Seven Crowns

The two German Cup semi-finals are divided into two days, on March 19 and March 20, respectively, the first is the semi-final against Jena at home in Hoffenheim.

Although it was a matchup between two unexpected Bundesliga teams, it was the semi-final of the German Cup after all, and there were no other matches in the same period.

Therefore, German sports television broadcast the semi-final of Hoffenheim VS Jena to the whole country.

At 20:30 on the evening of March 19th, the first match of Hoffenheim VS Jena in the 2007/2008 German FA Cup semi-final was officially started at Hoffenheim's home stadium, Dietmar Hopp.

Because this game is a decisive cup game, not a league, but the venue is chosen as the home court of Hoffenheim, in fact, there is no distinction between home and away games.

Therefore, a total of more than 6,000 seats in the Hope Stadium were forcibly allocated 1,000 seats by the Football Association to the fans of Jena, so that the players of Jena would not be too lonely in the away game.

Jena fans also know that the team is likely to be relegated from the Bundesliga to the Bundesliga after the end of this season, and the German Cup has become the only honor they can fight for.

If they can get past Hoffenheim and reach the final against Bayern Munich, they will really be able to participate in the UEFA Cup next season as a Bundesliga team.

Therefore, a lot of fans from Jena came and filled all the 1,000 seats, and there were still many people outside.

Some Jena fans also bought loose tickets at high prices to enter the stadium to cheer for the Jena team.

The players in Jena were also quite excited.

This season, they do have this tradition. The players lose their temper when they play in the league, and they are excited when they play in the cup.

Therefore, they can eliminate the Bundesliga team Nuremberg in the 1/16 final, they can eliminate the Bundesliga team Bielefeld in the 1/8 final, and they continue to eliminate the Bundesliga team Stuttgart in the last 1/4 final.

In this game, the Jena team was not afraid to face Hoffenheim, a Bundesliga team of the same level on the surface.

Of course, fearlessness is only psychological, and their coach is not going to play against Hoffenheim.

In the face of Hoffenheim, who can fill Dortmund's four goals at the Westfalenstadion, Jena's head coach is crazy to press out and play against Hoffenheim.

Their tactics are defensive counterattacks, focusing on scoring goals on the field, and Lu Wenbin has recently become the most famous striker in the Bundesliga.

In the 5th minute, Lu Wenbin received a pass from Salihovic in the penalty area and almost shot.

However, before Lu Wenbin lifted his foot, the Jena No. 6 defender Gordon, who was next to Lu Wenbin, fell to the ground with a shovel, accurately shoved the ball out, and was cleared by another defender.

Lu Wenbin took a bye, lost his center of gravity and fell to the ground.

Ibisevic, Salihovic, Eduardo and others rushed up immediately, scolding Gordon and yelling to the referee that it was a penalty kick. Gordon fouled Lu Wenbin in the penalty area.

However, the observant referee shook his head and let Lu Wenbin get up, indicating that Gordon's tackle was a beautiful defense, and there was no foul, let alone a penalty.

Even in the home court of Hoffenheim, the referee could not arbitrarily award penalties, not to mention the most controversial penalty.

Lu Wenbin got up, shook his head at Salihovic and others, motioned to stop pestering the referee, they didn't make a mistake, he was not knocked down by Gordon.

In fact, Salihovic and others don't know if Gordon has fouled the ball. They just habitually put pressure on the referee and want to favor their own penalty.

Seeing that Lu Wenbin himself got up to indicate that the opponent did not commit a foul, Salihovic and others had no position to continue shouting for penalty kicks.

They all retreated.

The game continued, and Hoffenheim, who ranked second in the Bundesliga, was almost pressing the second-to-last Jena in the standings.

Jena is indeed weak, and their road to promotion in the German Cup actually has a lot of luck.

The 1/16 finals, 1/8 finals, and 1/4 finals Jena all used defensive counterattacks to drag the three Bundesliga teams into overtime, and the 1/16 finals and 1/4 finals even dragged Nuremberg and Stuttgart into In the penalty shootout, the final penalty shootout was won by luck and was able to advance.

As long as the opponent scored one more goal in 90 minutes in three games, Jena was already eliminated.

However, luck was on Jena's side, allowing them to survive on the counter-attack in all three games.

Therefore, in this semi-final, they naturally played their own defensive counterattacks firmly, hoping to drag the game into a penalty shootout to eliminate Hoffenheim again.

Although Lu Wenbin scored on the field, they were not afraid. They believed that they could stop Lu Wenbin's goal by sending people close-up and regional assistance.

What's more, even if they lost the ball, they didn't completely defend, and they didn't have any counter-attack ability. They didn't keep the 0-0 score in overtime and penalty kicks in the previous games.

No, Lu Wenbin's shot in the opening 5 minutes was destroyed by Gordon, which was regarded as a successful defense by the Jena players, which greatly increased their confidence in winning the semi-final.

However, the next game trend made them understand why Hoffenheim has won nine consecutive victories in all competitions after the winter break. Lu Wenbin can score every game and can also score a hat-trick at the Westfalen Stadium. Add an assist.

In the 14th minute, Lu Wenbin received the ball from Obasi after breaking through from the wing outside the penalty area.

At this time, Lu Wenbin was outside the penalty area, and Jena's defenders focused on preventing Lu Wenbin from breaking through into the penalty area. They did not expect that Lu Wenbin would suddenly shoot from outside the penalty area.

But Lu Wenbin did just that.

After he made a breakthrough fake, the Jena defender in front of him took a step back. Lu Wenbin suddenly flicked the ball to the right, avoided an angle and immediately kicked the goal with his right foot.

The ball had no run-up, little power, and slow speed. Jena's goalkeeper, Izikir, was able to react after seeing the ball.

However, the angle of Lu Wenbin's kick was too tricky, and Lu Wenbin aimed at the upper right corner of the goal.

With Lu Wenbin's 20/20 shooting attributes and no interference, the error is basically small.

Although Ezekiel, who was in the air, stretched out his arm and tried to swipe the ball out, the ball was really a dead end: the ball flew over the tip of Ezekiel's finger, and hit the crossbar in the upper right corner. The dead end of the column drilled into the goal.

This is a true theoretical dead-end shot.

Ezekiel saw the path of the ball, and he didn't need to be blinded. He also had time to run and save, but he just couldn't reach it.