Football: The immortal legend on the green field

Early in the morning on August 8, Horst stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of the club president's office, watching the team bus drive out of the Haarlem Athletic Training Base. He shook his head bitterly, feeling a sense of loss, as if he was watching the Titanic set sail.

When the time stopped at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the referee blew the whistle for the first game of the new season for Haarlem Athletic.

In this game, Haarlem used a 433 formation. The goalkeeper was last season's substitute goalkeeper Sasa Schulz. The 1-meter-tall goalkeeper was a little thin, but very flexible and had good reactions. He had been a substitute in the team before. After the team's main goalkeeper transferred away after the end of last season, he finally became the new goalkeeper and stood on the goal line of Haarlem.

The central defenders are the team captain Link and the 25-year-old Weiss. The latter is 1 meters tall, has good heading skills and a strong physique, but his footwork is rather rough and his biggest flaw is his slow turning speed.

The left back is Antonin, a 21-year-old Finnish teenager who is very fast. After a period of training by Neeskens, he has accepted the reality of retreating from left midfielder, because there is no real wing midfielder in the 433 formation designed by Neeskens. His three midfielders are strictly speaking a combination of a defensive midfielder and two attacking midfielders.

Shen Bin secretly complained about this lineup. The configuration of the players on the field fully demonstrated the secret of the Dutch all-out attack and defense in the 70s. This old guy has been separated from modern football for too long.

The right back is the 28-year-old veteran of the team, El Barrow. The midfield consists of Gines, Hanney and Kuka. The former is positioned further back and tends to defend, while the other two are assigned more forward and organizational tasks.

On the forward line, the fast horse Gular, who had been playing as a right winger in the Ajax youth team, was pushed to the forward position by Neeskens. The left winger is the center forward Harward who did not score a goal last season.

Neeskens arranged the newly joined Korean Lee Dong-gook as a center forward. After all, he played in this position in the Coca-Cola summer camp. Although he only scored one goal, the effect seemed good.

Shen Bin did not play. Neeskens strictly followed the agreement he and Shen Bin had privately agreed upon and tried to only arrange for Shen Bin to play half the game in each game in the first year.

The players had reached the center circle and started taking pictures. Neeskens looked at Shen Bin who was sitting on the side.

The opponent is just a third-tier Dutch team, so I guess this kid won't have a chance to play today.

In addition to the eleven players who played on the field, Hallam had seven substitutes on the bench.

The backup goalkeeper is 19-year-old Isny ​​Koloff, who is 1 meters tall and was promoted from the youth team by Neeskens.

The back line consists of Gomez who can play on both sides, the midfielder is the veteran attacking midfielder Fansico, the substitute defensive midfielder is 18-year-old Herbert Buteau, another young man from the second team, and the two substitute strikers are Karim Marshall and Ernest Elman.

The Solvay team's stadium only has two stands on the east and west sides. Shen Bin estimated that the stadium can accommodate about 5000 people. There is a three-meter-high fence made of barbed wire behind the two goals. There are about 2000 fans in the stadium, sitting sparsely on the stands on the left and right sides.

Since he was not in the starting lineup, Shen Bin and three young players from the second team who were not included in the 18-man roster stood on the sidelines to help pick up the balls and watch the game.

When the referee blew the whistle, Solvay United took the lead in kicking off.

As a team that has just been promoted from the semi-professional Fourth Division, Solway United bought three players this year. One of the strikers was once a top scorer in the Third Division, but he is now over 30 years old. However, his strength is still there.

Like most teams, Solvay also played the most popular 442 formation, with the midfielders standing in parallel. So as soon as the game started, both sides started a fierce fight in the midfield, and Haarlem's three-man midfielder was suppressed from the beginning.

Neeskens' all-out attack and defense turned into half-court offense and defense. There was no other way. Even Gural and Howard were asked by Neeskens to return to defense, leaving only Li Dongguo in front.

Semi-professional teams like Solvay United have not evolved yet. You should never ask them to demonstrate high technical and tactical levels while fighting fiercely. Their movements are very rough and they will not hold back from the start. Therefore, the FA Cup is also a hotbed of upsets because many high-level teams find it difficult to adapt to their rhythm.

At this time, the protagonist becomes the referee on the field.

Of course, it wasn't a misjudgment, but a foul whistle.

More than ten minutes later, Solvay United's offensive finally slowed down, and Haarlem Athletic began to launch some attacks. In a quick counterattack, Gular dribbled the ball from the backcourt to the sideline, and then made a cross from the bottom. In the one-on-one competition with the opponent's central defender, Li Dongguo was obviously more professional than the opponent in positioning and judging the landing point of the ball.

With a header, the ball hit the crossbar and flew out of the bottom line.

This quick counterattack seemed to scare the opponent. The opponent's coach stood on the sidelines and kept yelling at the players on the field, as if he was dissatisfied with the fact that the team's back line pressed too far forward.

From this moment on, it was obvious that both sides paid more attention to defense. Except for Li Dongguo's header, neither side got any decent opportunities.

The situation gradually developed as Neeskens expected, but the personnel configuration of Hallam Athletic obviously lacked a soul figure who could connect the front and back offense and defense, and the three lines were obviously somewhat separated.

Genes is a barrier in front of the back line. Although his interception success rate is a bit unsightly, he can effectively disrupt the opponent's offensive rhythm and attack speed. Such ability is enough in the second-tier league.

Hanley and Kucca have similar styles. Their passing ability is decent, with a pass completion rate of over 80%, but their vision is not broad enough and they cannot deliver threatening passes.

Gular is obviously a winger type of player, while Howard, the team's former center forward, is obviously less suited to the attacking midfielder position. According to Shen Bin's observation during training, he is a center forward who eats passes. If there is no good passer to deliver the ammunition to him, he is a waste. This is why he was able to score 02 goals in a single season at Willem II in the 03-11 season, but after being bought by old Horst, he scored 03 goals in the entire season of 04-0.

After the two sides formed a tug-of-war, the side with a slight advantage was obviously Solway United, whose midfield configuration was more reasonable. Until the 33rd minute of the first half, the opponent's midfielder made a sliding tackle to intercept Hanni's pass and passed it directly to the forward in front.

Although his speed is not as exaggerated as Gular's, his speed is still too fast for Haarlem's defense line. The breakthrough position is exactly the area responsible for Weiss. Weiss fully exposed his slow turning defect in the defense of this ball. He was unable to stop him at all. He could only pull him down after he broke through. Solvay United got a free kick in the frontcourt.