Chapter 240 18th Birthday, Guardiola’s Suggestions [Transitional Chapter]

"Happy birthday!"

As soon as he returned home to Munich and opened the door, Lin Quan received a surprise.

It was past midnight in Germany, but Guardiola, Serra and others were waiting for him at the door.

It turned out that he specially asked me to come here to celebrate his birthday!

Lin Quan scratched his head. He was so busy at work that he forgot about his birthday.

"Lin, stop standing at the door and come in quickly!"

Seeing Lin Quan still standing stupidly at the door, Sera quickly pulled him in.

"Brother, put this on!"

12-year-old Maria stood up on her tiptoes and put her hat on his head, which was still warm.

"Thank you, Maria!"

Lin Quan was very moved. The moment he stepped into the house, he felt as if all the pressure on him had been relieved, and he felt relaxed as if he had returned to a safe haven.

"You're welcome, did you come alone?"

Maria stood on tiptoes and looked outside, as if looking for someone.

"Stop looking, it's just me!"

Lin Quan closed the door smoothly, and the cold wind whistling outside suddenly stopped. The heating inside the room gave him an indescribable feeling of comfort.

"Brother, come and make a wish, the candles are already lit!"

Marius took the things from Lin Quan's hands very sensibly, put them aside, and pulled him to the table.

There was a cake on the table, and the candles had been lit. I glanced at it and saw exactly 18 candles.

"Um!"

Lin Quan sat down, closed his eyes, and silently made a wish in his heart.

"Brother, I want to eat the cake, the piece with the most cream!"

When he opened his eyes, Valentina, who was only 5 years old, climbed onto his lap and started yelling.

"Okay, okay, here you go, be careful not to get the cream on you!"

Lin Quan doted on her and cut a large piece of cake for her. The little guy cheered, took a quick sip on Lin Quan's face, and couldn't wait to eat it while holding the cake.

By this time, the little girl might be really hungry.

"Go and have a rest after eating the cake. It's getting late!"

Sierra cut the cake quickly and stuffed it into the hands of several children one by one, not forgetting to tell them to brush their teeth after eating.

"Haha, I originally planned to celebrate your birthday tomorrow, but your younger brothers and sisters stubbornly wanted to wait for you. Before you came, Valentina was as sleepy as a chicken pecking at rice, and she could hardly bear it. Living!"

Guardiola smiled and sat opposite Lin Quan, looking at his children with soft eyes.

No matter what happened at work, every time he came home and saw these little angels, he felt all the stress from his body disappear.

Guardiola has a harmonious family that many people envy. Serra is a good wife and mother. He himself has not had any scandals outside.

The children are not only smart, but also well-behaved and sensible. The eldest one is very promising. Every time he is mentioned, Guardiola can't help but raise his head proudly:

Have you seen the young man who plays football like Messi?

That's my son!

"Let me guess, you are in such a good mood, maybe you defeated Chelsea at home, right?"

Lin Quan came back in a hurry and went to the airport as soon as the game ended, before he had time to learn about the other Champions League showdowns.

"Is the expression on my face so obvious?"

Guardiola rubbed his chin and couldn't help being surprised.

"Of course, only defeating Mourinho can make you so happy!"

Just like Messi and Ronaldo, in football, people always compare Mourinho and Guardiola together.

Both of them are the best coaches in the Mesozoic era, and they were at the top when they debuted. One led Barcelona to create the third dream dynasty.

A team led by a team not from one of the five major leagues performed a miracle and won the Champions League!

Coupled with the grievances and resentments between the two, the media always likes to put them together and hype them up.

This reached its peak after Mourinho joined Real Madrid.

Speaking of which, in addition to Rosell's relationship, Guardiola left Barcelona for another big reason, and that was Mourinho.

In the 2011-2012 season, Mourinho's Real Madrid had reversed its previous decline in the league and slowly began to gain an advantage over Barcelona.

No matter how the outside world criticizes Mourinho's football for being full of utilitarianism, Guardiola feels frustrated when the passing and controlling tactics he has painstakingly studied were seen through and restricted by the opponent.

Therefore, after leaving Barcelona, ​​Guardiola has been studying how to improve his passing tactics to deal with Mourinho's defensive counterattack.

After two encounters in the European Super Cup and this Champions League in the past year, Guardiola's team achieved a complete victory.

Guardiola was delighted to beat Mourinho, especially as Bayern were not at their best.

"What's the score?"

Lin Quan curiously took out his mobile phone and asked while searching the results online.

"3:0!"

While hearing Guardiola's answer, he also saw the score online.

This score surprised Lin Quan. Chelsea is not a weak team and has always been known for its strong defensive ability.

How could such a team that was good at defense be beaten 3:0 by Bayern?

Lin Quan curiously found the highlights of the game and looked at them. In this game, Bayern's formation was very strange. Guardiola put up a 3331 formation.

He moved Javi Martinez from defensive midfielder to center back and the center back to fullback.

In this way, when Martinez leaves the defense line, his teammates on the wing can fill in and keep the defense intact at all times.

When attacking, Hama's investment has allowed Bayern to have more people when attacking, have more ball options, and make defense more difficult.

The most important thing is that Hama's position is too deep, and it is difficult for the opponent's press to threaten him.

When Hama advances with the ball, Bayern's formation is two inverted triangles, which amplifies the offensive threat from the wing.

After receiving a lot of support, Ribery and Robben frequently launched attacks from the wing and scored two goals in the first half by taking advantage of two quick counterattacks.

However, Chelsea's counterattack has four more interceptions due to the existence of Bayern's two diamonds. They are often resolved by Bayern's defense before they advance to the front of the penalty area.

And because there are two more midfielders on the wing, Chelsea's offense cannot get through at all.

After replacing Mandzukic in the second half, Guardiola's team scored another goal in a positional battle, attacking Chelsea's goal in two different ways.

The score of 3:0 basically confirmed that Bayern will advance to the quarterfinals.

Chelsea are notorious for their weak forwards, and it was too difficult for them to score three goals at home.

What's more, they didn't score a single goal in the away game, and they had to prevent the opponent from scoring when they returned home.

Once Bayern scores a goal at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea can move away directly.

Guardiola not only defeated Mourinho, but also ended the suspense of the game in the first round.

"Bayern's tactics can actually be used by you. I saw Kroos moving back a little during the game. This was a good choice. In fact, the best result is to let Fernandinho start. With Yaya Toure withdrawing, Bayern does not need a versatile midfielder like Yaya Toure after having Kroos and De Bruyne."

Guardiola pointed out the problems of Manchester City to the point and gave his own opinions.

Lin Quan nodded. Mourinho also said this issue. Both top coaches think Fernandinho is very important to Manchester City, but I have Manchester City's own team situation here. Coach Pellegrini and The relationship with Fernandinho is so bad that it is impossible to expect him to use Fernandinho in a short time.

"It's not a bad thing that you lost to Chelsea. If a team remains undefeated, it will cause a lot of psychological pressure on the players."

Guardiola speaks from experience. Bayern has now created a 45-game unbeaten streak across the season.

This result is currently the fourth unbeaten record in the five major leagues. It is very close to Arsenal and Juventus' 49 unbeaten games, and not far from AC Milan's 58 unbeaten games.

With their current momentum in the Bundesliga, the outside world is very optimistic about their impact on the record set by AC Milan 21 years ago.

But as Bayern's head coach, Guardiola knows better than anyone else how difficult it is to remain undefeated.

Every time the team continues its undefeated streak, it feels like another layer of shackles has been added to the team. The players will pay special attention to the undefeated results and records.

Because it is too difficult to create these records, they really hope to engrav their names in the history of the five major leagues.

But the more you care about these, the greater the impact will be on the court and the more unstable your performance will be.

Fortunately, this is Guardiola's team. Because of his tactical style, his team's record in the league is very stable.

Bayern, the dominant team in the Bundesliga, plays so hard when faced with an unbeaten record. In a highly competitive league like the Premier League, Manchester City, which has no foundation, will only have more difficulty if they want to continue their unbeaten record. .

Therefore, in Guardiola's view, it is definitely a good thing that Manchester City's unbeaten streak has been broken.

Lin Quan basically agrees with this statement. In fact, before the winter break, Manchester City had shown signs of what Guardiola said. In those few times, he relied on his decisive kills to continue the unbeaten streak.

Now that the team no longer has the burden of being undefeated, they can play more relaxedly.

…

Because Manchester City still had a game to play two days later, Lin Quan did not stay in Munich for too long.

After a night's rest, he took the next day's flight back to Manchester.

The results of the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals have all been announced at this time.

Except for Manchester City who defeated their opponents by a huge score, the other three teams in the Premier League's top four in this round failed to win.

Arsenal lost 1:4 at home to Barcelona and basically lost hope of advancing. Wenger's team once again fell to the top 16.

Mourinho's Chelsea lost to Bayern 0:3 and were almost eliminated like Arsenal.

Manchester United, ranked 7th in the league, was tied by Galatasaray away from home. However, they scored an away goal and their promotion situation was better than Chelsea and Arsenal.

Compared with the miserable records of the four strong teams in the Premier League, La Liga's record is very outstanding.

Barcelona 4:1 Arsenal, Real Madrid 6:1 Olympiacos, Atletico Madrid 1:0 AC Milan.

All three teams that advanced have won, all on the road.

The bleakness of the Premier League and the glory of La Liga have caused the debate about who is the largest league to start quarreling again.

If you look purely at the Champions League record in recent years, La Liga is undoubtedly the world's largest league.

No team in the Premier League reached the quarterfinals last year, and this year there are at most two teams in the quarterfinals. Manchester United may not be able to enter.

And with the current state of the Manchester duo, the outside world is not optimistic about them winning the Champions League.

However, the winning odds of these three La Liga teams are all in the top five, with Real Madrid and Barcelona ranking first and third respectively, and Atletico Madrid ranking fifth.

This made the British media start to cry: Who can stand up and defend the glory of the Premier League?

…

Lin Quan has no interest in defending the glory of the Premier League. He only cares about his team's record.

On February 22, Manchester City faced Stoke City at home.

Before the game, Lin Quan showed the video of the game between Bayern and Chelsea to Pellegrini, who was thoughtful after watching it.

In this game, he absorbed the tactical advantages of Guardiola at Bayern and made some adjustments to Manchester City's midfield.

The effect of the adjustment was outstanding. Manchester City, who played at home, played a vigorous offensive and defeated their opponents with a score of 3:0, sweeping away the haze of the previous three rounds of defeat.

Compared with Manchester City, which is gradually emerging from the haze, Chelsea, which was completely defeated by Bayern in the away game, has begun to decline.

The most unacceptable loser for Mourinho is Guardiola's team, but they were defeated by Guardiola on the road.

This greatly affected the madman's mentality, and the tactical arrangements for this game were also very abstract.

Until the 90th minute of the game, the score on the field was still 0:0.

If the game ends with this score, Manchester City's advantage will be expanded to 10 points again.

But it is a pity that in stoppage time, Chelsea captain Terry stood up and scored Everton's goal with a header to help the team complete the victory!

After defeating the Toffees, Chelsea also struggled to get 3 points. The point difference between them and Manchester City is still 8 points.

But at this time, Mourinho did not have time to engage in high-level psychological warfare with Manchester City. He was compared with Guardiola by reporters, which annoyed him.

"The Champions League is not over yet, our team will win at home and then advance!"

Mourinho will definitely not admit defeat easily. He is still talking tough and believes that Chelsea can complete a shocking reversal.

However, reporters are very unfavorable to them. In the history of the Champions League, there is only one team that has come back from three goals behind, and that is Super Deportivo - Deportivo La Coruna. Of course, the half-time champagne game in Milan does not count. , because Liverpool only took half time to reverse them...

Therefore, the outside world generally believes that Mourinho is being tough!

Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich is also very angry about the fact that the team is about to stop in the top 16.

Before inviting Mourinho back, the first person he contacted was actually Guardiola.

It was after Guardiola rejected him that he had to find Mourinho.

Now that Mourinho has once again been defeated by Guardiola, the impression that Mourinho is inferior to Guardiola has deepened in Abramovich's mind.

In addition, Mourinho has always wanted to be Chelsea's football manager and take charge of all the powers of Chelsea.

This made Abu Ben dissatisfied with him. At this time, he would not like Mourinho no matter how he looked at him!

Fortunately, Mourinho still has some opportunities. Manchester City and Manchester United will face the Manchester Derby in the next game.

In such a strong matchup, as long as Manchester United can block Manchester City at home, Chelsea will have a chance to narrow the score between the two teams.

As long as the point difference is reduced to 5 points, Chelsea's probability of winning will be greatly increased!

Chelsea have not won the championship in four years. If they can win the Premier League championship, even if they are eliminated from the Champions League, Mourinho feels that he has completed his task.

Not only Chelsea people are paying close attention to the Manchester City derby, but the entire Premier League is paying attention to this game.

For Manchester United, if they lose this game, their points will further fall to eighth place, and the points gap with the European Theater will also widen to more than 11 points.

There are 10 games left in the league, and it will be too difficult to recover 11 points.

Once they lose hope of qualifying for the Champions League, Manchester United will face the embarrassing situation of missing the Champions League for the first time in 18 years.

After losing the exposure of the Champions League, their commercial income and match bonuses will drop, and Manchester United will have to reduce player wages by then.

The reduction in player wages and the absence of the Champions League will greatly weaken Manchester United's attractiveness to outstanding players, and may even cause existing players in the team to leave due to dissatisfaction.

This will undoubtedly seriously damage Manchester United's strength and put them into a death spiral!

It can be said that Manchester United is already standing on the edge of the cliff, with a situation of no return behind it.

And all of this is due to Moyes' poor leadership.

The wealth that Sir Alex Ferguson handed over to him was defeated by him in just one season.

This made the Red Devils fans very disappointed with Moyes, and the calls for a change of coach became louder and louder.

Manchester United has performed very poorly in strong matches in the league this season. Apart from winning one game against Arsenal, they have no wins against other teams.

If they lose to Manchester City, they will be beaten home and away by their opponents and create the worst Manchester derby record since 1970.

It is said that the Grayson family, the owners of Manchester United, have reached the limit of their patience with Moyes.

They will come to the scene to supervise this game in person, if Moyes cannot defend the dignity of the Red Devils at Old Trafford and loses to Manchester City again.

Then Moye will most likely be fired!

Therefore, for Moyes and his Manchester United, they cannot afford to lose this Manchester derby!

At 19:00 on the evening of March 1st, the much-anticipated Manchester City Derby started at Old Trafford.