Mister Legend

Chapter 513 Crazy Derby

From a long time ago, there has been a saying in world football that the main reason why the England national team cannot achieve good results is that the physical condition of the players is difficult due to the difficult and intensive schedule of the Premier League. Guaranteed.

This point of view is quite convincing at first glance. Because of the two domestic cups of the FA Cup and the League Cup, strong teams will have to play more games.Moreover, in the past 20 years, English football has never set a winter break. When other European countries can enjoy at least a two-week adjustment holiday, the British team will usher in the hardest Christmas-New Year's schedule of the year. , so the fatigue of the players is still obvious.

But if you want to calculate carefully, you will find that the above-mentioned so-called gap is not so obvious.Although there are two domestic cups to compare, it is obviously impossible to say how much traditional powers value them.Each team has different goals in each season, it is difficult to generalize in one word, but compared with the league, the FA Cup and the League Cup are far less important, which is a recognized situation in the UK .

Although in recent years it is no longer as popular as before, and the championship is often taken away by some mid-range teams in the Premier League standings, there are still few strong dialogues in the finals.Teams such as Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Sunderland have all reached the final stage when they were almost relegated, and giants such as Liverpool and Chelsea have repeatedly encountered the embarrassment of being eliminated in the first game (the Premier League strong teams will Compete in round of 32).

Even if they can reach the finals in these two competitions, they will only have 5 more games than the Italian team and 3 more goals than the Spanish team. This gap is more than 60 games throughout the year. Under the entry standards of the giants, coupled with the application of lineup rotation, it is actually not an exaggeration.At least Li Moody, who was before coming to the UK, did not take it seriously.

It's just that when he saw the 2020-21 season schedule distributed by the FA, Premier League and UEFA, his face became a little ugly, because what was presented in front of him was simply a hell-level competition. The arrangement of the game made the new Arsenal coach who was in it couldn't help but have a headache.

In the 16 days in the middle and late August, the team has to complete one Europa League qualifying match and three Premier League games, which is not a big deal.But then there will be a two-week national team match day, which will not only interrupt the tacit understanding that has just been established among club members, but also endure additional physical consumption and even the hidden danger of injury. The current foundation is not too strong For the gunners, it is really not good news.

Because starting from September, with the addition of the European group stage and the League Cup, and to make time for the new winter break, the team will almost every month in the next two or three months. Encountered three double matches a week, the pressure is far greater than when coaching in Italy.

So Li Mudi had no choice but to use his best rotation mechanism from the beginning of the season, hoping that the players would not be depressed or injured because of being too tired.However, due to various reasons, in individual positions, the strength gap between the current main force and the substitutes in the Arsenal team is still relatively large, and it is impossible to achieve the level of large-scale rotation that can be carried out during the Turin period, so this requires the coaching staff to spend More energy is devoted to the most reasonable match of the lineup for each game, and the workload has increased a lot compared to normal.

Fortunately, when he went to England to coach this time, Li Moody could finally bring a small team of his own. Although it was barely formed, at least it played a huge role in terms of tacit understanding.

Assistant coach Harvey Platts, fitness coach Philip Lambert, technical coach Paul Scholes, compatriot Zheng Xiaoyang from China, Longley, Puyol and Paul Mitchell from the scouting team, The strong support behind Li Moody is another key factor for Arsenal to enter the state so quickly under the leadership of the new coach besides the FM system.

However, the first two official games of the season-the Europa League play-offs are just an appetizer, so no matter how you rotate, you can get the desired results.

But facing the powerful Tottenham Hotspur in the first round of the league, it is obvious that you have to use all your strengths to deal with it. Otherwise, in the new White Hart Lane Stadium, which can accommodate 61000 people (currently the largest capacity in London and the largest equipment, State-of-the-art stadium), Li Moody is likely to usher in the black opener of his Premier League debut, this is him and all

Those who support him don't want to see it.

At 8:17 pm on August 13th, the penultimate game of the first round of the Premier League, and also the first focus of the season - the North London Derby kicked off at Tottenham's home court.Before the game, Li Moody and Pochettino, the two coaches who are considered to be the new generation of world-class coaches, had a short but friendly exchange on the sidelines and murdered countless filmings of the reporters.

But after turning back to the coaching bench, the smile on the face of the coach of the visiting team quickly faded away, because he knew that the Pochettino, who looked like a harmless and kind uncle just now, was not capable in the FM system. In the evaluation, it is basically not inferior to the top five coaches in the world such as Mourinho and Zidane, and it has surpassed in youth training and other aspects.Only because there is still a lack of a championship trophy with a higher gold content, it has been delayed in obtaining external certification.

Since entering White Hart Lane in the summer of 2014, except for leading the team to No.5 in the league in the first season, Uncle Bo has led the team to the top three in the Premier League standings in the following five seasons. Three runners-up and two runners-up.Especially last season, when the core players such as Harry Kane, Eriksson, Dell and the young and mature Alli entered the golden age of player career, Tottenham finally broke out the top strength that the outside world had been expecting before. .

They and the wealthy Manchester City have been entangled in the Premier League to the last moment, but they missed the third top league championship in team history just because of a point gap. It can be said to be very regrettable.But considering the Champions League semi-finals, the FA Cup and the League Cup, people can still evaluate last season as the most successful season in Tottenham's history since winning the UEFA Cup in 1984.

This summer, this team "叕" resisted the poaching of foreign giants such as Real Madrid and Barcelona, ​​and kept the main lineup that had been maintained for four or five seasons.However, the team has changed from the "stingy" of the previous two years in terms of signings, and has successively won Brazilian winger Felipe Anderson and Serbian central defender Nastasic. The paper strength has improved compared with the same period last year. , is considered to be the favorite to win the championship this season, and the odds are almost the same as the top seed Manchester City.

So before this North London derby, the outside world was generally optimistic that the home team could win easily, and some even predicted that the final score difference would be more than three goals.But when people see Tottenham's starting lineup worth close to [-] million euros, even the most neutral fans have to admit that they are indeed qualified to despise all opponents.

But Li Mudi and his team gave the most violent counterattack to those who were not optimistic about themselves in this game.It is still the 3-4-1-2 formation of the Turin period, but after being applied to Arsenal players, there is a huge contrast in tactical thinking.

In the opening stage, the Gunners did not choose to recover the defense and wait for an opportunity to seek a counterattack as everyone expected. Instead, they implemented a high-intensity fight in the midfield and won more possession of the ball.And this style of play is actually the magic weapon for the home team to achieve good results in the past few years. Li Moody can be said to have played a trick of using one's own way and returning to the other's body, but this trick was used in the first 10 minutes of the game. Amazing results have been achieved.

In Pochettino's usual 4-2-3-1 formation, the two trailing central midfielders are England international Dale and Kenya's new generation beast waist Victor Wanyama. The role of connecting the front and back fields and providing a solid defensive barrier for the back line.But the two of them have their own shortcomings, and as a result, Li Moody has effectively targeted them, causing Tottenham's midfield and frontcourt often to have poor communication, and even some signs of disconnection.

Although both are considered to be rare offensive and defensive midfielders in world football, the emphasis of the two is actually quite different.

As a black African player with explosive physical fitness, although Wanyama has iron-like endurance and super backcourt sweeping ability, he actually has the soul of an attacker deep in his heart.After landing in the English league, he scored twice as many goals as Kanter in almost the same playing time as the latter. Before that, when he played in the Scottish league, he scored 61 goals and 10 assists in 7 games His performance is the report card given by such a defensive midfielder, which is very unique.

It's just that his passing skills and willingness to rush forward have been used by Arsenal players many times, allowing the visiting team to get a good opportunity to attack the central defender face-to-face at the front of the opponent's penalty area more than once, and directly led to the first goal. The production of the ball.

No.17 minutes, Mkhitaryan's pass was intercepted by the Belgian international defender Alderweireld, but the Kenyan international who got the ball chose to dribble the ball through the half. As a result, Lucas Torreira's Lacazette took advantage of the return pass error under pressure.In almost 50% of the 50% of the team's confrontation, the latter used his body to withstand the impact of Dell, and knocked the ball obliquely to Mkhitaryan who was about to retreat.

In the fight just now, Dell, who had an advantage in both height and weight, failed to confront the opponent's body in time because of his balance ability (evaluated as 10 in the FM system) that was completely inconsistent with his body type. He stabilized his center of gravity, which caused him to miss the best opportunity to steal and let the ball enter the dangerous area of ​​his team.

In this game, Armenia's number one star, who played the position of attacking midfielder/central midfielder, sent a through ball without stopping the ball, helping Aubameyang, who has the world's top offensive sense, immediately get rid of the defensive players marking him.As soon as the long legs moved away, he rushed behind Tottenham's defense line in two steps, forming a single-handed momentum.

Although Mei Yangyang's shooting skills have always been complained by everyone, but in the pre-season training, according to the suggestion of the team's new head coach, he focused on practicing the characteristic of passing the goalkeeper and then shooting, which showed its power at this moment.With his speed ability that can still be ranked among the top ten in world football, after passing the old goalkeeper Lloris who was forced to attack, he easily pushed the ball into the completely undefended goal of the home team.

Hmm... Considering the performance of Mei Yangyang who missed many good opportunities before, it seems that it can't be said to be easy, anyway, this time it is a goal. 0 to 1, the guest Arsenal took the lead unexpectedly, causing the entire New White Hart Lane Stadium to fall into silence at first, and then deafening boos broke out.

The relationship between the two clubs is the number one mortal enemy. Everyone must be aware of this, but the specific reason is probably not clear to everyone.

First of all, it is natural that there is a reason why they are located in London and are still very close. Before 1913, Arsenal’s predecessor, Woolwich Royal Arsenal, moved the club’s headquarters to Highbury due to development reasons. The radiation area that the Tottenham team attaches the most importance to - because Highbury is closer to the city center and also has a subway station.Where Arsenal settled just blocked the "doorway" of Tottenham, so that their influence was limited to the northernmost part of the city. This is undoubtedly a deep hatred of "cutting people's money like killing their parents".

But what really led to Tottenham's unresolved feud with Arsenal stemmed from the vote held in 1919 after World War I on who could be the last team to participate in the English First Division next season.Due to the proposal of military expansion, the number of teams in that year will increase from 20 to 22, and the Gunners finally received more votes as No.6 in the second division last season, beating the deputy squad leader of the first division. Tottenham became the last lucky one.

However, for this result, Tottenham fans will obviously feel extremely dissatisfied. Under the instigation of some people with ulterior motives, they claimed that Arsenal could be selected because there was a secret transaction in this vote, and pointed out that Gunners chairman Henry Norris bribed other club officials with money.

Since then, this statement has become an unforgettable hatred of Tottenham people for generations, and at the same time provides every fan of the club with a reason to hate that "bad neighbor" for life, and then the relationship between the two parties has changed. It can't be undone.

However, was the voting at that time as tricky as the Tottenham people said? After nearly 100 years, no one has been able to find even a little bit of reliable evidence.So in essence, in this incident, Tottenham seems to have suffered from persecution paranoia.

But those are no longer important, because Li Moody has already deeply felt how strong the "welcome" feeling from the British fans is for him, but he thinks he still enjoys this feeling.Of course, it would be even better if there were no words involving racial discrimination and personal attacks.

(End of this chapter)