CRASH!
The Stade Pierre-Mauroy erupted in noise. The Lille fans watching this scene were all somewhat stunned.
It was mainly Julien's series of moves that exceeded their imagination.
However, many Lille fans shook their heads helplessly in the stands, saying, "Actually, if you've watched Julien's performances with the national team, you'd know these are just his basic operations."
In these Lille fans' eyes, it wasn't Bastia who was strong, it was just Julien.
Hadzibegic laughed heartily, applauding Julien.
He really practiced it!
It must be said, Julien's progress was remarkably fast. Previously, in Hadzibegic's eyes, Julien's right foot was only useful when he was dribbling.
Some teams had even specifically targeted Julien, preventing him from using his left foot to handle the ball and forcing him to pass and shoot with his right foot.
That had been a minor slump for Julien.
Subsequently, before the coaching staff had even proposed a training plan, Julien began extra practice with De Bruyne on his weaker foot.
After a month or two, although Julien's current weak foot ability wasn't particularly strong and still lacked exceptionally exquisite passes, in situations like just now, this sudden strike was sufficient!
More importantly, Hadzibegic could already imagine that when other teams faced Julien in the future, they probably wouldn't dare to completely give him space on his right foot.
As Hadzibegic turned to celebrate with his assistant coaches, he said, "What a diligent, good kid."
The assistant coaches all understood what Hadzibegic meant.
After all, they had all witnessed Julien's daily life.
After scoring, Julien immediately rushed out of the pitch. He didn't celebrate in front of the Lille fans, but instead opened his arms toward the camera.
His signature goal celebration: this was a gift for the Bastia fans watching the broadcast!
They couldn't make it to the stadium, but they needed to share in the joy of the goal!
Then De Bruyne and the others rushed up to embrace Julien. Lukaku even shouted at the broadcast camera, "BASTIA! BASTIA!"
This atmosphere was transmitted through the cameras to every screen in Bastia showing the broadcast.
It made the people of Bastia shout together from different places.
"JULIEN!!"
"JULIEN!!!"
At Bastia's training base, Tavenot also shouted with all his might.
This left Emiliano beside him with an awkward smile on his face, he still couldn't quite let loose enough to join in the shouting.
Unlike what the media reported, Emiliano had actually arrived in Bastia yesterday.
He'd just traveled in secret.
The person responsible for showing him around Bastia was Tavenot, standing right in front of him.
The former coach of Bastia's second team. He no longer coached the second team now.
The reason was simple: for discovering Julien's talent and decisively promoting him, the club had elevated him to the youth academy management:
Deputy director.
In terms of youth development, his authority was basically only below Chataigner's.
This was an enormous promotion, to say the least.
So, when he saw Julien score, Tavenot was extremely excited.
After calming down, he said to Emiliano, "You know what? Julien is about to become the Golden Boy Award winner at the end of the month. This is Bastia's first Golden Boy Award. We've never had this kind of European-level individual player honor here. Julien is the first."
Emiliano smiled. He was already somewhat eager to meet Julien.
He'd heard this name for far too long. And he'd watched many of Julien's matches.
Tavenot had even taken him to Bastia's museum, where Julien's jerseys and boots were on display.
There was also Julien's handwritten message: "FORZA BASTIA!"
So, Martinez was already anticipating meeting Julien.
And anticipating fighting alongside him.
At least from the match, you could see that Julien's individual ability was truly strong. The first part of this match had been purely Julien's personal show.
Emiliano had attended many Arsenal Premier League matches live with the team.
The only player who gave Emiliano this kind of feeling was Hazard, who had just joined Chelsea this season.
But even Hazard, wasn't he defeated by Julien last season?
So, Emiliano could hardly imagine: if Hazard, who lost to Julien, could wreak havoc in the Premier League, then wouldn't Julien absolutely take off in the Premier League?!
Stade Pierre-Mauroy
Bastia's celebration quickly ended. After Lille kicked off, the players swiftly dropped back to defend.
Lille fell into positional warfare. In the grinding battle, they struggled to find Bastia's weaknesses.
This frustrated the die-hard Lille fans, who cursed directly: "This Bastia is too damn defensive! They're so strong, yet they play like this. It's sooooo annoying!"
Not only were the fans annoyed, the players on the field were too.
In football, if there's any tactic everyone doesn't want to see, it's probably parking the bus.
But precisely because parking the bus is so cost-effective, weaker teams have mastered it completely.
Against stronger teams, it's all kinds of minor fouls, disrupting the rhythm of the match, wasting time, then looking for chances to counterattack to see if they can steal one.
That would be one thing. But the problem was that what frustrated the Lille players was that Bastia wasn't weak!
This was somewhat dishonorable. Moreover, after experiencing Bastia's front-line counterattack speed, they didn't dare push their formation up too aggressively.
The whole thing felt very awkward.
They wanted to besiege with possession but didn't dare commit large numbers of attacking forces.
Without numerous attacking players making runs, plus Martin being stuck to by Kanté and unable to pass, their attack had absolutely no threat.
In short, it was very uncomfortable to play.
They were uncomfortable, but Bastia was in their zone. The back line had grown accustomed to high-pressure defense, while the front-line players just waited to counterattack.
Every mistake Lille made basically turned into a Bastia counterattack, startling the home fans.
Fortunately, Bastia couldn't capitalize on every opportunity.
But Julien's several touches left a deep impression on them.
It reminded the Lille fans of Hazard.
Hazard and Julien had many similarities: both excelled at technical skills with the ball, both had very strong ability to break free in tight spaces, and both had quick footwork.
However, Hazard wasn't particularly tall. For Julien, at nearly 1.82 meters, to be able to do what Hazard did was somewhat shocking.
After watching Julien cut inside past Digne once again and curl a shot that grazed the post and went out for a goal kick, the TF1 commentator said, "The attacking efficiency is on completely different levels. Lille's attack is too slow, always dragging things out. The way they play, it's even more comfortable for Bastia to park the bus.
On the contrary, Bastia's counterattacks are executed with flair. Watching these twenty-plus minutes, my feeling is that Bastia clearly knows what they want to do, while everyone at Lille doesn't know: they're completely passive, following Bastia's rhythm."
On the sideline, Garcia watched somewhat anxiously.
It was true that Lille's formation had undergone major changes, but for them to play like this was completely beyond what he'd imagined.
He kept directing from the sideline.
"Pass to Balmont!"
When Nolan Roux dropped back to receive the ball, Garcia shouted.
Nolan Roux had wanted to pass forward to Gianni Bruno's feet, but hearing Garcia's voice, he still pulled the ball back and passed horizontally to Balmont in the center.
However,...
Just as Balmont was in space before he passed, the moment he made the pass, Kanté was on him!
Kanté had predicted their passing lane!
With a burst of acceleration, he completed the interception.
'Huh?'
The Lille fans were somewhat bewildered, wasn't this just giving the ball to the opponent?
After winning the ball, Kanté didn't push forward but immediately passed to De Bruyne.
The latter received and played a long ball, passing to Julien's feet.
Bastia's midfield passing didn't waste any time at all, everything served the speed of the counterattack.
Julien chest-trapped the ball, and as it dropped to his feet, he smoothly pushed it forward, using explosive speed to eat Digne alive on the wing!
Mavuba wanted to help defend but couldn't keep up.
Digne used all his strength to barely stay with Julien, not getting completely shaken off.
Then, as he and Julien were about to rush near the right edge of the penalty area, Julien accelerated a second time!
'Huh?'
He could still sprint?!
Digne was stunned. He already felt his thighs at maximum load, he wanted to sprint but couldn't.
He could only watch as Julien gradually pulled away from him. Digne gritted his teeth and followed.
After shaking free, Julien immediately tried to cut inside.
Goalkeeper Landreau immediately came out to block Julien's shooting angle.
BANG!
The moment he came out, Julien flicked the ball with the outside of his left foot, catching everyone by surprise, it was a cutback pass!
Lukaku, charging forward from the center, and the defending Chedjou were basically both at their limit. Lukaku had no technique, facing the incoming ball, he threw his whole body at it.
Man, and ball together crashed into the net!
Lukaku and Chedjou slid into the goal, the two of them tangled together.
When Lukaku saw the ball right beside him, he immediately wanted to get up to celebrate, but because their legs were knotted together, he tripped again.
But this didn't matter at all. Lukaku had no mind to get entangled. He freed his foot, got up, and immediately looked for Julien, his face was full of smiles as he said. "Perfect pass!!"
The two hugged each other while Julien patted his head. "Congratulations, you're now solely in second place on the scoring chart."
Lukaku grinned in satisfaction. He was now basically averaging a goal per game. Previously, he and Ibrahimović both had 11 goals, tied for second in the Ligue 1 scoring chart.
Now with 12 goals, he'd surpassed Ibrahimović.
As for surpassing Julien, Lukaku knew he didn't have that ability as Julien had scored nine more goals than him!
The other teammates also rushed up to celebrate together.
The 0-2 scoreline put them much more at ease.
Garcia saw Bastia score and slapped his hand, cursing. His heart was extremely agitated.
Next to him, Hadzibegic continued to celebrate wildly with the assistant coaches.
Behind the Bastia bench in the stands, Chataigner, excited but thinking of the text message he'd just received on his phone, made a decision. He took out his phone and edited a text: "No problem, we can meet your needs."
The moment he relaxed, Chataigner's mood lightened considerably.
Looking at Julien's figure among the crowd, Chataigner wondered: this year was about to end, and when time entered 2013, what other miracles could Julien bring to Bastia?
The Ligue 1 championship?
The Europa League?
Similarly, he was also thinking about Julien's transfer. Julien had said that when the winter window ended, he would officially start thinking about transfers.
He didn't know what level Julien's transfer fee would ultimately reach.
But no matter how much, one thing was certain: Julien's transfer fee would break Bastia's club record.
It might even break the Ligue 1 transfer fee record.
Amid the Lille fans shaking their heads, the match continued.
The Lille players were somewhat anxious, causing their attack to become even more chaotic.
Nolan Roux came up and launched a sky-high shot.
This kind of play actually really hurts morale. Payet, who had made a run into space, spread his hands in front of him, gesturing: you're not even going to pass?
Nolan Roux just raised his hand in apology, then walked back with his head down.
Bastia's side became increasingly composed.
They played out, not rushing to attack. When Lille pressed, De Bruyne quickly played a long ball, finding the front three of the "DDL" combination.
Lukaku remained lightning-fast, leaving his defenders Chedjou and Basa quite embarrassed.
However, once he fell into positional warfare, he didn't perform particularly well either, and had to pass the ball to Julien.
And this time, as Julien broke through, Digne stepped on Julien's ankle.
"Ahh!"
Julien fell to the ground. The referee showed no mercy in giving Digne a yellow card. Rothen came up to protest: "This is a straight red action, there was a stamp! He had no chance of getting the ball at all."
The referee stuck with his decision. Rothen and the others seemed quite angry.
The team doctor quickly entered the field to check on Julien's condition. Fortunately, Julien wasn't seriously hurt.
After the doctor made a gesture to Hadzibegic indicating no problem, Hadzibegic's heart finally settled.
Just now when Julien went down, it really made him panic a bit.
He hadn't forgotten that Julien was injury-prone!
Hadzibegic made up his mind: 'Need to control his playing time.'
Actually, Julien himself didn't think much of it. This was the benefit of having the hidden injury attribute, almost not worrying about getting minorly hurt. The more he got injured, the stronger he became!
Soon, on the field, De Bruyne took the free kick. Lukaku's header missed, and Lille finally had a decent counterattack opportunity.
But this counterattack came to an abrupt halt after Kanté made a precise sliding tackle.
This infuriated Garcia, who cursed directly. Looking at Kanté, he couldn't help thinking: What the hell kind of monsters does this Bastia have?!
Soon, when the first-half stoppage time ended, the referee blew the whistle for halftime.
Bastia returned to the locker room with a two-goal lead.
During the break, the first thing Hadzibegic did was find Julien and tell him, "In the second half, you have ten more minutes, then you must come off to rest. Compared to the result of this match, I hope more that you stay healthy. That moment just now really scared me."
Seeing Hadzibegic's worried expression, Julien smiled and nodded. "I'm fine, I'll follow your arrangements."
Hadzibegic also smiled, patting his shoulder. "I wish everyone was as reassuring as you."
The reason he explained to Julien was because some team core players, if they weren't satisfied with their playing time, would really show their displeasure.
A few years ago, he'd even heard that when Guardiola first coached the first team, someone went on a training strike.
It was only after club president Laporta went to coax them back and demanded Guardiola give sufficient playing time that the matter passed.
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