen, standing outside the area, reacted very quickly, but the ball had bounced a bit too far and ended up straight at Pedro’s feet.

All three members of Barca’s Trident are quick.

Once Pedro took off, Huang Kaiwen simply couldn’t catch him immediately.

Thiago Silva rushed up in a hurry.

He noticed Pedro kept glancing back at the chasing Huang Kaiwen and wasn’t really watching what was in front of him.

After a few steps Silva slid in; sure enough, Pedro dribbled the ball straight into his leg.

Huang Kaiwen could only look helplessly at the ball; Silva had knocked it too far and he still couldn’t get there.

Luckily Rakitic got to it first, and Huang Kaiwen turned and sprinted back into Barca’s half yet again.

"My word, Huang Kaiwen is doing repeat sprints without even taking a breather."

"Yeah, and still at this speed; no wonder he can run the 100 meters and the 800 as well."

Iniesta lunged at Rakitic, and Rakitic flicked the ball with the outside of his left foot, chipping it to Kaka.

Kaka drove forward down the left.

This time Barca’s attack had broken down, and most of their players had already fallen back.

Even though he was pretty close to the box when he got the ball, Kaka still had a crowd of defenders in front of him.

Kaka showed his peak-level class, hooking the ball with his right foot and pulling off a fried meatballs move.

He slipped past the triple-team successfully.

This time Kaka surged past Busquets with the ball at his feet, and Xavi clipped him on the foot.

A little off balance, Kaka promptly pushed the ball slightly ahead to Huang Kaiwen and himself continued his run into the penalty area.

Busquets charged toward Huang Kaiwen again.

With Mascherano behind him, Huang Kaiwen put his right foot out to stop the ball, then twisted his body sideways to slip past Busquets, opening up a bit of space.

Huang Kaiwen didn’t bother to continue turning; side-on like that, he just flicked his right-foot outside over the top.

Pa—— 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

The ball looped over the heads of Barca’s back line, dropping perfectly into the box.

The weight on that pass was spot on; Kaka didn’t even need to take a touch as he ran onto it, simply raised his left foot and volleyed. Valdes did dive at the first possible moment, but still couldn’t get there, and the ball rolled all the way into the right side of the net.