Chapter 148 Dreaming
Ajax has taken advantage of the situation in qualifying for Group A in the second round of the Champions League, which has won the support of the club's fans. Even in the Netherlands, major newspapers and TV stations have given Ajax high praise.
5:1, in the second round of the Champions League, when each team is strong, Ajax can still play such a strong attack, which surprised everyone. This score is also the biggest score in the second round of the Champions League this season, and Ajax fans are proud of it.
While enjoying the praise from the outside world, even many European media have given Ajax high praise, Ye Qiu has always had a calm and rational analysis of his team, that is, this game is not worth discussing.
Boavista has obviously lost the qualification to qualify for the group stage. In this case, in order to ensure the competitiveness of the domestic league, they have no need to continue to go all out in the Champions League. So in this game at the Arena Stadium, the Portuguese team obviously did not try their best, or they held back.
Ye Qiu felt that the game was over and there was no need to discuss it. Instead, the next schedule should be discussed.
"If we want to qualify from the group, we cannot lose this game at the Olympic Stadium. We can qualify with a draw because we have enough goal difference advantage." Ricklink was analyzing the current qualifying situation of Group A of the Champions League.
This is the most chaotic group among the four groups in the second round. Whether it is Ajax, Manchester United, or Bayern Munich, they all have the opportunity to stand out from this group. Moreover, the points of the three teams are very close. If anyone is not careful, they may be swallowed up by the other two competitors without leaving any bones.
In the first-team coaching room of the De Tokmost training base, Ye Qiu took advantage of the training to discuss and analyze with the coaching staff, targeting the team's future trend.
"If Bayern Munich wants to qualify in this game, they must choose to attack. We have played two games with Bayern this season and have accumulated some experience. I think we should take a defensive counterattack strategy step by step. No matter how Hitzfeld arranges, we will stick to our own style of play!" Roland put forward his own opinion.
From the youth team to the second team, and now, he has been with Ye Qiu for three years.
In the past three years, Ricklink and Roland have been Ye Qiu's right-hand men, responsible for arranging training and giving some advice on the tactical level, but the tactical level is their weak soft spot.
"Too passive!" Bobby Hams shook his head after listening, "What we want, Hitzfeld must want, and blindly defending is not a solution. Once Bayern's offense is in shape, it is unknown whether we can defend it."
This is reasonable. If we don't put enough pressure on the opponent and let them do whatever they want, it will be self-destruction.
Everyone started to express their opinions one by one, while Ye Qiu sat at the top and listened quietly. When everyone had almost finished arguing and calmed down and looked at him again, he exhaled lightly, tapped the table with his right hand, and asked with a smile: "What do you think our goal should be?"
Everyone present was a little surprised. Of course, it was to qualify from the group. What else could it be?
But only Bobby Harms, Ricklink and Roland, who knew Ye Qiu very well, were surprised when they heard it.
"You mean..." Bobby Harms asked.
Ye Qiu stood up from his seat, but his right hand was still tapping on the table lightly. Every tap seemed to drive the heartbeat and breathing of everyone in the coaching room. He himself enjoyed the feeling of being valued and looked up to.
"It has come to this point. Are we still just thinking about qualifying from the group?" Ye Qiu asked with a smile.
It is now generally acknowledged in European football that Real Madrid is the strongest. Real Madrid, which has gathered a large number of top stars such as Zidane, Figo, Raul, Makelele, etc., is the strongest team in Europe, and they have been far ahead in the two rounds of group matches.
Ye Qiu has always felt that the current Real Madrid is the most ideal combination of superstars and stars. After Ronaldo, Beckham and other players joined the team, Real Madrid completely went in another direction.
From the perspective of a head coach, no one wants to encounter a team with a large number of superstars and a good overall combination of the team, because the greatest role of superstars is not reflected in the tactical level, but in the moment of transcending tactics.
In other words, a real superstar can use his sudden flash of inspiration to make your efforts and tactical arrangements for the entire game completely in vain, so to some extent, all head coaches are unwilling to encounter Bosque's Real Madrid, especially after the adaptation period, when Zidane performs better and better.
There are two other teams that give all European teams a headache: Bayern Munich and Manchester United. Ajax no longer needs to worry about this. As long as they can qualify from the group, according to the same group avoidance principle, they will not encounter them.
Ye Qiu kept all these analyses in his heart. He could not tell others that he did not want to encounter Real Madrid, or that he did not want to encounter them too early.
After Ye Qiu finished speaking, everyone immediately understood what he meant, which was to strive to qualify as the first in the group, pass the quarterfinals, enter the semifinals, and even...
Everyone stared at Ye Qiu with eyes wide open, looking at him in disbelief. They originally thought that Ye Qiu had a big heart, but they didn't expect that his ambition was so big. If this were to be told to others, it would definitely scare people to death.
"It's just dreaming, why not be bolder and make our dreams as big as possible?" Ye Qiu asked with a smile.
"In 1999, who would have thought that our second team could win the Dutch Cup?"
"In 2000, the team was reorganized and it was terrible. Who could have thought that we could win the UEFA Cup?"
"Last summer, everyone defined us as a cool European Champions League, but now, after the first round of group matches, we have a good chance of qualifying in the second round of group matches."
After a pause, a raging fire ignited in Ye Qiu's heart, "In this huge world, everyone is like a frog at the bottom of a well. We can only see what we can see and think about what we know, but we must have enough courage to see what we can't see and think about what we dare not think about."
At the beginning of the season, Ye Qiu was very confident in Ajax, but that was in the Eredivisie. The goal he set for the team was to qualify for the Champions League group stage. The goal given to him by the Ajax management did not even interfere with the team's Champions League results. Now Ye Qiu has exceeded his task.
But after playing against the top teams in Europe, Ye Qiu and his Ajax found that they were not powerless even when facing the strongest teams in Europe.
What does this mean?
This means that Ye Qiu and his Ajax can and should make their dreams bigger!
All the coaching staff in the coaching room were silent and looked at Ye Qiu. They couldn't keep up with Ye Qiu's thinking. He was too bold. If it was spread out, there would be a lot of people who would say he was arrogant, but it was very tempting, wasn't it?
"What do you want to do?" Bobby Hams asked.
"Focus all your energy on playing in the Champions League!"
Hearing Ye Qiu say this, the coaching staff members present were immediately in an uproar.
With the current situation of Ajax in the Eredivisie, it is 5 points ahead and has a very high possibility of winning the championship. However, if all the energy is concentrated on the Champions League, it may become another situation, that is, the Champions League will affect the Eredivisie, and in the end, it is possible that both fronts will fail.
Ye Qiu has reflected on this before. Leverkusen's three-time champion is a painful lesson. But it must be said that the Champions League is too tempting for anyone, especially for Ye Qiu.
Ajax's biggest weakness is that the team is in the Eredivisie. Compared with the teams in the four major leagues, Ajax can be said to be an arsenal. After this summer, there will be many teams to poach players. Ye Qiu has no idea who will leave and who will stay. He is not sure whether the team will reappear the disintegration of Van Gaal in the late period.
And in the final analysis, the cruel competition in the Champions League makes it difficult for anyone to say that they will definitely make a difference in the Champions League. It's not easy to get to this point now. If you don't dare to let go and fight for a game, then Ye Qiu will definitely regret it in the future!
"I'm going to win the Eredivisie championship, but I must also fight for the Champions League!" Ye Qiu's last resounding words also put a sentence on this internal meeting of the coaching staff and put an end to all the arguments.
…………
…………
It has to be said that Ye Qiu is very stubborn, and Hitzfeld is also very stubborn.
Ye Qiu's stubbornness is because he lacks enough experience, and he has a strong spirit of a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers, but Hitzfeld's stubbornness is exactly the opposite of Ye Qiu. He is very experienced, but precisely because of his experience, he always guesses his opponents with a habitual mindset.
Ferguson suffered this big loss, and the use of Veron in both rounds was a failure.
Now, Hitzfeld is also at a disadvantage, because his experience tells him that any head coach of a team in the current situation of Ajax will adopt a strategic thinking of maintaining a draw and striving for victory.
With such a thought, and the fact that Bayern Munich is playing at the Olympic Stadium, Hitzfeld's start was somewhat careless, and Lizarazu's injury before the game, and the poor state of Sagnol and Robert Kovac, all made Bayern Munich's defense very weak.
Hitzfeld's start in this game was very confusing. He neither took the initiative to attack nor retreated across the board. Instead, he adopted a stable game strategy.
But it was obvious that in the drizzle in Munich, Ajax showed a greater desire to win than the home team from the beginning. Ye Qiu actively let the team take the initiative to attack from the beginning.
Effenberg is very good, but he is 33 years old. He has persisted until now this season. He is already good enough, but he obviously can't keep up with the impact, fast-paced offense, defense and pressure of these young players of Ajax.
Long pass has become the most used method for Bayern Munich to transfer the ball on the court, and every time the ball is passed, the ball almost falls to Ajax's feet, because there is a hot Lucio.
When the game reached the 19th minute, Van der Vaart pulled Kuffour from the right to the middle to receive the ball, and then passed it to Maicon who was inserted in the back row. The Brazilian right back quickly dribbled the ball along the right and came to the bottom line in the blink of an eye. A fiercely rotating cross ball, the distance is very sensitive, between the central defender and the goalkeeper.
Kahn is the best player of Bayern Munich this season, but facing this cross ball, he hesitated between attacking and defending, but at this moment, Lucio, who rushed from the backcourt and rushed into the Bayern Munich penalty area, overwhelmed Link with his tall and mighty body, and shook his head to blast Maicon's cross ball into the Bayern Munich goal.
The Brazilian center back with a face full of flesh rushed to the field after scoring the goal. Facing the live TV camera, he kept pointing at the Ajax old man's head team logo on his chest. In this way, he told everyone that he would not leave Ajax, at least not for the time being.
Ye Qiu stood in front of the visiting team's coaching bench and kept applauding Lucio's goal. The rain slid down his short black hair, but it could not hide the fiery passion in his eyes and the desire to win the game.
Before the game, he had told his players his ideas. Everyone was impressed by the ambition of the head coach. They all knew that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If Ajax and them wanted to become famous in one fell swoop, they had to defeat one opponent after another and challenge one strong enemy after another in the European Champions Cup.
After taking the lead, Ye Qiu did not shrink the defense as others thought, but continued to press forward.
Bayern Munich was so embarrassed by Ajax's high defense that they couldn't even organize an effective pass in the midfield. They could only pass the ball again and again to find the offensive players in front to relieve the pressure of Ajax's midfield. However, Ajax's double central defenders, Lucio and Kivu, firmly controlled the situation.
In the 37th minute, Ibrahimovic pulled out of the penalty area to get the ball. Facing Robert Kovac who also followed him, the Swedish center turned around and got rid of him. Then he used his arm to restrain Robert Kovac, who fell to the ground, but the referee thought it was not a foul and didn't even blow the whistle.
After Ibrahimovic dribbled into the penalty area, facing Link who came forward to block, he suddenly went down after a fake move and hit the right post in front of the goal.
Kahn stood on the left, and he was always on guard against whether Ibrahimovic would suddenly kick the ball, but he didn't expect that the Swede suddenly passed the ball horizontally, and Van der Vaart on the right quickly inserted it, and used his right foot, which he was not good at, to send Ibrahimovic's close pass into the goal of Bayern Munich, 2:0!
The whole Olympic Stadium was in an uproar!
The importance of this game is self-evident. As the defending champion, Bayern Munich fans have high hopes for the team, hoping that Hitzfeld's team can continue to work hard, but they didn't expect that they would be forced into such a mess by this team from the Eredivisie at their doorstep.
2 goals behind and passive on the field, all of which have declared that Bayern Munich's entire first half was completely defeated.
Entering the halftime break with a 2:0 lead, Ye Qiu first praised the team's performance in the locker room, especially the performance of the players. He believed that everyone did a great job in this game.
"Bayern Munich will definitely counterattack in the second half. They will definitely change their tactics and give up the inefficient long-pass attack in the first half. So we should strengthen the team's defense in the second half. You must remember that the German team will not be defeated so easily. They will fight us until the last second!"
Ye Qiu's words really came true.
In the second half, Hitzfeld reflected on the play in the first half and simply replaced the poorly performing Sagnol with Angel Wing Salihamidzic. The team's tactics changed to 352, which was Hitzfeld's best tactical formation before.
With Salihamidzic and Saul pulling and threatening on both sides, and the three tough guys Hargreaves, Effenberg and Jeremiah in the middle, Bayern Munich gradually regained control of the midfield, while Ajax had to retreat across the board to ensure a solid defense.
In the 60th minute, seeing that the attack was not strong, Hitzfeld made another substitution, replacing Hargreaves with striker Pizarro. The team's formation immediately changed to 343, with Pizarro and Elber partnering with Santa Cruz to form a three-forward formation.
Bayern Munich is a tiger. It was stunned in the first half and made mistakes, but once the tiger woke up, it was impossible to continue to suppress Bayern.
In the 79th minute, Salihamidzic got the ball in the backcourt and made a long pass. Pizarro headed the ball and Elber inserted from behind, passing between Lucio and Kivu, and got the ball and hit a single shot, 1:2!
After conceding the goal, Ajax seemed a little confused. Ye Qiu immediately made substitutions and further strengthened the defense, which barely stabilized the situation. Ajax finally took away a 2:1 victory from the Olympic Stadium in Munich.
This victory also allowed Ajax to successfully qualify from Group A as the first in the group with 12 points, while Manchester United defeated Boavista in this game and successfully got 10 points and qualified as the second in the group.
The unfortunate defending champion Bayern Munich finally stopped in the second round of the group stage, which immediately caused an uproar in the European continent. All the media people and fans seemed to have a new understanding of Ajax. They were all surprised. How could this team eliminate the defending champion?
