The Godfather of Greenery

Chapter 698

Tottenham Hotspur, Barcelona, ​​Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Marseille, Benfica, APOEL, these are the teams that have emerged from the Champions League round of [-] knockout rounds this season.

From the point of view of strength, even if APOEL beat Lyon in the round of [-], they are still the weakest team among the eight teams, because Lyon has long since lost the team that swept the Ligue [-]. strong.

But it is a pity that this weakest eight-final team has cheapened the rich and handsome Real Madrid in vain, so that Real Madrid fans are almost carried away with joy, because they seem to be recommended to the semi-finals. Real Madrid is in the same half as Marseille and Bayern Munich.

In the other half of the area, Barcelona got a good lottery. They met Benfica. This team can be said to be the last team among the eight teams. , and the unlucky Tottenham Hotspur drew AC Milan in the draw, forming the only strong dialogue among the quarterfinals.

Killing the Premier League, killing Tottenham Hotspur, this immediately became the headlines of the major European newspapers the next day. Almost everyone felt that Tottenham Hotspur's consecutive encounters with Serie A teams were obviously unacceptable. It is the rhythm to be eliminated.

As the saying goes, the Premier League beats Serie A, Serie A beats La Liga, and La Liga beats the Premier League. This is a consensus among many fans.

In fact, this is not accurate. To be precise, the British style of play is more restrained from the Italian style of play, while the Italian style of play is the Kexi style of play, and the Western style of play restrains the British style of play. This is a principle of mutual generation and mutual restraint. .

Tottenham Hotspur is obviously not an English style of play. At present, Manchester United and Chelsea are more inclined to play an English style. Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal are more technical, and even if Tottenham Hotspur this season The Spurs have introduced more players with strength and balanced offense and defense, but the team still attaches great importance to interspersed pulling and passing and receiving, rather than power-based play.

Italy's rigorous stance is to restrain this kind of interspersed pulling and passing and receiving cooperation. They are like a wall, immobile as a mountain, letting you run, let you cut, let you pass, as long as he stands unmoved There, you have nothing to do with him, you can only do it head-on, so the Italian style of play is more restrained from this type of play.

And let AC Milan have a strong dialogue with Tottenham Hotspur, which can not only increase the attention of the quarterfinals, but also increase the hype of the media, such as Pirlo's reunion with the old owner.

A year ago, Pirlo was forced out of Milan City by Allegri and Galliani's tricks, but now, Pirlo is coming back with Tottenham Hotspur for revenge. This is simply the football of the Count of Monte Cristo. Version!
Therefore, as soon as the lottery results came out, almost all the media around the world were hyping up this game, because he was not only the only strong dialogue in the Champions League quarter-finals knockout match, but also the most gimmicky one. Big game.

And as if destined, in the weekend's FA Cup match, Tottenham Hotspur beat Bolton 3-0 with a full bench, but a week later, when they were a guest at Stamford Bridge, they suffered a 0-0 away game against Chelsea. [-] draw.

Chelsea's performance this season was not ideal. After entering the second half, Abrahimovic announced a coaching change and removed Boas. Assistant coach Di Matteo took up his post. In a game, Tottenham Hotspur was almost unable to launch an effective offense with a reinforced concrete defense.

Even if Chelsea are very, very embarrassed in terms of statistics, as Di Matteo said, "We got a point from Tottenham Hotspur, which is a pretty good result!"

I don't know when it started, getting points from Tottenham Hotspur has become a very extravagant thing, and it can even be shown off like Di Matteo.

This is also the seventh draw for Tottenham Hotspur this season, and Manchester City also relied on this round of away games to beat Stoke City 2:1, chasing and fighting all the way to match themselves with Tottenham. Tottenham's points gap was reduced to four points.

After the tragic draw away to Chelsea, everyone realized that Tottenham Hotspur were in trouble.

So a very interesting phenomenon appeared. The media were divided into two factions. One faction was to add insult to injury, thinking that Tottenham Hotspur was obviously getting worse from 1:1 to 1:0 to 0:0. A north London team is in trouble, and their unbeaten streak could be broken anytime, anywhere, and they might even lose the league title.

There are many media who are afraid of chaos in the world and call on Manchester City to cheer up. It is best to win a complete victory in the last few rounds and pull Tottenham Hotspur down. Let this ambitious team want to build an unprecedented four in England's top league. The consecutive championship team collapsed completely.

Some people even believe that if Tottenham Hotspur collapses, not only in the Premier League, but also in the Champions League may encounter Waterloo, because the style of play advocated by Allegri has many similarities with Di Matteo The point is, both of them are the head coaches of Italy, and the reason why Allegri looks down on Pirlo is because he hopes to form a powerful midfield combination.

But there are also many people who believe that the current situation of Tottenham Hotspur does not explain the problem. The biggest problem for the North London team now is that they have played too many games. According to statistics from the media, Tottenham Hotspur this season So far, it is the team that has played the most official games in the entire European football.

The Premier League team itself suffers from this kind of schedule, because there is one more cup game than other leagues, and there is less winter break. When others are resting, the Premier League teams are rushing to the game. The sluggish performance in the European war, and Tottenham Hotspur's poor performance until March, is precisely a manifestation of this long schedule.

More importantly, Tottenham Hotspur have just encountered a devil's schedule, and all players are experiencing continuous strong dialogues, which makes their performance decline after March, which is not surprising.

The media who support Tottenham Hotspur believe that, judging from Ye Qiu's performance in the past few years, and he probably has a clear plan at present, the current situation of Tottenham Hotspur is not beyond Ye Qiu's expectations In addition, because this North London team did not suffer any serious injuries, the lineup is very neat.

Therefore, they all believed that Ye Qiu would definitely be able to lead this north London team out of the trough.

After the game against Chelsea, the entire Tottenham Hotspur team went to Milan to challenge AC Milan away.

Before rushing to the away game, Ye Qiu not only announced the team's 18-man roster at the pre-match press conference, but also answered some questions from reporters. He was inevitably asked about the current situation. He said that the team has no problems at present.

"I can understand the behavior of some people. They need to concoct some news to attract the attention of the outside world and promote their sales, but I want to say that these are impossible to come true!"

Regarding the upcoming away game, Ye Qiu also said that he knew very well that the game would be difficult.

"It's not going to be an easy game at the San Siro, it's a very difficult team, but I and my players are ready to deal with difficulties and I believe we will be able to get out of the San Siro with all our strength. And retreat!"

But soon, the reporter asked another question, that is about Allegri's cage theory.

The head coach of AC Milan joked in the pre-match press conference that he had specially compiled an iron cage for Tottenham Hotspur, "We will try our best to let the stars of Tottenham Hotspur live here." Completely disappearing in a game, it's like being locked in an iron cage!"

After hearing this, Ye Qiu chuckled, "Then please take a look at how we successfully escaped from the San Siro cage!"

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Some people say that Italian head coaches are highly skilled in tactics, because they are immersed in Italy's highly tactical football environment, and those who can stand out are basically tactical masters.

Allegri does have the traditional characteristics of a typical Italian head coach, that is, he can also look at the food and tailor clothes, but he also has a strong disadvantage of a new head coach, that is, he is only good at one tactics.

It must be mentioned here that many fans are struggling with the so-called 442 or 433 positions. They will think that a certain head coach is only good at a certain tactical formation. In the game, any tactics will be disrupted, so the core concept of a head coach is the essence.

Just like Ye Qiu, from Ajax debut to Chelsea to Tottenham Hotspur, he has always used 433, but some people will say that Ye Qiu's tactics are not good?Or, Ye Qiu is only good at using 433?

People who really understand football would not say that, because Ye Qiu's tactical concepts have improved a lot over the years, from the youthfulness of Ajax when he was a fledgling, to the domineeringness of Chelsea, and then to Tottenham Hotspur The maturity, introversion and strategizing of the period can be seen that he has made great progress at the tactical level.

The current Tottenham Hotspur don't pay much attention to the formation at all. Ribery, Cavani and Messi run around in the game, and even Ramsey, Vidal and Pirlo in the midfield often leave their own areas. There is no fixed position, but everyone can quickly understand their responsibilities after running to a position.

This is in line with the essence of Total Attack and Total Defense!
Allegri actually has his advanced place, that is, his core idea is actually similar to that of Ye Qiu, especially in the midfield. Convert holes to play your own counterattacks and offenses.

Of course, you can also say that this is a mainstream thinking now, especially after Tottenham Hotspur's drastic reforms this season, it has pushed this all-round midfielder to a whole new level.

But the difference between Allegri and Ye Qiu is that he believes in power more, while Ye Qiu strives to find a balance between strength and technology. Of course, it cannot be said that Ye Qiu is better than Allegri , but Ye Qiu has the resources and ability to do this, and Allegri has no way.

There is no one who is better than anyone in the core concept of football, and the famous coaches are not necessarily better than the grassroots. Otherwise, Bielsa is not worthy of so many people's admiration, so the biggest difference between the famous coaches is that they have successfully practiced themselves. The idea, or use your own idea to practice and achieve success, but other coaches may not, such as Bielsa.

Allegri's ability to build defense is beyond doubt, and in this game he not only imitated fellow Italian Chelsea firefighting coach Di Matteo's tactics at Stamford Bridge a few days ago, but also borrowed from Ferguson's tactics.

Ferguson's tactic is to start a round of attack after the opening game, play a game of momentum, dampen the spirit of Tottenham Hotspur, and then organize a tight defensive situation, so in the first 10 minutes before the game, Tottenham Hotspur played away Tottenham Hotspur can't find their own rhythm, even though Pirlo is very familiar with this stadium, but under the restrictions of AC Milan's wolf-like midfielders, Tottenham Hotspur still failed to control the situation .

But 10 minutes later, Tottenham Hotspur found their rhythm and stabilized again, but at this time AC Milan had already begun to shrink their defense. They even gave up possession of the ball. If you don't fight, the first thing you need to do is to retreat, and first set up the defense in front of your own 30-meter area.

I have to admit that if the Italian teams are strictly defensive, any team will feel a headache.

When AC Milan shrinks the defense, they arrange the defense line at the front of the penalty area, but if necessary, they can even retreat into the penalty area, or even to the penalty area, and then adopt a three-line compact blocking tactic to compress Tottenham Hotspur.

Faced with this tactical style of play, Tottenham Hotspur's offense has been unable to find an effective means of attack, because Allegri almost made the 30-meter area in front of his goal an unbreakable iron cage, hardly giving any Any gaps in you will tightly block every running route and passing and receiving route of yours, making it impossible for you to attack.

Tottenham Hotspur took advantage of the possession rate, and even Tottenham Hotspur's ball possession rate was once so high that Ye Qiu felt a headache at 65%. They just let you get the ball , let you fall backwards, let you advance to the hinterland, but only in the hinterland, and then move forward, that is a monolith.

Another point is that this time, in order to be able to put pressure on Tottenham Hotspur at home, AC Milan did almost everything they could, even tampering with the turf.

As early as yesterday afternoon, when the team arrived at the San Siro Stadium for familiarization training, Ye Qiu noticed that the quality of the turf at the San Siro Stadium was too poor and too dry. When the Football Federation representatives held a meeting, they proposed that the opponent should water the field before the game.

AC Milan agreed, but judging from the game, they did not do so. Even during the intermission, when Tottenham Hotspur sent representatives to protest, they still did not water the field.

"Galliani doesn't even want to be moral this time!" Ye Qiu stepped on the turf under his feet, not only was it dry, but it was obviously longer, and the soles of his feet stepped on it. The poetic and picturesque feeling of cattle and sheep.

The turf of the San Siro Stadium is also obviously longer, at least four centimeters longer than the grass of Tottenham Hotspur's White Hart Lane Stadium.

Mauro Tassotti shook his head helplessly after hearing this, "Perhaps, this is also what Allegri said, a part of the iron cage. Many teams now have their own magic weapons and secrets when they meet us. arms!"

This can be regarded as a tactic when a weak team meets a strong team, just like Everton, damn Moyes every time he meets a strong team and comes to Goodison Park, he will go to the field in advance to pour water, Then turn on the floor heating, so that the entire Goodison Park stadium is always in that kind of humidity, as if it was just fished out of the washing machine, the kind of damp heat and depression.

As for AC Milan, they also have their own weapons. He played two away games in a row before, so for this Champions League knockout match, he did everything possible. At the very least, he obviously let the grass grow desperately and did not take care of it. .

Boateng, Ambrosini, Nocerino and Van Bommel, AC Milan this time has a combination of four macho midfielders, coupled with a typical Italian defense, Nesta and Mex's partner The central defender, Antonini and Abate formed the two wings. Allegri has indeed created an unbreakable iron cage in the midfield.

The combination of Cassano and Pato is placed on the front line. It is not difficult to see from this that Allegri has the ambition to counterattack. Even in the second half of the game, he still did not replace the two former players at all. Front meaning.

AC Milan's midfielder has Van Bommel. This midfielder averaged 10 successful long passes per game this season, with a success rate of 4%. Although the number of successful long passes is not as good as Pirlo's 86 times, But the success rate is higher than Pirlo's 4%, and the defensive hardness and strength that Van Bommel can give to the midfielder is indeed something that Pirlo cannot give.

This is not to say that Van Bommel is better than Pirlo, but that he is more suitable for Allegri's tactics.

"Allegri still doesn't give up. If he doesn't give up, we still have a chance!" Ye Qiu never believed that there was an iron cage in this world that he couldn't break.

"You mean..." Mauro Tassotti somewhat guessed what Ye Qiu was thinking, but he wasn't very clear.

"Let them attack!" Ye Qiu said with certainty.

Mauro Tassotti was a little surprised. The result of 0:0 in the away game is not good, but at least it is not bad, but if AC Milan is allowed to attack, the risk will be relatively high. What should I do if I can't score a goal and am scored instead?
"Are you afraid?" Ye Qiu thinks this is another weakness of Mauro Tassotti, that is, he has the cautiousness that is common among Italian coaches. This can be said to be an advantage, but it is also a disadvantage.

Mauro Tassotti curled his lips and didn't say anything, but it was a tacit agreement.

"We must keep this momentum, 0:0 and 0:1, there is not much difference for us, but this momentum is the most powerful weapon and bargaining chip for us to swallow our opponents in the next game!"

In the words of Ye Qiu's hometown, if you lose, you don't lose!
"Moreover, I believe that even if someone is tired, they are still thinking about how to score goals and win."

(End of this chapter)