In the early hours of Wednesday morning (10th), in an EFL Cup quarter-final first leg match, Middlesbrough, a Championship side, brought a huge surprise to the tournament by defeating top Premier League giants Chelsea by a score of 1-0 at home. Despite Chelsea's dominance in the match, their grasp on goal was abysmal. Playing the role of "False 9", Golpenma shot the ball high from only 5 yards away from the goal, which was an eye-opening scene, and the team can only hope that they will return to the home field in the next round to seek a comeback.
Chelsea has been lacking a reliable striker for a long time, which has led to a lot of wasted scoring chances in previous matches. For this match, coach Putjetino boldly pushed midfielder Galpenma into the "false 9" position, expecting the 21-year-old star to capitalize on his chances. However, it was not to be. Chelsea took 18 shots on goal, 12 more than their opponents, but only 5 were on target.
In contrast, Middlesbrough broke the deadlock with an efficient counter-attack in the 37th minute of the match with a goal from 21-year-old wing Hayden Chagney, despite having two players leave the field with injuries in the first 20 minutes and having a poor ball possession of only 28%.
Towards the end of the first half, Chelsea had a great chance when Middlesbrough goalkeeper Tang Gohua's missed save gave Galpenma a chance to shoot five yards from goal, but he surprisingly shot the ball high, a scene reminiscent of the century's empty net goal that Chelsea shot-stopper Ferandu Tolis missed back in the day. Chelsea stepped up their attack but with little success and eventually lost 0-1, blowing 5.3 times the home win.
After the match, Chelsea manager Pudjetino admitted that his team made too many mistakes and expressed his disappointment and frustration with his team's lack of composure in front of goal: "We are very disappointed and frustrated because we were punished for our mistakes, and it's very difficult to get an equalizer after conceding a goal. We actually created a lot of chances, but the players were not calm enough in front of goal. Now we will think about next week's Premier League match against Fulham before preparing for the second leg."
