Starting from playing as a defensive midfielder for Real Madrid

The EFL Cup match against West Ham United was not a big physical exertion for the Chelsea team. After all, the intensity is there.

After defeating West Ham United 6-1 in the first game, the second leg of the EFL Cup semi-finals was just a formality for Chelsea.

In addition, this year's EFL Cup final will be held on March 2, almost two months later.

So from now on, Chelsea's third-line battle will basically exclude the EFL Cup.

Instead, there will be a round of FA Cup matches basically every half month.

Compared with the English League Cup, which will be played in March, the most troublesome thing about the English FA Cup for Premier League teams is its format.

In the English League Cup, if the two sides are tied during regular game time, then the two sides will directly play overtime on the spot.

If there is still no winner, there will be a penalty shootout.

At least the winner will be decided in one game.

But in the FA Cup, if you dare to draw, then you will have to play another play-off. This format is really disgusting!

You must know that the FA Cup starts from the third round of the Premier League team's participation, and it is already the second half of the Premier League.

The further back you go, the tighter the Premier League teams' schedule becomes, so the FA Cup has a play-off format, which is a big trouble for the major Premier League teams.

Chelsea's bench is relatively deep, but for Mourinho, he is also very hesitant about whether to stick to the FA Cup in the future.

Fortunately, the Premier League teams have only played one round of the FA Cup. The current schedule is still manageable, and Mourinho also plans to watch it while playing.

If the follow-up really affects the team's preparations for the league and the Champions League, then he will have no choice but to give up the FA Cup.

Just like last season, he gave up the King's Cup in order not to affect the defense of La Liga and the Champions League.

If you give up, you will get something. Like the season when he led Real Madrid to win six crowns, it is really rare.

After making a rough decision in his mind, Mourinho no longer paid too much attention to the subsequent FA Cup schedule.

However, before he can fully devote himself to preparations for the Premier League, Mourinho still has to make a decision on the loan of several young players for the second half of the season.

At present, except for the two young players Van Ginkel and Karas who will stay in the first team, the rest of the young players in the team will either return to Chelsea's second team or be rented out by the club.

Among the rental army, the three who receive the most attention and attention from Mourinho are naturally Ake, Maguire and Salah.

Loan teams for Ake and Maguire are easy to find.

Mourinho just picked around in the English Championship, and finally directly asked the club to make contact with Barnsley Club, which is currently second to last in the English Championship.

Barnsley's senior management, who were suffering from poor defense this season and never improved their results, saw the opportunity to rent two Chelsea defensive talents for free and immediately agreed.

In a normal season, Barnsley would not have had performance worries.

They will not make this kind of loan decision to help other Premier League teams develop players for almost free.

But there is really no way this year. The team has not invested much. Since the beginning of the season, Barnsley has been hovering outside the relegation zone of the British Championship.

Barnsley fell directly into the relegation zone before the halfway mark of the season.

Now that the 25th round of the English Championship has just ended, Barnsley has lost 13 games and conceded 43 goals. The number of goals conceded ranks third among the 24 teams in the English Championship!

With such bad defense, now Barnsley can't care less about helping other Premier League teams train new players for free.

It would be great if there are defensive players who can use it!

What's more, Maguire is a talent trained by their own youth academy and is becoming increasingly famous in the English League One.

This kind of young defensive genius usually transfers directly to a team in the English Championship or a team in the middle and lower reaches of the Premier League.

It is a complete surprise that they can now rent the team for half a season for free without paying wages to help avoid relegation.

Therefore, the procedures for Maguire and Ake to rent out to Barnsley were completed quickly.

Before the 21st round of the Premier League match between Chelsea and Hull City started on January 11, the two young players had already gone to Barnsley to report.

But for Salah, Mourinho plans to let him stay in the Chelsea team for a while.

In subsequent games, such as the Premier League and FA Cup, Mourinho plans to give Salah more playing time and opportunities.

Let him adapt to the rhythm of English football first, and also let him practice more with the first-team players and get a preliminary run-in.

Afterwards, he will be loaned back to Basel, and Chelsea will still bear all Salah's wages. In this case, Basel should not have any problems.

When Salah plays all the remaining Swedish Super League games this season and returns to Chelsea next season, his position will be easily arranged.

After arranging the player rental work, Mourinho led the team to prepare intensively for the last two days.

On the afternoon of January 11, the opening match of the 21st round of the Premier League between Chelsea and Tiger City started at the Kingston Communications Stadium.

Compared with the first half of the league, when the two teams met for the first time, Hull City has experienced nearly 20 Premier League games.

They are now surprisingly ranked tenth in the Premier League standings.

For a newly promoted team, Hull City's performance can be described as stunning.

They don't score many goals, and they may not be worthy of their current status of tenth in the Premier League. Their offensive ability is at best ranked in the lower reaches of the Premier League.

But their defensive ability is quite good, and they can definitely rank among the top eight in the Premier League.

The three players of Curtis Davies, Huddlestone and Livermore who performed relatively well in the Hull City team are now receiving renewed attention from many established Premier League clubs.

Perhaps they have not performed particularly well in their respective clubs before, but in the Hull City team this season, they are the players who have received the most attention from the media.

Li Ang is not very impressed by Hull City, but he likes the tiger on their team logo because it looks very domineering.

However, the tactics adopted by Hull City at home in this game have nothing to do with domineering.

Because they immediately set up a three-five-two starting lineup at the beginning.

It seems that they want to defend at home and use their good defensive strength to contain Chelsea's offense.

For such a team. The other top 6 teams in the Premier League may have a headache after watching this, including Manchester City and Arsenal.

But Chelsea likes it very much. Chelsea now is the same as Real Madrid in the previous two seasons. I just like playing against such a shrinking team.

Because they have too many ways to break the bus, and if Hull City's defense is good, it is only compared to other mid-tier teams in the Premier League.

Weren't Everton and Arsenal's defenses, which are better than Hull City's defense, not penetrated when facing Chelsea?

Therefore, Mourinho did not implement any more complicated tactics. At the beginning, he directly instructed his players to press forward boldly and launch a siege against Hull City!

Li Ang played very comfortably on the offensive end today, because Mourinho directly arranged for Matic and Ramirez to partner as a double midfielder to wipe Li Ang's butt today.

This kind of midfield defensive combination is more than enough to deal with Hull City, and Li Ang does not need to work as hard on the defensive end as he usually does in games.

He just needs to go all out on the offensive end today, leading Hazard and De Bruyne to constantly put pressure on Hull City's defense.

With his organizational attack in Hull City's half, and Ibrahimovic's frequent retreats to support him, Hazard and De Bruyne's offensive on the wing can be said to be unscrupulous.

In addition to forceful breakthrough, the two of them did not need to be responsible for additional tactical tasks such as organizational containment.

Faced with the attacks from both wings of the current Belgian national team, how could Hull City's wide players withstand it?

Their defense is also strong because of the thick defensive force in the middle.

In terms of one-on-one defensive strength, Hull City's two full-backs Figueroa and Mohammadi are at the mid-to-lower level of the Premier League.

Not to mention Hazard, De Bruyne is fully capable of suppressing technical dribbling when facing such an opponent.

The two full-backs of Hull City, who could not withstand the pressure one on one, had no choice but to seek help from their teammates.

Under normal circumstances, if the defense of one wing is unbalanced, the defensive players in the center can also be used to help double-team.

However, the two wings are almost defensively unbalanced at the same time, which can only make things difficult for the defensive players in the middle.

After all, if both wings need defensive support, then who can rely on the center to withstand Chelsea's offensive pressure?

It's impossible to open up the center defense for the sake of wing defense, and then allow Chelsea to attack more easily, right?

This is an unsolvable tactical problem, and Sky Sports commentators continued to praise Li Ang for his intelligence during the game.

This is the wisdom of a core organization player, knowing where the opponent's weakest defensive part is, and then using reasonable distribution of ball rights to attack the areas where it must be saved.

Once the opponent's defense is unbalanced, our own offensive opportunities will continue to come.

It seems that what Li Ang did in this game was to create enough ball transfers for Hazard and De Bruyne.

It seems that anyone can do this job, but if it were someone else, like Oscar, he might not be able to do it.

Because he simply can't do what Li Ang does, saying he doesn't want to attack the ball and don't want it. Oscar himself wants to take the ball.

If paired with him, it would be impossible for Hazard and De Bruyne to control almost all of Chelsea's offensive possessions in the first half.

Then it is impossible for Chelsea to pry open Hull City's defensive weaknesses from both sides so easily.

Li Ang's intelligence lies in the fact that he not only has strong insight, but also that he can always think and delegate power in the interests of the team as a whole.

This is the most valuable thing.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this that Mourinho was able to confidently ask the club to spend a lot of money to directly poach Li Ang.

And I firmly believe that with Li Ang as the core, Chelsea will be able to rebuild successfully!

For this reason, he can directly sacrifice Oscar, who has already produced good performance and statistics at Chelsea.

Now it seems that Mourinho's decision is extremely correct. It's not that Oscar is bad, but that Li Ang is too rare.

Under Chelsea's continuous side attacks in the first half, Hull City's proud central defense also continued to disintegrate.

When Livermore dropped back and Huddlestone kept running on both sides to cover for their teammates.

Li Ang only used one sudden dribble forward, and he and Ibrahimovic directly penetrated Hull City's defense!

In the 29th minute of the first half, Ibrahimovic received a cross pass from Li Ang at the front of the penalty area and passed Hull City defender Alex Bruce with his back.

Then he used a powerful shot to penetrate the goal guarded by Hull City goalkeeper McGregor!

Chelsea used enough patience to get themselves a chance to break the deadlock in the first half of the game.

After this goal was scored, facing Hull City who had to find a way on the offensive end, Chelsea had won 90% of the game.

Hull City is not good at attacking, while Chelsea is too good at defending.

So when Mourinho shamelessly put on a defensive posture when facing Hull City, the Premier League commentators from various countries also smiled and shook their heads.

The final score of this game was 2-0.

Chelsea used the most energy-saving method for players to defeat Hull City economically and won their first Premier League victory since the beginning of 2014.

After the early game of the 21st round of the Premier League between Chelsea and Hull City, the other powerful Premier League teams appeared in the subsequent game periods.

Tottenham, Manchester United and Manchester City all won the game with a score of 2-0.

The next day, Liverpool and Arsenal also defeated their respective opponents away from home.

After this round, the top six of the Premier League remain unchanged. The top players have all won, and only the mid- and lower-tier teams in the Premier League have suffered.

While the current league war was still going on, Li Ang had already boarded a plane from London to Zurich, Switzerland with Mourinho and Ibrahimovic.

On the evening of January 13, 2014, the FIFA 2013 Awards Ceremony was held grandly at the Zurich Opera House.

After half a year, Li Ang reunited with his former Real Madrid teammates.

After giving Brother Long a big hug, Li Ang smiled and hugged Ronaldo, Ramos, Cassie and others one by one to say hello.

Of course, Li Ang also had many old acquaintances at the scene, such as Lahm, Neymar, Xavi, and of course Messi, whom he hadn't seen for a long time.

"How have you been lately, Leo? It's been so long!"

After hugging Messi, Li Ang squeezed into a group of Barcelona players very familiarly, and laughed and talked with Messi, Neymar and others.

Facing Li Ang, who is no longer a Real Madrid player, Messi felt much more comfortable, and even asked Li Ang jokingly:

Why didn't you consider going to Barcelona to play with him last summer?

"Of course it's because it's more interesting to be your opponent than to be your teammate!"

This is what Li Ang really thinks.

But looking at Neymar who was close at hand, Li Ang finally confused this topic by saying that he was a 100% "Madridist".

"Also, Cristiano and the others are my beloved relatives and friends, brothers and sisters. How could I possibly abandon them and switch to Barcelona!"

When Li Ang said this, his face looked like "I am very loyal."

So amid the boos from Xavi, Neymar and others, Li Ang was quickly pushed out of the Barcelona gang as a joke by several people.

In the end, the three Chelsea masters and apprentices sat together with the Real Madrid gang.

At the awards ceremony that night, the group that gained the most was naturally their temporary group.

Mourinho was elected FIFA Men's Football Coach of the Year for two consecutive years.

Cristiano Ronaldo won the FIFA Ballon d'Or again and successfully defended his title.

Last season's Real Madrid had as many as six main players selected into the best team of the year!

Casillas, Pepe, Ramos, Xabi Alonso, Liang, Ronaldo!

The remaining five players in the best team are Lahm from Bayern Munich, Alves, Xavi, Messi from Barcelona, ​​and Ibrahimovic who is now at Chelsea with Leon.

In the specific ranking of the Golden Globe Awards announced tonight, both Li Ang and Ibrahimovic have entered the top ten of the Golden Globe Awards list!

Among them, Li Ang ranked sixth in the Ballon d'Or, and Ibrahimovic ranked fourth. Chelsea also had a bumper harvest tonight.

Head coach Mourinho won FIFA's best men's football coach, and two players were selected into the top ten of the Ballon d'Or list.

However, Mendes had been thinking about it after the award ceremony that night, because Liang was only a few votes away from being able to overtake Iniesta and enter the top five of the Ballon d'Or list.

Although this is just a gimmick, it still has a big improvement for Li Ang's commercial value.

Li Ang finally comforted Mendes in turn.

"Jorge, if I achieve double-twenty figures this season and can still guarantee a Premier League championship and an EFL Cup championship, where do you think I will be ranked in the Ballon d'Or next year?"

Mendes's eyes shone when he heard Li Ang's words, and he replied directly without thinking:

"Top three! You will definitely be in the top three when the time comes. Last season it was because you suffered a little loss in terms of personal data, otherwise I will tell you the truth.

You can surpass Ibrahimovic, and you may even pull down Franck Ribery to directly enter the top three in the Golden Ball rankings!

Look at your age and then look at your honor. Everything is enough, all that is missing is data and a further boost in fame! "

Li Ang smiled and put his arm around Mendes' shoulders.

"Then you will increase your publicity efforts later and help me make up for this shortcoming!

Jorge, I will definitely win at least two championship trophies this summer! "

Mendes was very happy to see that Li Ang was so confident.

Li Ang looked at the dome of the Grand Theater in Zurich, feeling very hot in his heart.

After witnessing Ronaldo win the Ballon d'Or again this year, the restlessness in his heart was completely gone.

Because he has taken an important step in his career.

Everything is going smoothly.

And he also believes that the arrival of his most glorious moment will not be too far away...