Green Dragon

Chapter 50 What Do You Want?
"The two-line defeat of the Champions League in the league! Ajax's coaching change is imminent!"

"The five-game winning streak is over! Van Basten will be dismissed in five days!"

"Even if Cruyff came in person, he would be powerless!"

"Where is the way for Ajax? Young people can't take the lead after all!"

When all the Ajax players assembled at the training base, their first training session today...was to listen to assistant coach Weitzger read the newspaper.

After reading a headline, Witzger also deliberately showed the newspaper to the players to prove that these things were not made up by himself.

Van Basten stood there with his hands slightly folded on his chest, observing the expressions of his disciples coldly.

After Witzger finished reading all the mainstream Dutch newspapers in front of him, the head coach finally spoke:

"2-1... It's just a very common score in football, isn't it? Why would anyone think it's the end of the world?"

Van Basten shrugged:

"Do you need me to popularize the common sense of the football world?
Take AC Milan, which I am most familiar with, as an example.

In the quarter-finals of the 2004 UEFA Champions League, they defeated La Coruña, a third-rate team in La Liga, with a big score of 4-1. Everyone believed that Deportivo had lost their fighting spirit, and the Italians could celebrate their promotion. A cutscene, or another tragic reenactment, but... what happened?
Deportivo also gave the Milanese a bloody 4-0 in the second leg! "

His eyes were piercing and sparkling with light: "As for the 2005 Champions League final, the more famous night in Istanbul, I don't think it's necessary to talk about it again. I'm not a primary school teacher who only reads books."

"I don't like to talk nonsense. Today, I just want to tell you that it is not terrible to fall behind 1-2, and it is even more irrelevant for Fiorentina to score two away goals!"

"Is the gap between us and Fiorentina as big as it was between Milan and Depor five years ago? No, no, absolutely not.

There are countless talents who became famous at a young age in our team, and your combined worth is enough to compete with them. Of course, your head coach is also not an unknown figure. Why are you afraid? "

Van Basten is still in the mood to boast about himself by the way-compared to the Fiorentina coach Prandelli who didn't even find the door to the national team when he was a player, the Dutch player's resume is indeed much better.

"Some people think... this is just my rhetoric to keep my job?

I can't completely deny this, but I hope he doesn't forget that even if I lose this job, Marco Van Basten's name is still shining brightly in the history of world football!Lao Tzu has been glamorous enough in his life, no amount of honor is just icing on the cake!

But you are different, if after three days you are unable to beat your opponent to enter the Champions League, then it means that you can only continue to hang out in the Eredivisie within a year, wanting to set foot on the much-anticipated highest On the stage, at least one more season of hard work will be required! "

Van Basten snorted coldly: "The future you want is to try your best to win a game, and then embark on the glorious road of fame and high-paying mansions...or in the dark low-level leagues Rolling around and dreaming?"
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The power of words can indeed incite people's hearts. At least after Van Basten's ideological mobilization class, most players regained a certain degree of enthusiasm in the following training.

But if only words can make players unite and even defeat powerful opponents, it is tantamount to fantasy.

If you want to advance to the final stage, you also need highly targeted tactical arrangements and training, players' resolute execution of tactics and flashes of inspiration during the game, as well as a lot of luck.

Epiphany and luck are things that cannot be controlled, so Van Basten can only lead the coaching staff to make major revisions to the previously formulated tactics.

There was no way, the knife and ax that beheaded was about to fall, so he had to change it.

Through the first round of the match, he has thoroughly grasped the opponent's characteristics: Gilardino and Mutu's attack combination is quite powerful. The two sides jointly scored more than 40 goals for Viola last season, and the attack is full. .

But in the midfield, because the Brazilian titan Felipe Melo switched to Juventus at a high price of 2500 million euros in the summer window, Fiorentina lost a midfielder who can be called the top in the entire Serie A. The team's offense Both the defense and defense have been affected a lot.

Especially in terms of defense, everyone knows that Melo is an out-and-out beast. He only played for the Viola for one year, and he scored 17 yellow cards and 3 red cards. Such a shocking record is in front of everyone. No matter how tough a player is, he will tremble in his heart after seeing this terrible report card.

But now that this lunatic has left, and there is no one in the Fiorentina team who can take his place, and the team as a whole has not fully adapted to the style of play in which the core players have left, so of course Van Basten must take care of himself. Take advantage of this gap.

Beyond that, Prandelli has another huge feature.

He's probably more Dutch than Italian.

Although Serie A teams have their own defensive genes, as the head coach...he prefers beautiful offensive football.
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When the team started to actively prepare for the game, time always passed quickly, and three days seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.

On August 8, all Ajax members boarded a flight to Italy.

Although it sounds like you have to cross several countries including Germany, the straight-line distance from the Netherlands to Italy is only [-] kilometers. Even with a slow plane, it is only a two-hour journey.

Although the game is a day later, the pre-match preparations have already begun.

Under the leadership of the assistant coach, the players entered tomorrow's game field for training to adapt to the field, while the head coach has already appeared at the pre-match press conference.

No matter how Van Basten advertised in the team that "the gap in strength between the two sides is almost non-existent", but for the Italians, the representative of the European Third League must at least finish the three grades of the European Eighth League, let alone A Jaques has proved this point with facts. They lost their armor at home, ceded land and paid compensation, lost power and humiliated the country, lost face, and even gave Fiorentina two away goals.

So the Italian media has already announced that the Ajax players are here only for tourism.

Viola head coach Cesare Prandelli did not show a trace of optimism. Facing local reporters who have a very good relationship with him, he is still very cautious: "In the past few days, I have always told the players to forget For the score of the first round, every game should be played as a final. We don’t have any advantage, but there will be pressure, because tens of thousands of fans hope that we can dedicate a wonderful game as much as possible.”

"If my Italian hasn't taken a step back, I'm sure I just heard the word 'wonderful' from Mr. Prandelli's speech."

Van Basten took the microphone with a smile. He is no stranger to Italian after playing for AC Milan for many years:

"Of course my lads will attack with all their strength, but if the other side chooses to hide and defend, it will not be a good game anyway."

If Van Basten spoke Dutch, his mother tongue, or English, the common language, then Prandelli, who knew nothing about foreign languages, would ignore him at all, but White Swan chose to use Italian, which both sides are good at, to stimulate each other.

Then Prandelli lifted his chin.

He said the sentence that is enough to represent his coaching style:
"For a game, neither the defensive defense nor the beautiful offensive football can guarantee the team's victory 100%. In this case, why don't I choose the latter? At least my fans can enjoy the attacking process."

Van Basten laughed.

And then... Prandelli laughed too.

(End of this chapter)