Fans who had originally thought the team could ride their winning streak were once again disappointed!
In the subsequent League Cup second-round match, Cambridge United lost cleanly 0:4 at Turf Moor, once again stopping at the League Cup second round!
This time, Huang Hao did not continue to tolerate the players. In the locker room after the match, the players were met with a scathing reprimand! After all, in the technical statistics, Cambridge United had more shots and higher possession than their opponent, yet they lost so thoroughly! This was the reason Huang Hao was most furious!
The Cambridge United players, with nowhere to vent their anger, then faced Leyton Orient at home. Head Coach Mark Taylor never expected that he would run straight into their crosshairs!
Leyton Orient narrowly avoided relegation last season, finishing third from the bottom. Unexpectedly, this season they had a fantastic start with 5 wins and 1 draw. Facing the League One newcomer Cambridge United, Leyton Orient was full of confidence.
It was another rainy day in London, and such weather always adds a layer of uncertainty to a match. Huang Hao stood by the sideline, and the rain quickly soaked him. After becoming Head Coach, he had grown accustomed to this free shower.
The team's current form was inconsistent, and Cambridge United had to find a winning formula!
In the 10th minute of the match, Cambridge United earned a free kick on the right side of the penalty area.
Grove lofted the ball to the far post in the penalty area, where Suxi, having positioned himself well, overpowered a Leyton Orient defender and headed the ball into the net!
0:1!!
Cambridge United, playing away, broke the deadlock first.
After conceding, Leyton Orient launched a furious counterattack, and Cambridge United was not to be outdone, with both sides playing attacking football. The rain grew heavier, and both sides made more and more mistakes, with the first half quietly ending amidst their errors.
In the second half, both teams switched sides and resumed play. In the 51st minute, Grove's corner kick was successfully headed out of the penalty area, landing right at the feet of Leyton Orient midfielder Sweeney! At this time, Cambridge United's backline had only two defenders!
So, players from both sides sprinted towards Cambridge United's half! In Cambridge United's attacking third, a 4-on-4 situation quickly formed!
Cambridge United, hastily defending, failed to intercept Moncur's cross, and Boating easily scored from the center! 1:1!
Mark Taylor and his players celebrated wildly in the heavy rain! Huang Hao wasn't overly angry; instead, he extended his hands to his players and pressed them down, signaling them to calm down and control the pace of the match.
Similarly, Cambridge United fans did not give up cheering for their players despite conceding! In the heavy rain, you could still clearly hear the singing from the stands. The fans in the stands seemed to never tire, and such singing often continued throughout the entire match!
The fans' persistence was quickly rewarded!
In the 56th minute, Vardy, roaming outside the opponent's penalty area, once again received a pass from Grove. Vardy lightly flicked the ball, evading the pressing Hall, then took a touch forward, arriving near the penalty spot in two steps!
Vardy immediately swung his right foot, powerfully shooting the ball towards Leyton Orient's goal!
In the heavy rain, the moment the ball was struck, a splash of water erupted! Then it flew rapidly towards the goal!
Goalkeeper Sarjo hadn't even wiped the rain from his eyes before he saw the ball shoot directly into the top right corner of the goal! Cambridge United led again 2:1!!!
After the 2:1 score, both teams seemed to have pressed a pause button, or perhaps followed a script. Both sides engaged in a very tacit struggle in midfield, but with few shots on goal.
As time passed, both sets of fans thought the match would end as it was,
In the 84th minute, Sterri took a throw-in from the right sideline in midfield to Clark, and then the two played a clever one-two, breaking free from the wide defense.
Sterri looked up towards the penalty area. Vardy, Bennett, and Lewandowski were positioned at the edge of the box! So, Sterri decisively struck the ball, passing it into the penalty area!
By the time Pascanu noticed Vardy behind him, he had already been left a full body length behind! For a striker, that kind of space was more than enough!
After receiving the ball, Vardy burst forward at high speed, quickly advancing to the right side of the six-yard box. Facing Bennett and Lewandowski, who were marked, Vardy showed no mercy, cleverly chipping the ball with his toe towards the near post!
Facing a shot from such close range, Sarjo was helpless! He could only wave his hands, expressing his dissatisfaction to his defending teammates!
3:1!!!
In the 86th minute, after Leyton Orient kicked off, they quickly brought the action to the edge of Cambridge United's penalty area.
Boating received the ball with his back to goal about 5 meters from the top of the arc, and MacKenzie immediately alertly stuck close to him!
Boating, with no space to turn, immediately passed the ball to Moncur on the left side of the penalty area!
Sterri did not apply tight marking but maintained a distance of about 1 meter from Moncur to prevent him from making a strong breakthrough.
However, what Sterri never expected was that Moncur, after receiving the ball, half-turned on the spot and immediately unleashed a lobbed shot!!! A long-range shot of a full 25 yards (about 22 meters)!!! The heavy rain interfered with the goalkeeper's vision! By the time Pantilimon saw the ball and made a diving save, the ball had already slipped past his fingertips and into Cambridge United's goal! 2:3!
Undefeated Leyton Orient could not accept the result of defeat and launched wave after wave of attacks on Cambridge United's goal in the final few minutes of the match.
In the 90th minute, it was Leyton Orient's goal kick. Sarjo instructed his teammates to push forward, then launched a long kick to the center circle, but the one who received the ball, leaping high, was Adam May!
May headed the ball in mid-air to Lewandowski. Lewandowski, without waiting for the ball to land, directly blocked it forward to Vardy, who was nearby!
Vardy lightly flicked the ball, directly transferring it to the wing, where the surging left midfielder Bennett was!
Bennett broke through to the byline and directly lofted the ball into the penalty area!
Goalkeeper Sarjo watched the incoming ball while retreating. When he jumped to punch the ball away, he didn't see defender Jones beside him!
So, Sarjo in the air directly collided with Jones, falling inside the penalty area!
Lewandowski had no mind to care if Sarjo was injured; he gently headed the ball into the net! 4:2!
After scoring, Lewandowski ran all the way to the stands behind the goal, dedicating the goal to the fans who had always supported them! The fans loudly chanted Lewandowski's name, expressing their love!
In the 94th minute, Leyton Orient still had not given up on their idea of getting points, and in another attack, they almost threw everyone forward!
Martina quickly broke through to the right byline of Cambridge United's penalty area and, before Bola could close him down, lofted the ball into the box!
Young Suxi leaped high and headed the ball out! Crushing Leyton Orient's hope of scoring! The flying ball slowly stopped rolling near midfield, but the referee did not blow the final whistle!
Tadić took the lead, running desperately towards the ball! Leyton Orient's players awoke as if from a dream! They sprinted back to their own half!
As the ball approached goalkeeper Sarjo from the air, Leyton Orient had only two players remaining in their own half!
And Cambridge United also had two attacking players, Lewandowski and Vardy!
The speed of defenders, apart from the likes of Marcelo, can probably never compare to that of strikers, and this scene was vividly playing out on the field!
When Lewandowski and Vardy ran towards the goal, they were a full two body lengths ahead of the defenders!
Lewandowski successfully caught up with the ball, while also attracting the defense of Leyton Orient's two defenders! Although he had a one-on-one opportunity, Lewandowski unselfishly passed the ball to Vardy, who had a better chance in the center of the penalty area!!!
Vardy did not disappoint the Pole's good intentions, calmly kicking the ball into Leyton Orient's goal!
5:2!!!
Hat-trick!!!
The next day, Cambridge United's media, in describing the team's 5:2 rout of Leyton Orient, used large bold letters to write a prominent headline: "Steel Lad Dominates, Scores a Hat-trick!!!"
Cambridge United, after defeating Leyton Orient 5:2, was like a wandering hero who had opened his Ren and Du meridians, with offense and defense blending seamlessly and flowing like water, beginning to dominate the League One stage!
Three days later, Cambridge United, as the defending champions, once again faced the challenge of the EFL Trophy.
And with the League having only started for less than 3 months, Cambridge United's financial revenue had already reached 2.5 million pounds!
When Ouyang Bing came in with her cheeks flushed from excitement to tell Huang Hao this news, Huang Hao was also shocked!
This season, Cambridge United's season tickets sold 3,000 copies, bringing in over 1 million pounds in revenue, which was 2.5 times last year's!
In just seven or eight matches, the team's single-match ticket revenue alone reached 300,000 pounds! This doesn't even include revenue from hot dogs, beer, and other items.
Moreover, advertising boards around the stadium were also hard to come by, with bookings already extending to Labor Day, and the charge for a single board even reached 1,500 pounds. One must know that in League Two, selling for 500 would have been a blessing.
Indeed, different statuses lead to different values, just like that donkey bag, which sells for 10,000 in the beautiful country, but starts at 20,000 when it comes to the Eastern Dragon.
After Ouyang Bing skillfully reported the team's financial data, she quickly told Huang Hao another exciting piece of good news.
If the team could maintain its current form, then Cambridge United was very likely to pay off most of its debts by the end of this season!
Huang Hao stared at Ouyang Bing, and soon fell into a fantasy of which defensive superstar to buy with the first transfer fee in the future.
It wasn't until Ouyang Bing's face flushed red, and she called Huang Hao's name with a hint of anger, that he realized his impolite behavior.
"Sorry, sorry, I zoned out. I was just thinking about something!"
Huang Hao quickly averted his gaze and apologized to Ouyang Bing, who also quickly reverted to her ice beauty image and haughtily left the office.
Since money was no longer an issue, Huang Hao did not overly concern himself with the somewhat redundant EFL Trophy, continuing to let substitutes play to gain experience and narrow the gap with the main squad.
If he were bolder, pushing for promotion to the EFL Championship this season would bring tens of millions in broadcasting revenue, rising advertising fees, membership fees... Tsk tsk, just thinking about it made Huang Hao's mouth water!
Thus, Chesterfield's Head Coach saw the equally unfamiliar Cambridge United substitutes at Soter Gate Stadium.
But that didn't mean that substitutes playing meant losing the match! After all, there was still the terrifying Lewandowski!
Owen, who had transferred from Southampton to Cambridge United two years ago, inherited the names of two world-class footballers, and performed exceptionally well in defense, making Chesterfield's several attacks all fruitless!
This young player was trying to tell Southampton with his excellent performance what a foolish decision it was to let him go! He was also trying to tell Cambridge United Head Coach Huang Hao that even though he was in the reserve team, he was no worse than the first team.
Ultimately, Cambridge United defeated Chesterfield 2:0, taking all three points!
When Cambridge United's home match against Carlisle United was about to begin, Cambridge United fans, accustomed to buying tickets at the venue, were dumbfounded!
The ticket window had already closed, and a "Tickets Sold Out" sign hung there!
Cambridge United fans had forgotten how long it had been since Abbey Stadium was completely full, so much so that they had developed the habit of buying tickets at the venue!
This was the first time Huang Hao had seen Abbey Stadium completely full! The stands were entirely yellow, with only a touch of blue in the southeast corner, which meant that Carlisle United fans had brought a maximum of 300 people!
Referee Haynes blew the whistle to start the match precisely at 3 PM, as Cambridge United launched its bid for a third consecutive win!