Genius - Chapter 536: Bernardo Silva, You’ve Still Got a Lot to Learn About Playing Midfield! (Patreon)

Bernardo Silva was doing everything he could to put Leo under pressure.

But the harder he tried, the more it felt as though he wasn’t pressing Leo at all.

It felt like he was compressing a spring.

Bernardo and his teammates were supposed to be working together to pin Leo down, yet as the match went on, the pressure Leo exerted on Manchester City only grew stronger.

At first, Leo hadn’t planned to create chances through the middle.

Salah and Díaz had both been in excellent form lately, so letting them create opportunities out wide was obviously easier than trying to force openings through midfield himself.

But Bernardo Silva and Foden kept coming after him.

Leo was getting annoyed.

Very annoyed.

Guardiola was actually treating him as the Liverpool player who needed to be specifically targeted.

Did that mean Guardiola thought he was easy to bully?

After all these seasons, Guardiola still thinks I’m the easy target?

No chance.

Then I guess I’ll have to prove something today.

With that thought in mind, Leo began his campaign of torment.

And the first player he intended to torment was Foden.

Leo had always been the one assigned to deal with Foden in the past.

Whenever Foden played through the middle, Klopp would put Leo on him because Liverpool’s other players found him extremely difficult to defend.

Foden was an excellent dribbler.

His upper body didn’t look particularly coordinated, and whenever he carried the ball, even his mouth and facial muscles seemed to tense with the effort.

Yet somehow, that awkward-looking method of maintaining balance allowed him to keep the ball under control almost every time.

Mac Allister had already tried to dispossess Foden several times.

He hadn’t succeeded once.

So if Leo wanted Foden to attack him directly, he simply needed to swap positions with Mac Allister.

Mac Allister dropped deeper, leaving the first line of Liverpool’s midfield defense entirely to Leo.

Now, if Foden wanted to advance, he first had to get past Leo.

35th minute!

“Foden carries the ball through the middle. He gets past Gakpo, and that looked fairly comfortable. He keeps going forward, and now Lin is the one defending him.”

After Foden beat him, Gakpo didn’t even bother tracking back.

He had already seen Leo moving across to confront Foden.

That meant Gakpo’s next job was simple.

Wait up front for Leo to win the ball.

Then Leo would naturally pass it forward to him.

Foden drove toward Mac Allister, but Leo had already appeared alongside him.

Leo forcefully stepped across his path, used his physical advantage to establish position, and muscled his way between Foden and the ball.

In an instant, possession was split between them.

Sure enough, Foden’s mouth and face tensed at the same time.

His expression became slightly strained as he desperately stretched out a leg, trying to protect the half of the ball he still controlled.

But Leo applied even more force.

This time, he shut Foden out completely.

After winning possession, Leo played the ball back to Van Dijk.

Van Dijk immediately returned it to him.

That exchange served a purpose.

It allowed Leo to make sure there wasn’t an opponent nearby that he had failed to notice and prevented anyone from suddenly stealing the ball from his blind side.

And when Van Dijk sent it straight back, that meant Leo was safe from Van Dijk’s point of view.

So Leo turned with the ball without hesitation.

Every step of Liverpool’s buildup looked deliberate and professional.

Bernardo Silva chased after Leo while Gündoğan moved across to help.

With Gündoğan supporting him, Bernardo could run more freely and aggressively.

For a moment, he actually managed to stay tight to Leo even while Leo was moving without the ball.

Leo began using his shoulder to carve out space.

It wasn’t a normal running motion.

With every stride, Leo pushed his shoulder forward, almost using it to clear a path in front of him.

Bernardo kept getting driven backward by Leo’s shoulder, then had to force himself forward again.

Caught in that constant physical battle, Bernardo’s stamina began draining rapidly.

What had initially been an easy run gradually turned into a struggle.

Only then did Leo accelerate again.

Bernardo Silva was left behind.

Steffen was completely focused.

Before the match, Ederson had given him one piece of advice.

The moment Leo carried the ball into an area that felt dangerous, Steffen had to be ready to make a save.

That was because, according to Ederson, Leo had no real shooting range.

If you were a goalkeeper standing in front of the net and Leo’s movement gave you even the slightest sense of danger, you needed to be ready to react immediately.

After beating Bernardo Silva, Leo first glanced toward Steffen.

He saw that the goalkeeper was fully prepared.

So Leo didn’t shoot.

Instead, he suddenly slowed down and took control of the tempo.

After two controlled touches, Leo accelerated again, shook off Gündoğan, and played the ball out to Salah.

Salah drove down the right toward Zinchenko.

He threw in a stepover, pushed toward the byline, then suddenly cut inside and burst into Manchester City’s penalty area.

Zinchenko offered almost no resistance against him.

At that moment, Leo made another run into the box.

Stones had no choice but to move toward Leo.

Salah immediately seized the opening and shot!

Steffen hadn’t expected Salah to squeeze a shot so close to the post from that angle.

He threw himself toward the near post, but he wasn’t quick enough.

Steffen failed to protect the near corner.

Salah scored!

“What a goal from Salah!”

“That’s Salah’s quality!”

“That’s exactly what he loves doing from the right!”

“If Manchester City leave Zinchenko to defend him, they’re going to have an extremely difficult time stopping him!”

“Lin’s drive through the middle pulled Stones away and gave Salah the opening. That’s what a midfielder is supposed to do!”

“When your team needs someone to organize the attack, you have to step up and help break through midfield. And when your teammate needs space, you have to make that run into the penalty area and create it for him!”

Guardiola could only sigh on the touchline.

His original plan had been to dominate midfield and stop Liverpool from attacking on their own terms early in the match.

Instead, Leo had powered straight through Bernardo Silva in the middle before dragging Stones out of position and helping Salah score.

Guardiola suddenly called Bernardo Silva over.

He said a few words to him, and Bernardo quickly returned to the pitch as play resumed.

Manchester City’s midfield continued trying to contain Leo.

It was difficult, but that was the manager’s tactical instruction.

After taking the lead, Liverpool began giving City a taste of their own medicine.

Leo started pressing in midfield too, joining Mac Allister in shutting down Gündoğan.

Bernardo Silva began carrying the ball more often for Manchester City.

With Gündoğan being contained, Bernardo spent plenty of time in possession but struggled to create anything dangerous.

Forward passing wasn’t Bernardo’s greatest strength.

He was much more comfortable carrying the ball and then giving it to a teammate.

As a result, Manchester City’s midfield lost its main passing outlet.

Grealish and Jesus kept making runs in the final third, but most of those runs went unrewarded because the ball never reached them.

Manchester City’s supporters knew their team would have a very difficult time equalizing before halftime.

“This is the FA Cup final. Manchester City cannot keep playing like this, or Liverpool are going to lift their second trophy of the season!”

“I genuinely think every player in the world who wants to play midfield should watch how Lin does it!”

“What makes Lin so special is that the way he plays midfield is completely different from the midfielders who came before him. He didn’t copy anyone else. He used his own abilities to create his own style in midfield!”

“If you combined Gündoğan’s passing with Bernardo Silva’s ball carrying, added Fernandinho’s defending from the bench, then threw in some of Foden’s dribbling and through balls, you’d probably end up with an incredible midfielder!”

Leo had assumed Bernardo Silva had received some new tactical instruction from Guardiola when the manager called him over.

But City’s tactics hadn’t changed.

Neither had Bernardo’s role.

Leo could still force his way past Bernardo Silva in midfield.

Mac Allister could still keep Gündoğan under control.

Only a few minutes remained in the first half of the FA Cup final.

And for Manchester City’s players and supporters, those minutes were incredibly frustrating.

Liverpool kept moving the ball out, winning it back, then immediately sending it forward again.

Little by little, they drained the remaining time from the half.

Salah was enjoying himself.

So was Díaz.

Both of them kept receiving passes from Leo, and Leo kept encouraging them to take defenders on directly.

Gakpo, meanwhile, still hadn’t found the right position or moment to make an impact through the middle.

Salah made one final attempt to break through, but Aké came across to cover and knocked the ball out for a throw-in.

The first half came to an end.

Aké was exhausted.

He barely felt like a center back anymore.

He had effectively become a second left back because Zinchenko simply couldn’t contain Salah.

Guardiola had originally wanted Zinchenko to help Stones circulate possession and, ideally, move into midfield to support Gündoğan.

But with Leo controlling the middle, Manchester City could never find an opening there.

Zinchenko didn’t dare step into midfield to support Gündoğan because Leo had the ball.

At any moment, Leo could release Salah down the right.

So Zinchenko had to stay in his left-back position and remain constantly prepared to defend Salah.

And precisely because Zinchenko was forced to stay there, Leo was able to keep helping Salah attack him.

Steffen was even more nervous.

At times, he unconsciously shifted slightly toward the left side of his goal just to guard against another Salah shot.

After the first half ended, Leo suddenly caught up with Bernardo Silva.

There was something he genuinely wanted to know.

“Bernardo, Guardiola suddenly called you over during the first half. What did he tell you?”

“Your tactics didn’t change at all.”

Bernardo Silva lowered his voice.

“Guardiola didn’t talk to me about tactics.”

“He told me to watch how you play midfield and not waste the chance to stay right beside you and learn from it.”