Football No. 10: God's Perspective

The Portuguese Cup is the second-highest domestic championship after the league championship.

Benfica, which has reached the semi-finals, is going to make a strong impact on this event. Their opponent in the semi-finals is Guimarães, which has always been in the upper reaches.

Throughout the history of the Portuguese Super League, there are three clubs that are called giants.

Benfica, Porto, and Sporting Lisbon, the three major clubs have almost won all the honors in the cup and league.

In comparison, Guimarães is somewhat unworthy of mention, but in recent years, the club has a good investment situation and a stable record. The league ranking has been fluctuating between fourth and sixth, and it has also had a record of consecutively entering the cup finals.

It can be regarded as a touchstone for the first group of teams.

The league has entered the sprint period, and Guimarães is in an exceptionally good state, with five consecutive wins. It is close to Sporting Lisbon, which is in third place in the standings. This is going to the Europa League next season, and its strength should not be underestimated.

Judging from the pre-match intelligence, Guimarães is a team with very distinctive characteristics.

Most of the players are tall and strong, and they are powerful.

The team's offensive style is mostly high-altitude balls. The center forward Bali is 1.95 meters tall. Among his 21 goals this season, 80% are headers.

The center midfielder Helen is also 1.88 meters tall. He is good at getting in the middle of the back row and grabbing points.

The two center backs in the backcourt are 1.91 meters tall and 1.93 meters tall respectively.

With such a terrifying height, the set-pieces of the Guimaraes team are extremely lethal. The unique height talent and the ghostly and changeable set-piece tactics are hard to defend. Once these high points fight in the penalty area, it is a no-fly zone, and the defense of any team will tremble.

Height is an advantage in competing for high-altitude balls, but the awareness of grabbing points and the judgment of the landing point are equally important.

Otherwise, Cannavaro, who is only 175cm tall, would not have won the Golden Ball Award as a defender. Although he does not have the talent of height, his ability to grab points and judge the landing points are all historical. It is these two factors that ensure that he has a point to compete with the tall and strong forwards in the central defender position.

At the preparation meeting, Mano emphasized the opponent's advantage in this regard.

"The first point is to try to interfere with the opponent as much as possible. It doesn't matter if you can't grab it, but the second point must not be given up. Don't give the opponent too many second-point balls."

"Also, the opponent's bottom cross is the main offensive routine and the starting point of its offensive source. We must strangle the opponent from the root. The defense of the wing is the top priority and must not be taken lightly..."

The system of single-elimination matches is very accidental, and some upsets often break out. Therefore, it must not be taken lightly and must be cautious. Mano held the entire meeting for a full 3 hours. It can be seen that the head coach Mano has done a lot of preparation for this game.

After the draw, Benfica drew the home team, and they will play against their opponents at the Stadium of Light.

Match day is a festival for fans.

A large number of fans happily walked into the stadium to cheer for the team.

Although he has long been accustomed to such scenes, every time he enters the stadium, Wang Pei still feels inexplicably excited. Perhaps this is the charm of football.

Unlike the previous cup starter, in this game, facing the distinctive Guimaraes team, Mano put Wang Pei on the bench.

Indeed, Wang Pei, who is only 1.78 meters tall, has a considerable disadvantage in the competition for high-altitude balls.

If he is targeted by the opponent, it will be disadvantageous to the team.

The Portuguese Cup semi-finals began with the cheering songs of more than 60,000 fans in the stadium.

At the beginning, the two sides were in a bayonet confrontation. Benfica's height and strength disadvantages made them suffer.

Every time the central defender confronted the Guimaraes center forward, he felt like he had been hit by a car once, and his whole body was sore.

Unsurprisingly, in the battle for the high point, Benfica was at a disadvantage, and the team's defense line had sounded the air defense alarm.

The scene was like watching a volleyball game, and the ball was basically floating in the air.

After watching the 30-minute game, Guimaraes' performance was similar to what Mano said. The midfielder was more involved in defense and rushing into the penalty area to grab points, and the ball organization was at the middle level.

The real strength is the two wingers of the Guimaraes team. They are fast, good at dribbling, and have a tacit understanding of tactics. Almost every pass to the penalty area is grabbed by their players, which is the real offensive engine of Guimaraes.

"Strangle, strangle."

Watching the left and right wingers of the Guimaraes team tearing the Benfica team's defense again and again, Mano shouted frantically to the back midfielder anxiously.

Although high-profile shooting sounds a bit outdated, there is no such saying on a purely tactical level.

As long as it works, it is a good tactic.

Although the tactics of the Guimaraes team are simple, they fully utilize the unique advantages of their team. However, some opponents have no way to deal with this method. Using their own strengths to attack the weaknesses of others is the core concept of tactics.

After holding on for 65 minutes, Benfica still couldn't withstand the high-altitude bombing of the Guimaraes team.

Facing the cross from his teammates, Bali jumped high with two central defenders of Benfica hanging on him and headed the ball into the dead corner.

0 to 1.

Benfica, playing at home, has fallen behind.

Passive everywhere, must make changes.

Mano's mind was racing on the sidelines, he was thinking about the game strategy, and after about two minutes, he finally made a decision.

With a wave of the flag, he made a substitution decision, and at the same time issued a strange tactical arrangement to the players.

Mano replaced the starting right wingback with Wang Bo, and replaced the starting left wingback with a central defender.

In terms of the arrangement of the positions on the field, Gomez was required to play as a central midfielder, and Wang Bo was pushed to the No. 9 position, which is the position of the center forward.

As for the newly replaced central defender, he was in the middle of the back line.

This is to play with five defenders.

The formation changed to a strange 5311, or 541.

The five-defender formation protects the defense line to the maximum extent and restricts the opponent's forward Bali, but what is the operation of letting the center forward Gomez retreat to the midfield? It is incomprehensible.

Mano handed the puzzled Gomez to the sidelines, and quickly whispered a few words to solve his doubts.

Throughout the game, Guimaraes really left them with no way to deal with aerial balls. Gomez did not gain any advantage in the penalty area against the two 1.9+ meter central defenders. Putting him in the midfield against Helen might give him some advantages.

As for Guimaraes' defense, aerial balls have proven to be unworkable, so it is better to go on the ground and use Wang Po, who is fast, has excellent dribbling skills, and has a strong ability to read the game, to challenge those big central defenders. This is also an offensive option.