Chapter 783 Silent Leader

Tottenham Hotspur visited three cities in China and played four warm-up matches. Although Tottenham Hotspur was not in the best condition, especially some of the international players who participated in the Confederations Cup, their performance was even more sluggish, but they still relied on their own strong strength to defeat their opponents and won four consecutive victories.

In the four warm-up matches, they beat Guangzhou team 1:0, Shanghai team 3:1, BJ team 2:0, and the national team 4:1. The latter two were held in BJ. On the day of the game with the national team, the team was also received by the Prime Minister. This is also the first time that all European giants have enjoyed such an honor in China.

However, many Chinese fans did not react too surprised. After all, in the eyes of many people, this team is like China's own team. In the past few years, domestic fans have basically supported Tottenham Hotspur.

After the grand tour of China, Tottenham Hotspur went to Qatar and played a warm-up match with the Qatar national team. The result was a 1:1 draw, which made Qatar a carnival. After all, this is the top giant team in the world football. They feel extremely honored to be able to draw with such a team.

For Tottenham Hotspur, the opponents on the field are far less threatening than the climate here, especially the amazing high temperature weather, which makes them all very uncomfortable, so after playing a warm-up match, they hurriedly returned to Europe.

After returning to Theobald, the first thing Tottenham Hotspur did was to rest and summarize.

Mainly for Tottenham Hotspur's performance during the Asian trip and some problems found by the team.

On this trip to Asia, the two players that made Tottenham Hotspur most satisfied were Lewandowski on the striker line. This player played the role of the team's arrow very well. Although in many details, it still showed that the cooperation between him and his teammates was not tacit enough, there is no doubt that he played quite well.

Another player who performed well was Matic, the main defensive midfielder of Southampton last season. After he joined Tottenham Hotspur, Ye Qiu arranged him to start in the first game against Guangzhou team and played the whole first half. In fact, it was his outstanding performance that made Tottenham Hotspur's first half very stable.

Guangzhou team's head coach Lippi praised this player to Ye Qiu after the game, believing that he really has the strength and qualifications to take the lead in Tottenham Hotspur, but Lippi also mentioned that Matic is still young and can continue to be polished and improved.

As for Stroman, he played in all five warm-up matches, including two as a defensive midfielder and three as a central midfielder. His performance was also very good, proving his strength, but it also reflected the coaching staff's contradictions about him, that is, where he should appear.

Mitrovic had two chances to come on as a substitute, but failed to score. The Serbian center forward, like his compatriot Nastasic, is a future star of Tottenham Hotspur, but is not yet qualified to be a main player.

However, the coaching staff is most busy not to evaluate the performance of the players. After all, this is pre-season training. Their most important work is to start adjusting the role of some players in the team's tactical system according to the problems exposed in the training camp and warm-up matches, such as the running routes and cooperation between Messi and Lewandowski and Ribery and another winger.

Ye Qiu had to admire Mauro Tassotti for this. This kind of typical Italian head coach can often make the tactics so detailed that you feel cumbersome. As long as you look at the tactical notes written by Mauro Tassotti in the past few years, I am afraid that most people will be dizzy after reading the beginning.

Now many media and fans are advocating Tottenham's wave-style attack and defense system, but they don't understand what the real core of the wave-style attack and defense system is. They can only see some surface, such as how players stand, how to assist defense, how to run, what is the running route, what is the passing route, etc.

These are still those fans who love tactics, or journalists and media who write football tactical analysis. They will be interested, but Tottenham's entire tactical system is not just these, and even goes deeper and further.

For example, Tottenham's wave-style attack, many people admire the second and third waves of attack, but they don't notice that Tottenham has practiced more than a dozen ways and routines to launch secondary attacks, but on the field, it is very likely that none of them will be used, and the players will adopt a new routine on the spot.

Perhaps seeing this, some people will ask, if this is the case, why do we need to practice these routines?

This is the problem, because if these routines are not practiced to the point of being familiar, how can the players perform well on the spot?

Do you really think that if you throw Messi into a brand new team that has never practiced together, he will be able to perform well?

Italy's head coaches have always done a good job in tactical refinement, so we see that Serie A teams, even the weakest teams, are often well organized in terms of defense and tactics, but Italian teams have a weakness, that is wingers!

Sometimes Ye Qiu even wondered if the decline of Italian football was related to the rise of wingers?

Throughout the history of Italian football over the past 100 years, their wingers have never been strong. Even in the era of Herrera's catenaccio defense, Sacchi's Milan dynasty, or Juventus at the turn of the century, or the later Inter Milan period, their style of play tended to be in the middle.

So, it is very interesting that Italy is rich in central defenders, central midfielders and center forwards, but not in wingers.

Compared with wing attacking players, defensive players are relatively good. After all, Italy's defense attaches great importance to the wing, but even Donadoni, who is known as the best winger in the history of Italian football, is actually more like a virtual wing center player, rather than a pure wing attacking player.

So now there is a saying in European football that it is easiest to play against Serie A teams, just play on the wing and crush them!

The subtle influence of Italian football over the past few years has made Italian tactics seem to be more and more conservative and lost a kind of vitality, but at the same time it has also gradually tied themselves up.

It has to be said that Prandelli's Italian national team's performance in the European Cup was indeed amazing, especially the routine of using Pirlo to play diagonal attacks, which made up for the lack of Italian wing attacking players.

When Mauro Tassotti first came to Tottenham Hotspur, he was not used to Ye Qiu's set of winger play from the Netherlands. This is also the weakness of all Italian head coaches. They can't use wingers well.

The bad use here does not mean that they use it badly, but that they cannot play the biggest threat of winger tactics and play the strongest offensive power of the wingers in their hands, because this is inconsistent with what they have insisted on for the past few decades.

However, in the seven years of Tottenham Hotspur, Mauro Tassotti immersed himself in this whole set of all-out attack and defense concepts from the Netherlands, as well as winger tactics, and he and Ye Qiu have effectively combined the Italian defensive concept, the Dutch offensive and defensive concept, and the traditional characteristics of English football in the past few years.

This is the birth of Tottenham Hotspur's wave-type attack and defense system!

There is another very important tactical concept that must be clear: football tactics are relative.

Remember Sacchi once said that when a player can play a big role in the defensive system, he can play the same role in the offensive system, and vice versa.

Many people don't understand and think this is nonsense, but is it really nonsense?

Some players who seem to have no offensive ability, do they really have no offensive threat?

If there is really no offensive threat, then I would like to ask, when the opponent presses forward with the ball, he successfully intercepts the ball, while destroying the opponent's offensive threat, it is actually when our offensive threat is the greatest.

This is because, in football tactics, offense and defense have been integrated.

Therefore, for Tottenham Hotspur, it is not a problem to replace Matic with Pirlo. On the surface, Pirlo's offensive and organizational abilities are much stronger than Matic, but in fact, if you really put it into this set of tactics, as long as you run in and coordinate well, the difference between the two is really not much.

But Matic's age and running are an advantage in themselves, aren't they?

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After returning to London, Tottenham Hotspur focused more on solving the problems encountered during the team's warm-up matches. After entering August, the team went to Southampton for a warm-up match. The two sides tied 2:2, and Tottenham Hotspur still equalized the score in the second half.

In this game, Ye Qiu still arranged the starting lineup of last season. The three midfielders were Pogba, who performed well in the warm-up match, and Pirlo and Vidal. However, although Tottenham Hotspur scored one goal in the first half, Southampton scored two goals, one of which was caused by Pirlo's dribbling being intercepted.

In this game, Adrianse specially arranged Coutinho to watch Pirlo. The Brazilian performed well and helped Southampton get a 2:1 lead in the first half with two assists.

In the second half, Ye Qiu made adjustments. Matic replaced Pirlo and Ramsey replaced Pogba. Tottenham's midfield changed, the midfield and backcourt were stabilized, and the ball was smoother, but the offense still did not make much progress.

After that, Ye Qiu successively replaced Hazard, Neymar, Drogba and others to further strengthen the offensive. In the end, Neymar's goal tied the score, 2:2, and the two sides tied. However, in the last twenty minutes, Tottenham had the advantage, but failed to score.

For this situation, Ye Qiu also shook his head. On the one hand, it was because the team had just finished the training period and the performance was average, which was not difficult to understand. Another point was that Southampton's strength improvement this season was indeed great.

N'Koulou and Lovren joined the team and immediately became the main central defenders of the team. Although Matic left the midfield, Sandro joined Southampton. With the presence of Nick Powell, Will Hughes, Lallana, Lucas Moura and Coutinho, Southampton's strength has improved significantly.

But what made Ye Qiu most impressed was the Italian center forward Immobile, who scored twice and was elected the best player of the game. The Italian center forward played as a single striker in Southampton, who played offensive football. With Coutinho, Lallana and Lucas Moura passing the ball behind him, he immediately showed his efficient side, and he was very comprehensive.

"As long as Southampton's lineup is well integrated, it is estimated that they can compete in the Champions League this season!" Mauro Tassotti is still very optimistic about Southampton's strength. The current lineup of this team seems to have no It's so huge, but in fact the quality of the personnel is very good, and the overall quality is very strong, so as long as Adriansai can train it, there is still hope to compete for the Champions League.

Ye Qiu understood what Mauro Tassotti meant. Adrianse was no longer suitable for Southampton.

This is not about burning bridges, it is a fact!

Adriance has laid a solid foundation for Southampton's mainland tactical system in the past few years, but now after several years of accumulation, this team has begun to look forward to a reality, that is, to leave the Premier League and enter European competitions. , at this time, if Adriance can follow the progress of the team well, then he can continue to stay, otherwise, like Mancini, he will eventually be left behind by Southampton.

Mancini's biggest problem is that his progress lags far behind the team's progress.

"How do you think about it?" Mauro Tassotti asked with a smile.

Ye Qiu shrugged, "I have no choice. I must continue to use Pirlo at the beginning of the season!"

In fact, with Matic, Ye Qiu feels that the Serbian is fully capable of replacing Pirlo, but the problem does not lie in the technical and tactical level, but in the locker room and the fans.

Taking down Pirlo without saying a word is obviously unacceptable to Pirlo. Even if he promised to accept rotation when renewing his contract, the problem is that you have to give him a chance to perform first, as well as the players in the locker room. Taking Pirlo for no reason without giving him any chance will chill the hearts of the players.

As a manager, the biggest taboo is to cool down the hearts of your subordinates.

Therefore, many times when fans watch some European teams, they will feel that there must be a problem when a certain player performs very poorly but plays in every game. In fact, everyone knows that there is a problem, but the head coach This player may have to be played for various reasons.

Just like Pirlo, the core and soul of the team at its peak in the past two years, can he just win it?

So Ye Qiu must continue to use him. At some point, other people in the locker room began to have a voice and began to feel that Pirlo was indeed old. The media and fans also began to feel that the team should make adjustments. , then it would be logical for Ye Qiu to step forward and take down Pirlo with a wave of his hand.

Sometimes Ye Qiu can't bear it, but professional football is so cruel. When you get old, you can't run anymore, and you start to decline, you are destined to be abandoned sooner or later, so Zidane is very proud. Before being abandoned by others, abandon others first. This is undoubtedly a very wise choice.

And Ye Qiu believes that Pirlo is a smart man. He understands all this, but he still has something in his heart that he pursues, and that is the World Cup. Otherwise, he would probably have dumped Tottenham Hotspur this summer.

"I said, I will pave the way for you this season!" Ye Qiu said with a smile.

In fact, this is what the media has been worried about, that is, Pirlo's succession issue was not done well, and Tottenham Hotspur suffered from internal friction, just like Xavi in ​​Barcelona now. Everyone knows that he should be taken down. At the very least, he should be on the bench, but no matter who Barcelona replaces as head coach, they will still have to use Xavi.

Sometimes it's not because Harvey wants to be a ball dominator, because his idea is very simple, just continue playing football, but it's not because the head coach and management are too weak, but because this is a management method.

Mauro Tassotti just smiled, because in his opinion, this season is more of a transitional nature, and according to the agreement between the team and Pirlo, when his contract expires next summer, he will not renew it. Approximately, so this problem will be solved very well and will not be left to next season in any case.

At this point, the attitude of Tottenham Hotspur's management is still very clear, that is, not to disclose internal conflicts to the outside world, because this will lead to the breakdown of unity within the team.

Regarding the team's failure to defeat Southampton in the away game, Ye Qiu defended Pirlo in a post-match interview with the media, believing that Pirlo mainly participated in the Confederations Cup, which led to his current physical fatigue, "I believe that in the new season, He must be able to adjust to his best condition before arriving, because he is still a vital member of the team.”

As for some outside opinions that Ye Qiu will abolish Pirlo's main position in the new season, Ye Qiu also denied it, "I want to say that Pirlo is very important to Tottenham Hotspur, not only On the football field, he seems like the silent leader of the team!”

There is no doubt about this. Pirlo has been the core organizer of the team in the past two seasons. His prestige in the team is not inferior to that of Messi and others. After all, Messi has never been a very authoritative person. .

"But I believe everyone can understand, including Pirlo, that we must prepare for the future. Matic and Stroman are our preparations for the future. I think their arrival can share Pirlo's burden well. "

Pirlo also said in an interview that he can still contribute to Tottenham Hotspur.

“Many people remind me of my age, but I think that age cannot be an obstacle for me to continue playing football. I feel that my current condition is getting better, and the head coach also told me that he still trusts me very much, so I don’t want to think about anything now. I just want to adjust my condition and repay the trust of the team and the head coach!”