The Godfather of Football

The nature of the Cruyff Cup in the Netherlands is very similar to the Super Cup in other countries. It is usually scheduled to start a week before the first round of the league, which can be regarded as a warm-up and preparation for the league.

When Ajax defeated PSV Eindhoven 4:0 at the Arena Stadium, when Gretz began to fall into a crisis of confidence, and the whole of the Netherlands began to hype that he would be fired by the club management because of this disastrous defeat, the Eredivisie ignited the flames of war.

Unlike the previous Asian football media who paid attention to the Eredivisie this season because Feyenoord introduced Japanese international Shinji Ono, the Asian media now focus on the young Chinese coach standing in front of the home team coaching bench at the Arena Stadium.

As a result, the team performed very well in this round of games.

Ajax welcomed Roda JC at home. After playing the Super Cup, Ye Qiu began to prepare for this game.

Goalkeeper Van der Sar, the back line is Abidal, Kivu, Lucio and Maicon, the three midfielders are Keita, Gilberto Silva and Sneijder, and the trident is Robben, Ibrahimovic and Van der Vaart.

This is the main lineup that Ye Qiu arranged in this game, and it is also the team's first league game of the new season.

Ajax's offense now gives people the feeling of rushing forward. This team is very young, full of vigor, and very confident. In addition, the players are well configured, which makes Ajax always like to play a round of devastating offensive in a fast-paced state.

Just like the first round of the league against Roda JC, Ajax was like a tiger coming down the mountain from the beginning, beating Roda JC, which was not as strong as itself, and actively pressing forward, firmly suppressing the visiting team in the half.

After Roda JC kicked off, the ball never crossed the center circle again, because Ajax scored just 51 seconds into the game. This was a frontcourt interception, planned by Keita after the interception, Ibrahimovic retreated to make a pass, and Van der Vaart made a single shot after cutting into the penalty area from the right, 1:0.

Everyone was surprised by such a start, but what surprised them even more was that this was just the beginning.

Ajax did not relax at all after Roda JC kicked off again, and still maintained a strong suppression on the away team, always suppressing them firmly in the half, and then looking for opportunities.

In the 4th minute, Roda JC was really suppressed, and a long pass was made to the frontcourt. Lucio headed the ball to Gilberto Silva, who passed it to Abidal on the left, and the French left back passed it to Robben.

One-on-one, Robben broke through the opponent's defense in his best way, ran all the way to the left side of the penalty area and cut inside, and passed the ball to the middle. Ibrahimovic followed up with a push shot and penetrated Roda JC's goal again, 2:0!

Perfect start, wonderful process!

Ajax's start to the new season is almost impeccable. Roda JC is limited in strength and has never been able to pose any threat to Ajax, which is unstoppable, especially after the opening. It was stunned by this sudden stick, and it was not until it was scored two goals in a row that it thought of making adjustments.

Once adjusted, Ajax also adjusted and slowed down the pace.

This slowness directly kept the 2:0 until the end of the first half.

But in the second half, Ajax took advantage of its kick-off advantage and launched a fierce attack on Roda JC again, and scored three goals in the 51st, 64th and 68th minutes respectively, and finally won a 5:0 victory over Roda JC at the Arena Stadium.

This goal feast made all the fans at the Arena Stadium completely crazy, and also made Ajax leap to the top of the Eredivisie after the first round of the league. This was the first time that Ye Qiu took the top spot in the Eredivisie.

In the same round, PSV Eindhoven tied Groningen 2:2 away, and Feyenoord tied the derby at home 1:1 with Sparta Rotterdam, which led to Ajax's 5:0 victory and proudly ranked first in the league.

Three days later, because Ajax had to participate in the European Super Cup match with Bayern Munich, the second round of the league was advanced.

In order to prepare for the match with Bayern Munich, and because the first round of the league was just played three days ago, Ye Qiu made some adjustments to the lineup in this game.

The goalkeeper is still Van der Sar, the back line is Abidal, Lucio, Kolo Toure and Heitinga, the three midfielders are Keita, Gilberto Silva and Yaya Toure, and the trident is Hleb, Huntelaar and Van der Meyde.

Ajax's large-scale rotation affected the team's combat effectiveness to a certain extent. There were problems in the away game against Heerenveen. When the game reached the 13th minute, Heerenveen took the lead in counterattacking by taking advantage of Ajax's coordination error and scored a goal.

But Ajax made adjustments, especially Ye Qiu's targeted arrangements during the game, and quickly stabilized the situation. In the 35th minute of the first half, Hleb assisted Huntelaar to equalize the score.

At the beginning of the second half, Ajax launched another round of offensive. After receiving Hleb's pass on the left, Van der Meyde once again surpassed the score and completed a reversal.

In the end, Ajax reversed Heerenveen 2:1 away and won two consecutive victories.

In the same round, Feyenoord beat Roda JC 2:0 away, while PSV Eindhoven was tied twice by Den Bosch at home, but finally defeated the opponent 3:2 with Hesselink's decisive shot at the critical moment.

After this game, the whole Ajax team went to Monaco.

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Before 1998, the European Super Cup had always been a two-round home and away system, but since 1998, it has been changed to a single-game final system and fixed at the Louis II Stadium in Monaco. With the cancellation of the Cup Winners' Cup, the participating teams have become the champions of the UEFA Cup and the European Cup.

The participating teams of this year's European Super Cup are the Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich and the Dutch Eredivisie powerhouse Ajax.

Around August 24, the whole of Europe, and even the whole world, focused their attention on Monaco, but many of them were not paying attention to the Super Cup, because the European Super Cup was just a warm-up championship for all teams. Instead, it was the European Champions League group draw ceremony that really attracted attention.

Moreover, the annual group draw ceremony is accompanied by the awards ceremony of various European events in the previous season.

The draw and award ceremony were arranged at the Grimaldi Conference Center in Monaco. Except for Ajax and Bayern Munich, who were preparing to come to Monaco to participate in the European Super Cup, the other thirty teams were either led by the head coach himself or arranged for representatives of the club management to attend.

This was the first time Ye Qiu attended this annual event, but if he had to choose, he would not be very willing to attend, because he had almost no acquaintances here.

There were big names everywhere. Real Madrid's delegation was huge. Head coach Bosque, star player Raul, Figo, Zidane, Hierro and other stars all attended the event. Ronaldo, who had recently returned from injury from Inter Milan, also appeared. In addition, there were Owen from Liverpool and Henry from Arsenal.

Frankly speaking, the entire venue was full of stars, but the problem was that no one took Ye Qiu seriously.

These days, fame is the key to success in the football circle. Ye Qiu was new here, and a UEFA Cup championship was not a big deal for this group of European teams. They paid more attention to the European Champions League.

Therefore, when the UEFA Cup champion Ajax team entered the stadium, the reaction was mediocre, but when Hitzfeld entered the stadium with Effenberg, Sauer, Kahn and other Bayern stars, the whole stadium was boiling, and many people greeted them, because Hitzfeld not only won his second Champions League, but this group of Bayern stars also performed very well, especially Effenberg.

"Boss, isn't this bullying? Why do they have so many people supporting them, while we can only be left aside?" The Swede Ibrahimovic looked at the passage in the distance indignantly. Everyone was circling around Bayern, and he felt seriously unbalanced because he had a desire to be self-centered since he was a child.

"Because they are a wealthy club, and we are just a group of country boys who have just entered the city!" Ye Qiu was not very happy either.

It's not that he is cynical, he knows in his heart that this is a very realistic world. Everyone recognizes Bayern Munich because they are a wealthy club, the largest wealthy club in Europe, and the team is full of stars, but what about Ajax?

It has long fallen to Mars!

These days, if you don't participate in the Champions League for a year, your fame and influence will decline rapidly. If you don't participate for two or three years, I'm sorry, you are embarrassed to tell others that you are a wealthy club.

Just like Barcelona, ​​they participated in the Champions League, but because of their unsatisfactory performance, people now think that Barcelona has declined. They can only poach people like Saviola and Riquelme, while their rival Real Madrid poached Figo, who is at the level of Zidane. You can imagine how big the gap is.

Barcelona is still in La Liga, but Ajax is in the Eredivisie. If everyone is like this, you can imagine how unbearable Ajax is.

Ye Qiu understands that this is a reality caused by the environment, and he doesn't hate anyone, but this doesn't mean that he will be willing to accept such treatment in his heart. He believes that anyone with a little backbone in his heart will not like such a gap.

But he won't want to leave, because this is a voluntary choice of others, it has nothing to do with anyone, and no one deliberately embarrasses Ajax; he won't go up and take the initiative to find fault with others, because that will not only fail to help you improve your influence, but also make others think that you are lowering your own value.

So he chooses others to play others, and I play mine.

"Fuck the country boy, if you have the guts, come fight them on the field and kill them!" Abidal was also very unhappy with this treatment. What he couldn't stand the most was this bunch of snobs who fawned on the powerful.

"Well said!" Ye Qiu patted Abidal on the shoulder, "It doesn't matter if they look down on us. They play their games and we play ours. It's easy to win the favor of those guys. When we can trample the whole of Europe under our feet, they will naturally welcome us like they welcome Bayern Munich!"

Ye Qiu's words were exciting enough. The Ajax players were all hot-blooded men. They were a little excited after hearing this. They all wanted to start a fight with Bayern Munich right now and kill them directly.

"Those who have ambitions should remember today and remember this group of people. Sooner or later, we will trample them all under our feet!"

He didn't like this kind of differential treatment. It made him feel as if he had just returned to the time when he traveled through time. Didn't the people of Ajax look down on him like this? Or even reject him?

Ye Qiu is not a newcomer. He won't mess around, but that doesn't mean he will be content with the status quo.

This kind of character of his has more or less infected the players of Ajax under the influence of what they see and hear every day. They are all a bit similar to Ye Qiu's rebellious spirit of rebellion. From the second team rebelling against the first team, rebelling against Eindhoven, to the first team rebelling against Roma, Barcelona and other giants.

Now, they have become the champions of the League Cup. The rebellion is getting bigger and bigger, and the more they rebel, the more they rebel, and their ambitions are getting bigger and bigger.

So when they heard Ye Qiu's words one by one, they all agreed with it in their hearts, and secretly thought that once they met this group of giants, they must beat them all down and see what kind of expression they would have at that time.

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The draw and award ceremony were carried out one after another.

Because Ajax won the second place in the Eredivisie, it did not need to participate in the Champions League qualifiers and directly entered the group stage.

But because Ajax's European performance in the past few years was poor, and it even missed the Champions League for two years, this led to Ajax's points and rankings being very low. Even teams like PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord that participate in the Champions League every year were ranked in the third tier, and Ajax could only fall to the fourth tier in the end.

What kind of teams are in the fourth tier?

Anderlecht, Sparta Prague, Panathinaikos, Celtic, Lille, Nantes...

It should be said that the Champions League is still very valuable these days. Each of these teams is well-known in Europe, but the problem is that the fourth tier is always the fourth tier, which sounds a bit inferior, making the angry young people in Ajax feel very unhappy, as if they were slapped in the face.

What can Ye Qiu do at this time?

He can only suppress the anger in his heart and set a goal for his players.

"Look at those first-tier giants? We just want to step on them all, turn their corpses into our stepping stones, and climb up by stepping on them. That feeling must be very satisfying!"

In the end, Ajax was drawn to Group F, and they met Barcelona, ​​Lyon and Leverkusen.

Among them, Barcelona was Ajax's opponent in the UEFA Cup final last season. But you have to know that this season's Barcelona is very different from last season. They spent a lot of money on signings, and Rexach's team has also improved greatly. As for Lyon, this team is already a French Ligue 1 powerhouse, and its strength is self-evident.

Although Leverkusen is in the third tier, if Ye Qiu remembers correctly, they are the runner-ups in the Bundesliga, Champions League and German Cup this season. Although tragic, it also reflects the team's strong combat effectiveness.

"Oh my god, I was lucky enough to draw these three teams!" Ye Qiu took a breath.

But looking around the other groups, they are basically all powerful duels. For example, Bayern Munich encountered Spartak Moscow, Feyenoord and Sparta Prague, Juventus encountered Porto, Rosenborg and Celtic, and Liverpool encountered Dortmund, Dynamo Kyiv and Boavista.

Nowadays, teams like Dynamo Kyiv, Boavista, and Fenerbahce are also very strong and the games are difficult to play, so the value of the Champions League is so high, unlike the subsequent reforms, which expanded the army and specially arranged some small teams to fill the numbers, and the value of the Champions League dropped rapidly.

In other words, Ajax's draw was not unfair, because they were in the fourth tier?

After the draw ceremony, the award ceremony officially began.

Sometimes, Ye Qiu felt that winning the Champions League actually requires a lot of luck.

Just like Bayern Munich, Bayern Munich in 1999 was stronger than it is now, but that year Bayern was reversed by Manchester United in the final, and then encountered Real Madrid, which was unstoppable after the change of coach, resulting in the loss of the Champions League in 2000, and it was not until this year that they won the Champions League.

But Bayern's performance this year is not that outstanding. Compared with 1999, their overall performance this year is declining, especially the main players in the team. Except for Effenberg's outstanding performance, the others are basically average. Last season was also the last afterglow of Effenberg.

But sometimes, this is the fate of a team.

Ye Qiu personally admires Bayern Munich because this team has a typical German character, that is, comprehensive and stable. They have a stable direction almost every time they form a team. And there is a very interesting thing that other giants will leave more or less defects when forming a team.

The moon has its ups and downs. If you want to arrange a top star in a certain position, you must arrange a supporting role in other positions. This is inevitable in forming a team. Therefore, Real Madrid has a strong attacking group in the front court and a weak defense in the back court. Other teams are more or less the same.

But only Bayern, or these teams in the Bundesliga, have always maintained a pragmatic team formation strategy, that is, comprehensive.

Not blindly chasing stars, but pragmatically pursuing strong players in every position, this has led to Bayern Munich's strength in recent years, but it has also caused Bayern to be unpopular in some awards.

So even though they won the European Champions League in 2001, in the best selection of each position, Bayern was defeated by all La Liga teams and no one was shortlisted. This is the tragedy of the entire football.