The Godfather of Football

Many people's first impression of Hiddink is that he is tough.

But it is rare to see Hiddink publicly lashing out on the court.

Few people know that Hiddink was a teacher for ten years in the school where his father was the principal. He later joked that in his eyes, football stars are like elementary school students, and big-name football stars are like those naughty children with strong backgrounds, or even juvenile delinquents.

Ten years of teaching experience has taught Hiddink how to manage a team's locker room, and also made him somewhat stubborn. For example, he rarely lashes out on the court, because he is concerned about his image. He believes that there are cameras everywhere on the court, and publicly lashing out will only become the object of media hype.

But sometimes, the fire in your heart cannot be suppressed.

Just like this time, when he saw Ibrahimovic leaning on Faber, Oye did not rush to Faber's side to double-team and assist as he had arranged before the game. In the end, he watched the Swede suppress Faber with his body, dribbled the ball successfully, turned around, and shot with his right foot, penetrating the goal of Watrous.

At this moment, Oye raised his hands helplessly in the penalty area, hugged the back of his head, and looked very depressed. He looked like he was wondering why he was scored again?

I believe that most people who saw this scene would think Oye was innocent, but Hiddink would not think so.

Hiddink, who was so angry that he had to find an outlet to vent, rushed to the sidelines and shouted at Oye who was close at hand: "Andre, what the hell are you doing? Don't you know you have to help defend? Or do you just want to stand aside and wait to see your teammates and the jokes of the team?"

Oye was startled by Hiddink's sudden angry shouting, and stood in the penalty area. He recalled that before the game and during the halftime break, Hiddink repeatedly emphasized that Ibrahimovic should not be allowed to get a one-on-one opportunity easily, especially in the middle of the penalty area.

Ibrahimovic is a player with excellent physical fitness, delicate footwork, and a great improvement in shooting skills in recent years, which makes the Swedish center seem to have no major flaws, and whether it is his physical fitness or his footwork, he has a great advantage in one-on-one situations.

Hiddink has a very high opinion of this center forward. He believes that in a one-on-one situation, even central defenders such as Nesta, Stam, and Ferdinand may not be able to resist Ibrahimovic. Those with slightly weaker physical fitness and slightly worse awareness should be prepared to be abused by Ibrahimovic at any time and anywhere.

PSV's defense has had a lot of problems recently. Hovland's injury will make him miss the entire season, which has caused a lot of trouble for PSV's defense. You know, Hovland has performed very well recently. He has become the mainstay of PSV's defense. Even Manchester United and other top teams have begun to pay attention to him, hoping to introduce this central defender who is known as the new Stam.

Hiddink is also excellent. Faber has performed steadily under his hands. This veteran has excellent experience and awareness, but even so, Hiddink still feels that Faber will be abused when he meets Ibrahimovic.

This is not a problem of strength, but in the final analysis, when the defensive player and the offensive player are one-on-one, the offensive player takes the initiative and the defensive player is too passive. If the strength gap is not too big, it is almost difficult to guarantee that he will not be abused.

This is why everyone knows that offense can rely on individual performance, but defense always relies on system operations.

This can also lead to a digression, training defense is not necessarily easier than training offense!

After Hovland was injured this season, Eindhoven was short of central defenders. Hiddink finally chose to pull right back Oyeh to the middle to play as a central defender, and Oyeh did perform well in several games, which made everyone feel at ease, but once it came to the key game, his problems were exposed.

After all, he has played as a right back for many years. When he was pulled to the middle, it is inevitable that he will be uncomfortable. Position sense and defense awareness are Oyeh's defects. In the past, others filled in for him and filled in for him, but now he is asked to fill in for others. It is certain that he is not comfortable.

PSV Eindhoven's performance in the Champions League this season is not completely unrelated to the problem of the back line, so Hiddink has always been very cautious, because he knows that the problem of the defense line will appear in the strong dialogue. They lost to Feyenoord before. This time when they met Ajax, Hiddink can be said to have given many instructions.

But unexpectedly, they made a mistake in the end.

Sometimes, Hiddink didn't know whether he should say that Ajax's offense was too strong, or PSV Eindhoven's defense in this game was too bad, or both.

Only 14 minutes into the game, Robben made a quick insertion on the left, Ibrahimovic passed the ball diagonally to him, he sprinted into the penalty area, easily lobbed the ball, and penetrated the goal of Watrous.

But this is just the beginning. Ajax's powerful attack followed closely and brought great pressure to PSV Eindhoven.

In the 27th minute, Van der Vaart dribbled the ball from the right and took the initiative to find Ibrahimovic for a one-two combination. He cut into the penalty area, received a pass from Ibrahimovic, and scored again with a low shot, 2:0!

The attack was fierce, and Ajax also revealed a flaw. At the last moment of the first half, PSV Eindhoven played a very high-quality counterattack. Van Bommel made a long pass, and Kezman used his speed to force through the defense line of Lucio and Kivu. After getting the ball, he formed a single-handed attack and broke through Van der Sar's goal, 1:2.

During the halftime break, Hiddink once again emphasized that falling behind by one goal did not matter much, because there was still a second half, and PSV Eindhoven still had a chance, but the premise was that all players must firmly follow the team's tactics.

Among them, the point Hiddink talked about the most was defense, because PSV Eindhoven's strategy for this game was to defend and counterattack. If they couldn't defend, how could they counterattack?

Therefore, Hiddink also reminded Oye many times. He revealed several flaws in the first half, so he asked Oye to pay attention to keeping a distance from Faber, keep close contact, don't reveal flaws, and don't lose his position easily.

But what was unexpected was that Oye made a mistake less than 10 minutes after the second half started.

If Oye could assist in defense when Ibrahimovic and Faber were competing, then after the Swede turned around, Oye could rush up to assist in defense. In that case, could the Swede still score?

From 1:2 to 1:3, the gap is not just one goal, which is a huge blow to the morale of PSV.

However, Hiddink only got angry when he couldn't hold it back, and soon calmed down. After all, the game was not over yet, so he kept explaining to Oye on the sidelines and asked the team to shrink their positions appropriately.

Ye Qiu sat in the coaching booth of the home team, watching Hiddink's rare loss of composure, and couldn't help but feel amused, "I didn't expect that he would be so powerful when he got angry, I really didn't see it at ordinary times."

Bobby Hams laughed, "He's already in his 40s, how can he be like you young people, getting angry all the time?"

If he met someone in good health, it would be fine, but if he met someone in poor health, who got angry all the time, wouldn't that be his own life?

"He has been away from the European football stage for a few years, especially in the past two years in Asia, and has obviously not kept up with the pace and rhythm of European football development." Van Basten said with a smile.

This is the truth. Even in the current era of highly developed information, leaving European football for a long time and leaving the Champions League is indeed a disadvantage for grasping the trend of football tactical development.

Look at the English team that was banned back then, and it has not caught up with the mainland team until now.

Since Hiddink coached the Dutch national team, whether in Real Madrid or Real Betis, he has not been able to win the recognition and approval of professionals, nor has he achieved convincing results. Even now, most people feel that Hiddink's football philosophy has not kept up with the development of tactics.

What is the hottest tactical change in Europe in the past two years?

High defense!

Just as the French Football Magazine commented, since Ajax won the League Cup with high defense and successfully entered the Champions League semi-finals the following year, everyone began to be interested in high defense. The first to follow Ye Qiu's footsteps was Valencia's head coach Benítez, and his team also adopted high defense.

Although Benítez's Valencia played 4231, the positioning tactics adopted by the double defensive midfielders were still to move the defense line forward.

Valencia won the La Liga title last season and set off a trend in the Champions League this season. Behind all this is high-position defense. Benítez's team is best at using high-position defense to suppress opponents, so they scored the most goals and conceded the fewest goals, and are the best performing team in the Champions League group stage.

In the evaluation of French football magazine, Ajax's high-position defense is more inclined to offense, and the defense is highly dependent on the single defensive midfielder. Therefore, after Gilberto Silva left the team, although Ye Qiu introduced Mascherano, who performed well, and promoted De Jong, he still could not play the stability of Gilberto Silva.

This is why Ajax's defense has always given people an unstable impression so far this season.

The impact of the outstanding high-position defense is that other teams have also made corresponding adjustments and changes, but Hiddink's team obviously has no such changes, which made them lose miserably in the Champions League. When they returned to the Netherlands, they were okay when they met weak teams, but their results were also very bad when they played against strong teams.

So far, they have lost to Feyenoord at home, and now they are facing Ajax away, and they are also powerless to fight back.

As for other so-called strong teams in the Eredivisie, can they compare with the three giants?

In the eyes of many people, high-position defense is what Ye Qiu came up with to solve the problem of Ajax's traditional 433 tactics, where the distance between the wingers and the full-backs is too long. After three years of continuous improvement, this defensive system has become Ajax's main tactic, and even the youth team is using this tactic.

The benefits are obvious. The offense is very sharp, especially the offense on the two sides, which fits Ajax's traditional characteristics of focusing on wing offense, and can also maximize the offensive power of 433, but defense is a place that needs attention.

"Do you think he will regret coming to Eindhoven now?" Roland asked with a smile.

Everyone laughed when they heard it.

At this point in the game, there was not much suspense about Ajax defeating their opponent. The only choice was, could they score a goal?

In the 77th minute, it was Ibrahimovic again, from Faber's side, and Oye failed to make up for the position in time. It was almost the same as the previous goal, except that the position of the goal was slightly changed, and Ibrahimovic's way of scoring was more annoying.

He had obviously shaken off Faber and successfully passed the PSV center back. When he dribbled into the penalty area, he met Oye who quickly made up for the position from the side. He suddenly stopped, skillfully dribbled the ball with his feet, and flexibly wanted to pass the ball around Oye from the right, but when Oye flexibly reacted, he stopped again and dunked the ball to the left, then pulled up his left foot and volleyed the ball into the net, 4:1!

The whole goal seemed to take a long time to say, but it actually happened in the blink of an eye. Oye was almost shaken by Ibrahimovic, and all this was because the distance between him and Faber was too long. If the distance was right, Ibrahimovic would be able to get close to Faber as soon as he passed Faber, and the Swede would suffer a great loss.

This time, Hiddink did not get angry like before, but walked back to the coaching seat with a helpless look on his face.

After scoring another goal, Ye Qiu also made substitutions.

In the end, Ajax defeated Eindhoven 4:1 at the Arena Stadium, successfully expanding the lead to 4 points. As for Feyenoord, they lost to Heerenveen 1:3 away, and everyone has kicked them out of the list of candidates for the championship.

Van Marwijk's team always likes to lose the chain at critical moments, which is really puzzling.

…………

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After defeating PSV Eindhoven 4:1 at home, Ajax immediately became the favorite team for the Dutch Eredivisie championship.

You know, Ajax has defeated PSV Eindhoven twice in a row this season. The previous one was the Dutch Super Cup, when Ajax defeated PSV Eindhoven 5:0 at the Arena Stadium. This time, it was a bit better, becoming 4:1.

After this game, the Dutch media almost unanimously supported Ajax, believing that as long as Ye Qiu's team continued to perform in the first half of this season, the possibility of winning the league championship was very high, while Hiddink's team must get rid of the embarrassment of losing to strong teams.

This team has no precedent of winning against strong teams in either the Champions League or the Dutch Eredivisie this season, which has also become a very embarrassing label for Hiddink. Who wants people to point at their spine and laugh at a fake strong team?

On the contrary, the Eindhoven Daily showed some signs of helping Eindhoven explain. When they interviewed Eindhoven's general manager Arnesen, the latter believed that the team's poor performance was due to the defense. Hovland's absence caused great losses to Eindhoven, because the most important thing for the team was to strengthen the defense as soon as possible.

The Eindhoven Daily also felt that the defense was the crux of the team's repeated defeats.

But Hiddink did not admit this statement at all. He believed that the team had many problems, and the defense was not the most critical.

"I can understand the desire and ideas of many fans to strengthen the team's strength in the shortest time, but if you want to improve the team's strength, you don't necessarily have to transfer and recruit players. That is the last resort. I think Oye performed well in the central defender position. He just needs more time."

A week later, Eindhoven defeated Vitesse 1:0 at home with Bouma's goal.

Ajax defeated SBV Elite 2-0 away in the last game before the winter break, while Feyenoord continued its embarrassing tradition of losing the game and tied Breda 1-1 away.

In this way, after 17 rounds, the Dutch Eredivisie is halfway through, Ajax is leading all the way and is in the leading position, PSV Eindhoven is closely behind with a gap of 4 points. The gap between Feyenoord and the first two competitors has widened to 11 points, and it has obviously lost the right to compete for the league championship.

And the fourth place that can better reflect the disparity between the strengths and weaknesses of the Dutch Eredivisie is that Nijmegen is 9 points behind Feyenoord and 20 points behind Ajax. This gap is very large, enough for anyone to see the overall trend of the current Dutch Eredivisie.

As Schuld Mosso of the Common Daily said in his column, the current Dutch Eredivisie is developing towards the La Liga, which was dominated by two giants in the past. The difference is that the La Liga was dominated by Barcelona and Real Madrid, while the current Dutch Eredivisie is dominated by three giants: Ajax, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord.

Schuld Mosso believes that when the football league becomes an oligopoly game, it may not be a good phenomenon. It is worth alerting all Dutch football people, especially more teams and more coaches. They should take a good look at the situation and think carefully about why this is happening.

"I personally think that Ajax's experience of re-emergence is worth learning from all the mid- and lower-level Dutch Eredivisie teams, because they did not pay too much. Ye Qiu's strategy is to introduce potential rookies at a low price, cultivate and polish them, and make them talented. This has not only brought Ajax rich transfer income, but also improved Ajax's overall competitiveness."

“All teams and everyone should rethink and position themselves properly, find ways to improve the competitiveness of our teams, prevent the league from becoming an oligopoly game, and find ways for the Eredivisie to survive in the European football world and for the mid- and lower-tier teams to survive in the Eredivisie, these two different environments!”