From coaching Real Madrid

The team selects the coach, and the coach often selects the team.

In fact, in European football, there are many good head coaches, but they often fail to choose a good team.

The one who impressed Gao Shen the most was Ronald Koeman, who was definitely a head coach who was screwed to death.

The Ajax Young Guards he coached that year won a lot of applause in European football. Players like Ibrahimovic, Van der Vaart, Sneijder, De Jong, and Heiting emerged in the team.

Wait for a vote for a star.

But after leaving Ajax, Koeman went to Benfica in the Portuguese Super League and encountered setbacks.

In fact, in Benfica, Koeman's coaching performance was not bad. He reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League and finally lost to Barcelona, ​​who won the championship. However, in the Portuguese Super League, Benfica only finished third and lost to fellow countryman Coa.

Porto and Sporting Lisbon coached by Derriense.

Returning to the Eredivisie from the Portuguese Super League, Ronald Koeman took over the giant Eindhoven and defeated his old club Ajax in the league and won the Eredivisie championship, but Ronald Koeman will never forget it.

Go one step further.

So, in his second season coaching PSV, he took the risk and chose to save Valencia in La Liga.

But this time, it completely became Ronald Koeman's Waterloo, and he fell miserably.

When he took over Flores' Valencia side were sixth in La Liga, but when he sacked him five months later, Valencia were 16th in La Liga and 18th away from the relegation zone.

Huelva is only two points behind.

Since then, Ronald Koeman has almost severed ties with the five major leagues.

If you analyze Koeman's failure in Valencia carefully, is it really just the head coach's problem?

At that time, any coach in Valencia, including Gao Shen, would be in trouble.

Valencia president Soler is eager for quick results and seriously lacks patience. There are many conflicts within the management and he puts unrealistic performance pressure on the team.

As early as the season before Koeman coached, his predecessor Flores was at loggerheads with the sporting director Carboni. He did not use the Italian players introduced by Carboni. There was also panic in the locker room and everyone was in danger.

After Flores dismissed get out of class, Koeman took over and tried to completely transform Valencia. He counterattacked from Flores' lifeless defense and raised the banner of offensive football, but this in turn caused Valencia's

The player's serious discomfort.

It was also because of this that Valencia goalkeeper Canizares said in the media that he had played for Valencia for ten years and Ronald Koeman was the worst head coach.

When a head coach is evaluated in this way by his own players, the consequences can be imagined.

In Gao Shen's previous life, Ronald Koeman never played in the five major leagues until he was later appointed by Southampton to succeed Pochettino and coach the Saints.

He enjoyed another success at Saints, but then failed at Everton.

In fact, what happened to Koeman was pretty good.

In European football, there are many outstanding head coaches who have no chance of turning around just because of one failure.

Who can I talk to to reason with this?

…

It is not difficult to see from Ronald Koeman’s coaching resume that for a head coach to succeed, he often needs the right time, place and people, and both are indispensable.

This naturally formed an interesting phenomenon.

The bigger the head coach, the more say he has, the more support he can get from all aspects, and the more likely he is to succeed.

And those head coaches in the middle and lower reaches often do not have good choices, and many times they even do it for a job to make a living. No matter whether it is good or not, they have to take the job.

Of course, correspondingly, big-name coaches often face heavy pressure on performance.

But one thing is for sure, that is, choosing the right team is crucial.

Gao Shen believes that it is by no means a wise choice to rush to take over a team in the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League during the winter break.

Pochettino is the kind of team-oriented head coach with his own tactical system, and there is nothing wrong with being good at internal digging, but he often also needs the support of the team and a lineup configuration that suits his strengths.

Over the years, although the Premier League has been adopting a continental style and learning from continental Europe, most of them are still in the upper reaches of the league, while there are fewer middle and lower reaches of the league, and they often have very realistic performance needs.

To put it simply, they want to learn the playing style of continental Europe, and more importantly, they want to improve their performance.

If the new tactics brought by the head coach cannot effectively improve the team's performance, then I'm sorry, the get out of class will have to be dismissed.

Just like the Queens Park Rangers, the current management of this team is in chaos and has huge problems. The current head coach is the famous coach Mark Hughes, and in the past two seasons, they have supported Mark Hughes in bringing in a new team.

There are a large number of players with local British style, such as Leeds United's former captain Howson, and Wright Phillips.

Under such circumstances, one can imagine how difficult it would be for a new head coach to take charge of Queens Park Rangers and transform the team from a British local style to a continental European style.

This is even more difficult, more arduous and more dangerous than Ronald Koeman's previous transformation of Valencia.

Ronald Koeman at least has the coaching success of Ajax by his side, what about Pochettino?

Several other teams are also similar.

After such an analysis by Gao Shen, Pochettino suddenly realized that if he really took over a team like Queens Park Rangers, he might really ruin the start he had made with Espanyol.

"Thank you, Gao, I understand." Pochettino also secretly rejoiced.

Fortunately, he came to Madrid to ask for advice.

"Mauricio, what if..."

Gao Shen looked at Pochettino and said seriously, "I mean, if you are really interested in coaching the Premier League, you might as well wait and see again in half a year."

Although Gao Shen didn't say it to death, Pochettino was also a smart man and understood what Gao Shen meant right away.

In recent times, Leeds United head coach Maurizio Sarri has been linked to many Serie A giants, which suddenly made Pochettino understand the meaning of Gao Shen.

Juventus, Inter Milan, Naples and AC Milan are all interested in Sarri, and Allegri of Naples is likely to leave, so De Laurentiis and Marino both hope that the Napoli native Sarri will return to his hometown to coach.

De Laurentiis had called Gao Shen before and talked about Sarri, but it was hard to say anything until the dust settled on this matter.

Pochettino is an insider, so of course he understands the twists and turns involved.

Ask yourself, if there is really an opportunity to coach Leeds United, then he will definitely be willing to wait.

If nothing else, Pochettino was greatly impressed by the team's team, management, and ambitions.

He knows very well that this is a team with great ambitions!

Because of this, when Gao Shen invited Pochettino to go to the UK for a vacation after Christmas, watch a few Leeds United games, visit the Leeds United training base, and also meet some Premier League friends and head coaches.

, Pochettino could not hesitate and agreed on the spot.

This is Gao Shen's support for him and helps him establish contacts in the Premier League.

…

It's a coincidence.

Here Pochettino almost took over the Queen's Park Rangers, and over there Leeds United played against this London team on Boxing Day. After Gao Shen and his team flew to London from Madrid, Spain, they went straight to watch the game.

In addition to Gao Shen and Pochettino, there is also Gao Shen's wife Su Qing.

Now Su Qing has a big belly. Gao Shen really doesn't want her to follow him out, but he can't resist Su Qing's stubbornness.

In her words, mushrooms were almost growing in her house in Madrid and she wanted to go out for a walk.

On the day they arrived in London, Leeds United defeated Queens Park Rangers 3-0 with goals from Jorginho, Icardi and Pogba.

Mark Hughes' side were slaughtered at home.

This miserable English coach is now one step closer to being fired.

After watching the game, Gao Shen jokingly asked Pochettino, "Do you still want to coach them now?"

Pochettino smiled bitterly.

If he really manages Queens Park Rangers, he will probably win the honorable title of head coach of a relegated team.

Of course, if he can lead the team to avoid relegation, his reputation will be even greater.

But it seems difficult.

After watching the game in London, Gao Shen, Su Qing and others did not go to meet the team. They just said hello to Lucas, Borrell and others, and then set off north to return home to Cheshire.

We had already asked the hotel's housekeeping to come and clean things up, so Gao Shen and his party checked in directly.

After staying in Cheshire for two days, Gao Shen went to meet a few friends, but not including Ferguson.

Because Leeds United will challenge Ferguson away from home next time, if they meet at this time and it is reported by the media, it will be somewhat suspect.

This kind of vigilance is still profound.

However, despite their high level of self-discipline, Leeds United failed to achieve an upset in the away game.

In this battle at Old Trafford, Valencia assisted Rooney to score a goal in just nine minutes.

After that, Leeds United and Manchester United started a crazy fight, but neither one could score again.

Until the end of the game, in the 90th minute, Valencia once again sent a cross from the right, and Rooney scored in front of the goal to seal the victory for Manchester United.

In the end, the Red Devils defeated Leeds United 2-0 at home.

After losing this game, Leeds United's league ranking dropped to sixth place again, with Tottenham and Arsenal, who had won two consecutive games, catching up from behind.

However, in the 21st round of the Premier League, Tottenham defeated Reading 3-1 at home and continued to maintain the fourth position in the league, while Arsenal drew 1-1 away from home.

Leeds United narrowly defeated Fulham 2-1 at home, reversing Arsenal and ranking fifth in the Premier League.

Whether it was Gao Shen, Lucas, Borrell and Sarri, or other professionals, including Ferguson and Wenger, they basically saw that Leeds United had a problem.

Although this team's performance is outstanding, it still lacks a lot of foundation.

After the battle at Old Trafford, Ferguson asserted that Leeds United's goal should be to stay in the top eight.

Top four in the league?

That's just thinking too much.

Gao Shen also deeply agrees with this.

But at the beginning of the season, Leeds United's goal was clearly to avoid relegation.

He can only blame this group of young players from Leeds United for bringing him too many unexpected surprises.

(End of chapter)