All-around center

"Croatia's goal gave them greater initiative. When the situation was already tilted towards Croatia, this goal could even turn the rhythm towards them!"

At this point in the game, Costa Rica had to say that it was suppressed too badly.

They could hardly organize an effective attack.

Although they thought they could rely on defense and counterattacks to launch several threatening attacks before the game, they had not done so so far.

Croatia also controlled the midfield very well, not giving the opponent any chance at all.

The most critical thing was Ruiz, the No. 10 player of Costa Rica who had performed well before. He completely lost his voice in this game. He seemed to have disappeared since the start of the game.

In fact, Ruiz also played very badly, or was very confused.

There were few things he could do. As the hub of the attack and defense conversion, he had to act as an offensive engine and pass the ball during the conversion.

But Costa Rica was obviously not as fast as Croatia in terms of the speed of attack and defense conversion.

They had just started to turn around and counterattack, and Croatia had already retreated at full speed and arranged the defense line in advance.

In this case, Ruiz's efficiency in passing threatening balls is greatly reduced.

What's more, in normal situations, Modric is putting pressure on him.

Ruiz can't control the ball. Once he controls the ball, he will be fiercely pressed by Croatia.

But if he wants to pass the ball, he has too few forward passing points.

The final result is a situation of constant back passes or lateral transfers, and the rhythm is dragged down again and again.

It can be said that so far, they are playing with the rhythm of Croatia.

What Croatia wants to do, they realize it later, and then make up for it, and this kind of compensation will always suffer losses, and the situation will become more and more disadvantageous.

"The first half is almost over, but so far, Costa Rica has not been able to launch a threatening attack. They are always running around and playing at Croatia's pace!"

"I think they must make some changes to get themselves out of this passive rhythm."

The Brazilian commentator shook his head and said, "This game can't be any worse, why not give it a try?"

If it were him, he would feel that he would fight Croatia to the death.

Even if they lose, they will still advance. There is nothing to be afraid of!

Costa Rica is in a challenging mentality. Why not do something more extreme? Since normal tactics don't work, find other ways?

To be killed by slow fire is death, and to be killed by high fire is also death!

The latter can be more comfortable, at least more intense!

After Costa Rica kicked off, the rhythm remained unchanged, and they also realized that they should be more proactive.

Or, if they continue to play like this, they will eventually be dragged to death by Croatia.

In terms of lineup, Croatia already has an advantage.

Although I don't want to admit it, these guys are indeed world-class players.

Moreover, their experience in major tournaments and other aspects is much richer than Costa Rica. If they play the game step by step, they may really be exhausted.

Bang!

Campbell tried a long shot outside the penalty area with a little irritation, but the result was obvious, and he didn't even touch the door frame.

Angry Campbell couldn't help stamping his feet and cursing to vent, and at this time the referee also decisively blew the whistle for halftime.

The cheers of Croatian fans at the scene were loud. Although there were cheers from Costa Rican fans, it was not as intense as at the beginning of the game.

The players of both sides walked to the player channel. They had to go back to the locker room to arrange the second half.

In the Costa Rican locker room.

"It's meaningless. If we continue to play like this, we won't find any chance to counterattack."

Ruiz shouted; "We should be more proactive!"

"But the cost of being proactive may be to lose more balls!"

Central defender Gonzalez said.

Ruiz turned his head: "Are we afraid of losing the ball? We played this game with the idea of ​​challenging. To be honest, the possibility of losing is greater than the possibility of winning. I believe you also know this. The situation is already like this, why not try to play more actively?"

The first half made Ruiz and Campbell, the midfielders and front players, exhausted.

In order to defend, they have to actively return to defense.

And every time they run back and then start again when counterattacking, the rhythm is not enough, and their offense and defense conversion is not as fast as Croatia.

This is also the reason why their repeated counterattacks did not work.

The entire 45 minutes have proved that the tactics in the first half are useless, why should we persist?

"I agree with Ruiz's idea!" Campbell raised his hand and said: "If we lose the game like this, I really don't want to."

There was no threatening shot, and he was unwilling to end the game like this.

I was full of passion to welcome the game, but after half a game, the whole person became confused.

If there were one or two threatening attacks, it would not be like this.

For 45 minutes, they were overwhelmed.

Defense, counterattack failed!

Continue to defend! , and then counterattack failed again!

The whole first half was a cycle of this pattern, it would be strange if there was no problem with the mentality.

Of course, as a defensive player, Gonzalez and others also had concerns.

When they were defending in the front and midfield, they were under so much pressure. Once they only partially retreated, their pressure would only be greater.

They also knew that increasing the attack would increase the probability of winning.

But once the defense was completely penetrated or collapsed directly, the game would be over.

Costa Rica obviously had a lot of concerns at this time, which made it difficult for them to make a decision.

The coach of Costa Rica looked at this scene and slowly exhaled: "Kids, let's not leave any regrets in this game!"

"In the second half, we gave up some defense and increased the offensive efficiency."

Hearing this, Ruiz and others showed surprise.

Gonzalez frowned slightly; "But in this case."

"I know!"

The head coach waved his hand, indicating that he should listen to him.

"We have to attack, the pressure of defense will inevitably increase, and the risk will increase accordingly, but we must also know that if we continue like this, we will only be slowly worn out!"

"What is our purpose in this game? Now no one believes that we can win, and even we ourselves are questioning ourselves. At this time, we must strengthen our beliefs!"

"Come on! Children, let us believe in each other and believe that you can create miracles!"

In the Croatian locker room, Besic was also arranging tactics in an orderly manner.

"The second half will continue the tactics of the first half. Pay more attention to control in the midfield. Vukojevic and Joel Luka warm up and prepare to come on as substitutes!"

After Besic finished talking about the tactics, when he turned around, he found that Van Styak waved at him.

"What's wrong?" Besic walked over and asked.

Van Styak pursed his lips: "I feel that Costa Rica will change its tactics in the second half!"

Besic raised his eyebrows slightly: "You mean, they will take the initiative to attack?"

"That's right!" Van Styak nodded: "Costa Rica has no pressure to advance, they will play more unrestrainedly, and one more thing, if I were the head coach of Costa Rica, they would let the players attack in the second half and use offense to exchange for the initiative!"

"To be honest, our lineup has too few interception points in the midfield. Neither Brozovic nor Modric is a player who is good at defense, so should we consider replacing Vukojevic directly?"

Replacing Vukojevic means that the midfield has a slow-motion belt, which can reduce the pressure on the back line and increase the three-dimensional sense of defense.

This way Croatia is safer.

Besic touched his chin and thought.

Van Styak did not urge him. This is his feeling. He believes that Costa Rica will not just sit there and wait for death.

After a while, Besic suddenly said, "Call Vukojevic back!"

"You want to send him on the field?" Van Styak asked.

The latter nodded immediately.

He didn't expect Besic to execute it so decisively.

"It won't do us any harm, will it? What we need is stability, eliminating all unstable obstacles, and winning the game smoothly. Although it will sacrifice some training opportunities for young players, our goals for this World Cup are big and our ambitions are great, so sometimes we have to make some appropriate adjustments."

Besic has never been a rigid person.

Many people think that he advocates defensive counterattack tactics, so they think he is not passionate enough.

But in fact, Besic rarely uses this kind of kicking in the game, or he adopts different tactics for the game.

From this point, we can see that his style is very flexible.

Many people are unwilling to use the substitution quota first when they are in the leading state, but make substitutions later.

And Besic dared to make such adjustments based on speculation.

Moreover, as Besic said, what they want is stability, even if they make substitutions, there will not be much problem with overall control.

At worst, Suker would retreat more and increase the control of the midfield.

What Besic wants is to win the game steadily without any surprises.

The complete victory in the group stage is enough to give them more confidence and better condition in the knockout stage.

"The halftime break is over. We received news from the front. Claudia made the first substitution?"

The Brazilian commentator expressed it in a puzzled tone. Obviously, it is rare to make substitutions when leading.

However, this may also be a choice for Croatia to increase its defensive ability.

After all, they sent Vukojevic, the defensive midfielder!

As for the other side, after seeing this substitution, the head coach of Costa Rica turned pale.

"They guessed it!"

The head coach of Costa Rica looked very ugly. They made a bold decision, but Croatia seemed to have expected it and made adjustments in advance.

This means that their offensive tactics at the beginning of the second half are not so easy to implement.

The players of Costa Rica also looked at each other. This substitution was a bit too deadly.

They all turned their heads to look at the head coach, who nodded firmly.

At this point, there was no room for retreat.

Since the decision had been made, no matter how Croatia changed, they had to fight it out.

"Got it!"

Seeing Costa Rica's position, Van Styak couldn't help but clench his fist.

Besic also grinned and turned around and said, "You can always guess what kind of tactical changes the opponent will make."

Not just this time, Van Stryak's prophetic tactical guesses always give Croatia an advantage.

And this time Costa Rica's change of formation was also caught by them.

Today's Costa Rica, although the selection of players has not changed, the positioning has changed drastically.

What started as a 5-4-1 formation has now become a 4-3-1-2, a more offensive formation.

Among them, Ruiz is naturally the best choice for the attacking midfielder.

He hides behind the two forwards and also stands in front of the three midfielders, playing a connecting role. With the support of his teammates, he will not be in the embarrassing situation of not being able to find the ball point like in the first half. .

If we follow Croatia's formation in the first half, Modric and Brozovic each occupy half of the defensive area, but there is no clear defensive point.

That would put Ruiz in a much freer position.

But the problem is that their changes were caught by Van Steyak.

Vukojevic's appearance means that even if Ruiz is hiding behind, he will still be interfered by Vukojevic.

"It really hit the target!"

Su Ke was a little surprised.

He really admired Van Stryak's tactical prediction ability. When he was coaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Van Stryak was known for his unconstrained tactical imagination.

Of course, there are also situations where some special operations lead to embarrassing situations, but more often than not, it is the tactical changes that he caught.

"Costa Rica is going to fight for it!"

"They can't do it unless they fight hard, otherwise they won't be able to take the initiative, let alone win."

"Vukojevic will watch over Ruiz!"

Suk turned his head and looked over. He made eye contact with Vukojevic, who gave a thumbs up, as if to say 'don't worry'.

Just such an action made Suk couldn't help laughing.

This guy can always give Su Ke a great sense of security!

In the camera, Ruiz's expression was extremely uncomfortable.

It was bad enough in the first half, but it was going to be targeted again in the second half.

He didn't know how Croatia guessed their tactical changes, but it hit the nail on the head.

But as the head coach said, you have to shoot when the arrow is on the string, and you have to attack even if you bite the bullet!

Wow! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ——

The cheers grew louder.

After confirming the signal from both goalkeepers, the referee immediately exited the center circle and blew the whistle.

Costa Rica took the lead in the second half.

"Take your time! Look at my position!"

Ruiz showed a positive attitude from the beginning of the game.

He knows very well that whether he can open up the situation in the second half depends on his ability to make a sound in the game.

Although Vukojevic's appearance made him feel pressured, what if Vukojevic was not targeting him?

Just as he was thinking about these things and slowly moving towards the Croatian half, there was a sudden impact behind him.

The impact wasn't huge, but it was like a wall that wouldn't let him pass.

Ruiz turned his head and looked over, and he saw Vukojevic standing next to him. At this moment, Ruiz's hanging heart finally died.

damn it!

It’s just for yourself!

Bang!

Ruiz was uncomfortable with his first touch of the ball.

As soon as he was about to stop the ball, he was interfered by Vukojevic and fiercely pressed. Although he barely passed the ball, it was still too much.

However, Costa Rica's tactics are very clear, which is to rely on Ruiz to attack.

Campbell also provided support in the frontcourt.

Compared to the first half, Costa Rica did have more forward passing options and a more positive offensive mentality.

But the problem is, their offense is not smooth.

"Are you sick?"

Suker looked at Ruiz's dribbling choices several times and couldn't help but complain.

Ruiz is similar to Suker. They are both agile players with higher technical content.

When these players get rid of the ball, they don't want to create space, but stop the ball with their first kick, then protect the ball, and finally look for opportunities to break through.

This simply sent the defense into ecstasy.

This means that defensive players can unscrupulously use their large bodies to fight and press.

If it was Su Ke, he would have either passed the ball out with a kick, or he would have taken the initiative to retreat and catch the ball, and then find a way to get rid of it after gaining distance.

But Ruiz chose to be tough, using his most disadvantageous weapon to hit the opponent's most advantageous body.

It was not unfair at all for Su Ke to say that he was sick.

But this just proves that Ruiz's mind is very confused and he is unable to make calm judgments in the fierce competition.

Not only Suker, but most of the Croatian players can see it.

They are all players who compete in top competitions all year round. They are very sensitive to information in the game, especially such changes in mentality.

Vukojevic was naturally the first to discover this, and for this reason he continued to put pressure on Ruiz.

What I want is to make him play unpleasantly, and what I want is to make him uncomfortable.

Once Ruiz fails to kick out, Costa Rica will not be able to gain any advantage.

"This hasn't changed at all!" the Brazilian commentator grinned.

There should have been a change, but it was caught by Croatia.

Vukojevic obviously plays as a man-marking midfielder!

Wherever Ruiz runs, he follows!

The main goal is to make Ruiz uncomfortable and gradually disrupt Costa Rica's overall rhythm.

In the first half, Croatia showed a stable ability to control the ball.

In the second half, they showed a stable defensive ability!

At the same time, this kind of defense is also a high-end tactic.

Although Croatia is on the defensive side, the situation is controlled by Croatia.

Costa Rica's pass is not where they want to pass.

Instead, they can only pass wherever Croatia puts it!

In other words, Croatia obviously does not have the ball, but still controls the rhythm.

On the other hand, Costa Rica seems to be active, but it is in a passive situation.

However, any interception and counterattack by Croatia can directly kill Costa Rica!