The Godfather of Football

When the game reached the 18th minute, Van der Vaart received a pass from Sneijder on the right, suddenly dribbled the ball inside from the right, and passed it behind him when Paven rashly rushed to grab it. Ibrahimovic quickly entered the penalty area from behind, and shot the ball with a powerful volley, but the shot was too high.

When the Swede completed this shot, he lost his balance and was knocked down by Hierro in the penalty area of ​​Real Madrid.

He didn't need to stand up to know that the ball was gone!

Because he didn't hear the deafening cheers from the tens of thousands of Ajax fans at the scene, but instead heard sighs, which made him feel extremely frustrated and very annoyed.

Just now, he should have chosen a more confident push shot instead of blindly pursuing a hearty and powerful volley.

Since the start of the game, he has had at least two excellent opportunities, but both were wasted, which made the Swedish center forward feel extremely annoyed and guilty. He lay on the grass, screaming loudly, and pounding the grass of the Arena Stadium with his fists to vent his frustration of missing many good scoring opportunities.

Ye Qiu, who was standing on the sidelines, saw it all, and he knew the reason very well, because they were facing Real Madrid in this game.

Playing against Bayern and Manchester United, they were under great pressure, but it was the group stage at that time. Ajax's group stage schedule was very good, at least it did not encounter a strong team at the beginning, but first played against Boavista, starting with the Portuguese team, and then played two consecutive home games.

But now it is the knockout stage, and Ajax is at home first and then away, a typical unfavorable schedule.

In addition, the reputation that Real Madrid has accumulated in the Champions League over the past year has put Ajax under tremendous pressure, so the players have worked very hard on the court, but once they miss opportunities like Ibrahimovic, the pressure will surge.

Van der Vaart saw Ye Qiu's eyes and walked into Real Madrid's penalty area before the ball was kicked off and came to Ibrahimovic's side. Frankly speaking, he was very dissatisfied with the Swede's performance in this game because he did not achieve the minimum efficiency that a scorer should have.

He missed two good scoring opportunities, especially this time. Obviously, as long as he pushed the ball with his right foot, the ball would go in, but he took a strong shot, and the result was that he could not suppress the rotating ball and turned it into an anti-aircraft gun. Who else should he blame if not him?

But Van der Vaart also understood that nothing was important now, the game was the most important!

"Don't take it to heart, we must have a chance!" Van der Vaart stretched out his hand.

Ibrahimovic glanced at Van der Vaart with a slightly guilty look, stretched out his hand, and grabbed him. As soon as Van der Vaart exerted force, Ibrahimovic stood up from the ground.

"Give me another chance, I will definitely score a goal!" The Swede doesn't like to owe favors to others.

When he first came to Amsterdam, he already owed Ye Qiu a big favor. Even now, he is still grateful in his heart, but he just doesn't say it. But this doesn't mean that he likes to owe favors to others, especially Van der Vaart.

Many people say that the most talented person in Ajax is this new Cruyff, but there are also many people who like to use Van der Vaart, the new Cruyff, Robben, the new Overmars, and Ibrahimovic, the new Van Basten, to form an iron triangle, and even compare them with each other.

Inside Ajax, the three players are very harmonious on the surface, but in fact, they inevitably compete with each other secretly.

Ye Qiu seemed to be arranging such a competition intentionally or unintentionally, but he always controlled the competition to be benign, that is, each player on the court worked hard to perform well, but the interests of the team should always be put first.

"Then you wait in front!" Van der Vaart said confidently after listening to Ibrahimovic's words.

Soon, Real Madrid kicked the goal kick. Cesar's ball did not fall to Raul or other Real Madrid offensive players, but was headed to Sneijder by Lucio, who directly knocked it back to Kivu, and Kivu kicked the ball to Gilberto Silva.

Real Madrid has a typical abnormal balance of offense and defense. The offensive players in the front court almost do not participate in pressing and defense, except for Raul, so the defense relies more on two defensive midfielders, Makelele and Elguera, both of whom are good at defense.

Ye Qiu kept signaling to the players on the sidelines that they should try to grasp the rhythm and not just rush forward and pass forward. However, it must be said that as Ajax's strength improves, the opponents they face become stronger and stronger. In terms of grasping the rhythm, the problems exposed by Ajax are becoming more and more serious.

Why is it always a tiger start but a snake end? It's because they rushed too hard in the front and had no strength in the back, so the performance was naturally bad.

Originally, Ye Qiu thought Sneijder could do it, but with repeated experiments, it was proved that Sneijder couldn't do it either. He was best at passing the ball quickly forward at the moment of attack and defense conversion, but it was too difficult for him to control the rhythm.

Gilberto Silva was okay at passing the ball left and right, but he couldn't control the rhythm. As for Keita, he was a typical penalty area to penalty area, and he didn't look like a player who could control the team's rhythm.

This is a problem that Ajax has exposed very clearly this season, and it is becoming more and more acute. Even many teams have seized on this problem of Ajax to arrange the team's tactics, but Ye Qiu has no way, because he looked at the entire Ajax and could not pick out one person to control the rhythm.

A wise man will make mistakes.

Although Ye Qiu thought of countless possibilities when forming the team, and the Ajax he formed was indeed very impactful and aggressive, and the defense was also quite good, it was precisely in the rhythm conversion link that a big problem occurred, which completely became the bottleneck for the team to further improve.

Therefore, Ye Qiu stood on the sidelines, watching the team pass the ball forward again and again, sprinting forward again and again, and he could only shout again and again to remind the players to pay attention and slow down appropriately.

This time, Real Madrid, which always gives people the impression of focusing on attacking and neglecting defense, performed very steadily at the Arena Stadium. The defense was organized very tightly and orderly. The distance between players was kept very well, especially the distance between the double defensive midfielders and the defense line, which was always kept very tight.

Ajax's passes were passed into the 30-meter area again and again, but they were all unsuccessful. They could only take long shots again and again to create threats, but such hasty long shots often failed to produce results.

But in the 27th minute, when Ajax, who had been unable to attack for a long time, began to get a little impatient, Robben passed back from the left, Keita moved to the right and gave it to Sneijder, who directly kicked the ball to Van der Vaart's feet.

Van der Vaart was one-on-one with Roberto Carlos on the right, but this time he did not choose to go to the bottom, but continued to choose to cut inside, because he had more options after cutting inside. If he could continue to pull out Pavon, he could create threats again, so Van der Vaart dribbled the ball from the right and cut inside.

But this time Pavon obviously didn't come out. Makelele quickly returned to the front of the penalty area to protect him, and when Van der Vaart saw that he had lost the opportunity and hurriedly kicked a long shot, he stretched out his right foot to block Van der Vaart's shot and bounced it to the middle.

Ibrahimovic, who was pulled out of the penalty area, was just rushing forward. When he saw Van der Vaart's shot was blocked, he immediately ran over and caught the ball before Elgra. With a fake move of pretending to get rid of Elgra to the left, Ibrahimovic cleverly used his long legs to dribble past Elgra.

The moment he dribbled past Elgra, Hierro realized that he was in trouble and immediately left his position to grab the ball. But the Swedish center forward was very skilled at his feet. When he saw Hierro rushing up, he dribbled the ball to his right while dribbling, turned sideways, leaned on Hierro with his body, and quickly dribbled the ball into the penalty area of ​​Real Madrid.

Most of the Ajax fans in the Arena Stadium jumped up from their seats. At this moment, they seemed to want to turn themselves into Ibrahimovic.

The Swede's performance was not ideal in the first two opportunities he got, but this time, he used an opportunity that was obviously not an opportunity, but relied on his strong body and excellent footwork to carve out a real opportunity in Real Madrid's solid defense.

But he didn't think so much at this moment. He just stared at Cesar in front of him. Hierro's struggle and squeeze kept coming from his left shoulder, but he couldn't shake his body. Then, without any fancy moves, he used the simplest and most plain push to the lower right corner with his right foot and sent the ball into the goal guarded by Cesar.

At the moment when the ball rolled into the goal line and hit the side net, there was a huge cheer at the scene.

"Oh my god!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"A very, very, very great goal!!!!"

"Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a powerful center forward from Sweden!"

The commentator on the scene excitedly introduced the Swedish center forward, and the entire Arena Stadium was filled with cheers and fans shouting Ibrahimovic's name.

After scoring the goal, the Swede was ecstatic and stood there. When he was tackled by Van der Vaart from behind, he realized that he had scored a goal. He turned around, a little confused, but opened his arms, clenched his fists, opened his mouth and roared, "Ah~~~~~~~~"

Ye Qiu on the sidelines was also very excited after seeing Ibrahimovic score a goal. He raised his arms and cheered non-stop on the sidelines. Especially when he saw the players rushing to the sidelines to celebrate the goal, he rushed over and hugged the group of players tightly.

1:0!

They actually scored a goal at the Arena Stadium and took the lead over Real Madrid!

"A very, very surprising goal occurred in the 28th minute. Van der Vaart's long shot from the front of the penalty area was blocked by Makelele, but soon after, Ibrahimovic got the ball and dribbled past Elguera, then used his body to lean on Hierro, dribbled into the penalty area, and shot low to score the first goal for Ajax!"

"This goal is bound to completely break the current deadlock on the field. We believe that Real Madrid will no longer be able to keep calm and continue to adopt this tactical strategy that is almost a defensive counterattack. They should become more proactive."

Ye Qiu also realized this, so after the dizzy celebration, he hugged the players and formed a circle.

"We are leading, very good, but remember, don't retreat, 1:0 is not safe, Real Madrid will definitely want to counterattack, keep suppressing them!"

"Play more actively in attack, don't blindly shoot from a distance, and in the midfield, pay attention to controlling the rhythm, don't be so fast, slow down when you should slow down, pass the ball back more often, and ensure our possession time!"

Ye Qiu explained a series of tasks in a crackling manner. After listening to it, the players immediately dispersed and returned to the court.

…………

…………

One goal completely changed the situation of the entire game.

When Real Madrid realized that they had made a mistake and Ajax scored a goal, they began to want to rush out and play. Bosque had to change this calm defense and wear down Ajax's spirit.

In the final analysis, he still underestimated Ajax's offensive ability.

But it is obvious that Ajax will not let its opponents feel comfortable, especially Ye Qiu kept reminding and adjusting on the sidelines. In addition, after the goal, the morale of Ajax players was high and they were full of energy on the court. Every player tried very hard to suppress the opponent on the court and counter-rob on the spot.

This made it difficult for Real Madrid to play a threatening attack, and the gunpowder smell on the court gradually became stronger.

In a direct dialogue, Roberto Carlos and Keita competed for the ball. The Brazilian left back complained to the referee that Keita had signs of handball, but the referee believed that the ball touched Keita's shoulder, not his arm, and Keita's arm was close to his body instead of open, so it was not considered a handball.

This made the players of Real Madrid very dissatisfied. Salgado was a well-known tough guy, and he was even more opposite to Keita on the left. When the two were competing for a header, Salgado saw that Keita had already judged the landing point in advance, but he still rushed forward fiercely. As a result, the two equally brave players directly hit their heads together and both fell to the ground bleeding.

Both players were taken off the court by their respective team doctors, and after the bleeding was stopped and bandaged, they continued to play and returned to the court.

But everyone could feel the intensity of the game from the fierce fighting between the players on both sides of the court.

The referee did not want the game to get out of control, so he directly pulled out the cards when he saw some bigger moves. For this reason, Real Madrid received two yellow cards in a row, and Ajax received another one. Both teams received two yellow cards in the first half.

But in the end, Real Madrid could not equalize the score in the first half.

Returning to the locker room with a score of 1:0, the Ajax players seemed very excited. They were very satisfied with the trend of the game. If they could keep this score, then their away game at the Bernabeu would undoubtedly become more advantageous.

Ye Qiu did not dare to be careless at all, because the second half has always been Ajax's weak point, especially in the last half hour when the physical energy was almost exhausted. Ajax has suffered a lot in this time period many times, so he knew very well that the real winner of this game would be in the second half.

To put it bluntly, Ajax is only leading by 1 goal. As long as any star of Real Madrid has a flash of inspiration, they can equalize the score. At that time, Real Madrid, which has an away goal in hand, will become more advantageous.

The head coach's analysis of the game situation calmed down the excited Ajax players. After thinking carefully, it was indeed as Ye Qiu worried that Ajax had nothing to be happy about.

"We can't be satisfied with the status quo in the second half. Believe me, as long as we relax our vigilance against Real Madrid, they may put us to death at any time, so we must remain absolutely calm and focused. No one can relax, especially the defense against Zidane!"

After the sluggish performance in the first half of the season, the Frenchman's state in the second half of the season is getting better and better. He has now become the absolute core of Real Madrid's offense. Once Zidane finds an opportunity, Ajax will definitely die ugly.

Today's Ajax is like a wild horse that has run away from its reins. No one can stop it unless it wants to stop. As the head coach, Ye Qiu has to remind his players again that they must slow down the pace appropriately during the game to preserve their physical strength.

Sometimes, the players are not ignorant. After all, they have played for a season and the team's problems have been mentioned countless times. How can they not know?

But the problem is that the court changes rapidly, and they can only play football based on instinct. Now they understand when they are calm, but when they get excited, they forget everything. Who can remember?

This is the importance of the metronome, because this type of player can always stay calm on the court. With their high analysis and high reading of the overall situation of the game, they can adjust the team's rhythm well at any time, fast when they should be fast, slow when they should be slow.

How to pass the ball when fast, how to pass the ball when slow, the players in the Ajax team know it, but the key is that once they are on the court, it is difficult for them to maintain this calmness and grasp the scale between fast and slow.

The higher the level of the game, the higher the requirement for this grasping ability.

Ye Qiu knew very well that the midfield composed of Gilberto Silva, Sneijder, Keita, Yaya Toure, De Jong and others had enough strength and depth, but there were still many shortcomings, and the most important of them was a metronome.

This was already Ajax's biggest weakness!

And Ye Qiu's biggest hope was that this hidden danger would not break out at the last moment of this season, otherwise, Leverkusen's three A-League kings might very well be a lesson for Ajax!