Chapter 836 - 150: Wondergoal! Advance to the Semifinals! Disruptor Wang Shuo! Bloody Battle at Camp Nou! Classic Goals Brawl!

The Emirates Stadium was always brilliantly illuminated on Champions League matchdays. The clamor, cheers, and roars of sixty thousand fans felt as though they could overturn the entire North London night sky. Inside the stadium, the scarlet Arabic numeral "1" on the 1-0 scoreboard resembled an ancient key, firmly locking down the momentum of the match. And the person tightly gripping that key was the Chinese forward wearing Arsenal’s number nine jersey, Wang Shuo.

Just as the match commentator had described, his opening bicycle kick was a strike worthy of the history books, a guaranteed contender for Goal of the Year. But after that moment of breathtaking brilliance, for the vast majority of the match, Wang Shuo was just like his teammates—running relentlessly, expending every ounce of stamina. He was like a tireless bee, darting through every corner of the pitch, leaving his footprints on every inch of the turf.

"Look at this, Wang Shuo is tracking back again! He successfully intercepted Iniesta’s passing. We’re eighty-one minutes into the match, and he’s still making long-distance sprints to help out on defense. How is this even possible?" the commentator exclaimed.

When Wang Shuo picked himself up from the pitch, his face was speckled with grass clippings, and not a single patch of his jersey remained clean. Yet the moment he found his footing, he immediately launched into a forward sprint. The Gunners were initiating a counterattack! He didn’t even have the luxury of a split second to wipe the sweat from his face.

Right at that moment, a photographer on the sidelines aimed his telephoto lens and captured a profoundly evocative image: Wang Shuo sprinting with gritted teeth, his resolute gaze fixed straight ahead, sweat rolling down his forehead and past the corners of his eyes. It was as if his entire being were ablaze!

Unfortunately, the Gunners’ counterattack failed to materialize into a real threat. After Bar?a intercepted the ball, Arsenal immediately committed to a high press in the attacking half. This was their definitive strategy for the match: pushing the entire formation forward, applying suffocating pressure through the forwards and midfielders, and refusing to let Bar?a transition easily through the midfield.

Wang Shuo’s tireless running and his absolute, reckless commitment to the game infected every player around him. Unbeknownst to many, Arsenal had already made two substitutions, both purely due to excessive physical depletion. And the fresh players who came on naturally fell into step behind Wang Shuo, continuing to charge forward and throw themselves into the relentless press. The entire squad operated like a piece of precision machinery. Every movement felt heavy and taxing, yet it remained highly systematic and brimming with order.

Mascherano was pushing extremely high up the pitch, looking even more like a deep-lying midfielder than Busquets. However, Wang Shuo didn’t fixate on marking the Argentina midfielder. Instead, the moment Busquets prepared to play a forward pass, Wang Shuo lunged at him with the explosive speed of a cheetah. With a borderline-brutal shoulder charge, he forced himself between Busquets and the ball, perfectly shielding it and nearly completing a steal.

But Busquets used his height and long legs to his advantage, just managing to poke the ball backward a split second earlier. Without missing a beat, Wang Shuo immediately pivoted and charged toward Pique, who was moving to receive the pass. He left behind a thoroughly shell-shocked Busquets, who stared after him in disbelief.

"We’re eighty-one minutes in, and he can still run like this?" Busquets thought. "He’s an absolute monster!"

Having already been nearly dispossessed by Wang Shuo twice in this match, Pique didn’t dare take any chances. He immediately booted a long clearance upfield. Bar?a failed to win the aerial duel in the attacking half, and Arsenal comfortably regained possession.

Now they could finally take a breather, right?

The very instant that thought surfaced in the minds of Pique and Busquets, they saw Wang Shuo sprinting back yet again.

"Damn it, is his stamina bottomless?" they wondered in exasperation. "We’ve never seen anyone run like this!"

What was even more outrageous was that Wang Shuo always seemed to be one step ahead, effortlessly reading Bar?a’s passing intentions. Then, relying on his relentless stamina and suffocating pressure, he would completely scramble Bar?a’s passing rhythm. On a good run, he would merely force them to pass backward and reset their offense; at worst—like the sequence just now—he panicked them into hasty long balls, directly resulting in a turnover of possession.

On the sidelines, Guardiola spread his hands in sheer exasperation as he turned to his assistants. "Does he even look like a forward?" he asked. "He’s acting like an absolute nuisance!"

Guardiola’s complaining was merely a surface reflection of his mounting anxiety and unease. As it stood, Bar?a was trailing 1-0. An away deficit of one goal wasn’t a catastrophic result by any means, but it completely contradicted Bar?a’s pre-match tactical deployments. It was arguably even worse than their performance last season. Last season’s trip had ended in a 2-1 defeat, but at least they had secured a crucial away goal. This season, however, they hadn’t even found the back of the net once.

"How long has it been since we penetrated their penalty area?" Guardiola asked, his voice laced with apprehension.

"Seven minutes."

Guardiola closed his eyes and let out a helpless sigh, yet his fists were clenched so tightly that the veins on the back of his hands bulged.

Assistant coach Villanova felt equally powerless. "Wang Shuo’s work rate is just too high. His constant running is actively suffocating our passing. Coupled with the coordinated pressing from the rest of the Arsenal squad, our rhythm has been completely thrown off for the entire match."

Possession? Bar?a currently held a dominant sixty-five percent of the possession, compared to Arsenal’s paltry thirty-five percent. But if one looked purely at effective offensive build-ups, Bar?a truly hadn’t generated many genuine threats.

Their only flashes of danger had come from Messi relying on sheer individual brilliance during his few touches on the ball. The most lethal sequence occurred when Messi suddenly accelerated through the right half-space, carved his way into the right side of the penalty area, and fired a low cross straight across the face of the goal. Unfortunately, Sanchez was a step too slow arriving down the middle and missed a golden opportunity to convert. On another occasion, Messi’s shooting from the left edge of the penalty box was blocked by Subotic, who threw his body in the way.

"Sometimes, I get the feeling he can actually read our passing intentions," Villanova added with a shake of the head. "He always applies pressure at the most critical junctures, causing our entire passing and possession chain to snap."