The Godfather of Football

Some people say that a football match is a bit like guessing each other's mind for a head coach.

To some extent, this is true. At least now Ye Qiu and Mourinho are guessing each other's mind and trying not to fall into each other's trap.

If Chelsea wants to see Tottenham Hotspur press forward, it will be difficult to maintain an orderly overall formation. But Tottenham Hotspur must not be so stupid, but use the midfield and backcourt to control the ball and let Chelsea press forward.

From the beginning when the head coaches of both sides arranged the starting lineup for this game, they have actually set the tone for this game. For example, Chelsea's starting lineup for this game is to play high-intensity pressure in the frontcourt, so for this style of play, Mourinho put on a group of muscular men.

This style of play is not ineffective, but there is a danger, that is, time is not in their favor.

The power of the strangling midfielder is naturally needless to say, but the problem is that when playing in the frontcourt, the players sprint back and forth and run a longer distance in a game than in general formations and tactics, and the physical consumption is more serious. Once it reaches the last stage of the first half and the end of the second half, this problem of insufficient physical strength will be exposed more obviously.

When Ye Qiu coached Chelsea, he liked to open the game, considering this point.

Tottenham Hotspur is also a very strange team, or in other words, whether it is Chelsea or Manchester United, or even all other teams, they will feel a headache when they meet a team like Tottenham Hotspur, especially when Tottenham Hotspur performs well, they will almost fall into a dilemma.

The midfield passing combination of Beckham and Fabregas, although neither of them is good at controlling the ball, they are both good at passing, especially Beckham, whose long pass accuracy is even more outrageous, so Tottenham Hotspur doesn't mind pushing the front line forward at all, because as long as there is a chance, they are sure to pass the ball out.

At the same time, in order to cope with Chelsea's pressure in the midfield and frontcourt, Tottenham Hotspur tightened its formation and dragged back. Beckham, Mascherano, Thiago Silva, Hangeland, Alves, Vargas, and even Fabregas formed their own rigorous passing and receiving coordination system in the midfield and backcourt.

In this system, except for Hangeland, every other player has a very good ability to stop and pass the ball, and through the training and tacit understanding cultivated in the past year, they are always at a relatively reasonable distance and range from each other. In this case, it is very difficult for Chelsea to steal the ball.

To limit Tottenham Hotspur's ball control in this position, the number of troops invested in the frontcourt must be sufficient, but the problem is that Tottenham Hotspur's frontcourt trident is in the front, not to mention that the back line is dragged, even if Makelele is left on the front, Chelsea's back line is still not safe, because Tottenham Hotspur's two wingers are very fast.

After losing the first goal, Ye Qiu made adjustments. Seeing that Chelsea had no wing attack, he directly shrunk the full-back to the middle when defending, ensuring the middle defense and directly giving up the wing, because I know you don't have a winger.

If Mourinho makes adjustments under normal circumstances, should he use a winger?

In fact, in the second half, Mourinho saw that the team's offense was weak, and he did want to use a winger, but Tottenham Hotspur had a very disgusting move. When Duff went to warm up, Arbeloa also went out to warm up.

Mourinho did not choose to make a substitution in the end, because he knew that his substitution had been calculated by the opponent, and Ye Qiu must have already calculated that he would change the winger, so he deliberately let Arbeloa go to warm up, and he must also consider another point, that is, if the winger is replaced, who should be replaced?

The back line must not be moved. Now there are four defending three, and the pressure is already very high. If another person is replaced, wouldn't it be equivalent to creating a scoring opportunity for Tottenham Hotspur?

What about the midfield?

No matter who is replaced, the pressure of Chelsea's midfield will decline, and it will definitely lead to a rebound in Tottenham's attack. Now Tottenham is like a tightly compressed spring. Chelsea can only keep trying their best to suppress it, because once you release it, it will rebound immediately, and the tighter you press, the greater its rebound force.

Tottenham is not without weaknesses. For example, the overall tendency to attack, even the full-backs are actively inserted into the offense, so their offensive power is very strong, but the defense on the wing is relatively weak.

Chelsea originally had a group of coveted wingers, such as Duff, Wright Phillips, Aaron Lennon, Quaresma, etc. If these wingers are used to attack Tottenham's wing, this should be able to achieve certain results, but the problem is that once the wingers are on, the midfield cannot guarantee that they can suppress them.

In this case, the final result is likely to cause the game to completely turn into an offensive battle, which is undoubtedly disadvantageous for Chelsea, because Chelsea's offensive ability cannot be said to be inferior to Tottenham Hotspur, but at least it is not as rich and threatening as Tottenham Hotspur.

The problem Mourinho is facing now is similar to the dilemma Ye Qiu faced when he met Benítez. It is difficult for him to make a choice because any choice may break the current situation.

But the problem is that if you don't make a choice, Makelele's physical strength is insufficient, and the physical strength of other midfielders may not last long. This does not mean that they have to consume it to the point of cramps or can't run, but when the physical strength is consumed to a certain extent, the speed will decrease and the technical movements will be out of shape, which will be very dangerous.

Since the beginning of the second half, the two sides still continued the stalemate of most of the first half, and there was no news from the other three games. It seems that the score has not changed much, but in the end, after entering the 70th minute, Mourinho still chose to make a substitution.

Joe Cole replaced Makelele, and Essien was arranged by Mourinho to defend.

In the two years that Mourinho coached Chelsea, Joe Cole was indeed reused. Although his role positioning was more of a substitute, his performance was very good. Mourinho obviously relied on him more than when Ye Qiu was there.

Arranging him to play at such an important moment this time also reflects Mourinho's trust in him, and Joe Cole has also performed well after coming on as a substitute in the past, so his appearance immediately received applause from the entire Stamford Bridge stadium.

The live camera also captured that in the VIP box, Abramovich also applauded Joe Cole's appearance. Next to the Russian stood his close friend Pini Zahavi and the club's technical director Grant.

"Joe Cole should be put on at this time to strengthen the frontcourt ball point and further strengthen the offense!" Grant stood aside and was responsible for explaining the head coach's intentions to Abramovich, which was also his role in many cases.

"Look, Ye Qiu seems to be adjusting too!" Abramovich looked in front of the visiting team's coaching bench. Ye Qiu seemed to be shouting something to Beckham and making some gestures, but it is estimated that only they themselves can understand the meaning.

In this game, at least half of Abramovich's attention was on Ye Qiu, because he knew Ye Qiu's coaching ability very well. If he was asked to select the biggest and most threatening target in this game, he would definitely choose Ye Qiu.

"He doesn't seem to plan to make a substitution. He may want Beckham to stay back and let Mascherano pay more attention to limiting Joe Cole with Alves. After all, Joe Cole's characteristics are not assaults, but taking the ball and passing the ball." Grant certainly knows Chelsea's dilemma better than anyone else, that is, there is no one-on-one attacking sideline attacker.

Originally, Ribery and Messi could both be good choices, but they were given to Tottenham Hotspur in vain. Now it's too late to regret it. Regardless of Aaron Lennon, Wright Phillips, and Duff, the styles of the three players are very similar, that is, fast speed, strong impact, but average footwork.

Quaresma is good, but he is too sticky to the ball, and he doesn't fit in with the team's overall tactics. He has been put into the cold palace by Mourinho.

Therefore, Mourinho can only choose players like Joe Cole and Kalu, among whom Kalu is very popular with Mourinho this season. However, this player has certain dribbling ability, but his handling of the ball has been criticized.

Many people may have an illusion that dribbling relies more on technology, which is actually a bit biased.

It should be said that observing a player's one-on-one dribbling ability is to look at his comprehensive ability. No one can guarantee that he can succeed every time he dribbles, because every dribbling is a combination of many comprehensive factors, and among these factors, technology and explosiveness are undoubtedly two very important factors.

If you have technology but no explosiveness, you will see that the player is very skilled on the court, constantly shaking back and forth, constantly dribbling and controlling the ball, but he can't get rid of the defensive player. If you have explosiveness at this time, when you use technology to create opportunities, a sudden acceleration directly forms a dribbling, and such a dribbling is the most threatening.

As for the others, whether it is just explosiveness or technology, the threat and combat effectiveness will be greatly weakened.

Grant himself could see that many people knew Chelsea's current situation. Sometimes he even felt that it was absolutely unreasonable to have so many wingers but not one of them was good enough. But there were some things that he couldn't say much about. It was the best way to protect oneself. This was too complicated.

"After Joe Cole came on, the effect didn't seem to be very obvious!" Abramovich watched the game silently for a while. Even though he was a layman, he had seen some tricks over the years. He also felt that Chelsea's offense didn't seem to improve much after Joe Cole came on.

On the contrary, Tottenham Hotspur seemed to be loose, with more balls passed to the frontcourt, and the players were more active on the offensive end.

"Ye Qiu is going to be substituted!" Pini Zahavi was also paying attention to Ye Qiu.

After being reminded by Pini Zahavi, Abramovich immediately turned his attention to the visiting team's coaching bench and saw Ye Qiu whispering with Van Persie on the sidelines. It seemed that Van Persie was going to go up.

"It's time to replace Van Nistelrooy!" Grant guessed.

More than a minute later, taking advantage of a dead ball opportunity, Van Persie replaced the veteran Van Nistelrooy in the 76th minute.

Randy scored the equalizer for Tottenham Hotspur, which was also his 32nd goal in the Premier League this season. This was also the season with the highest goal efficiency in his career. Many people even said that Tottenham Hotspur this season belongs to Van Nistelrooy alone. Without Van Nistelrooy, Tottenham Hotspur would probably have to fight for relegation.

After the two Dutchmen high-fived and hugged on the sidelines, Van Nistelrooy did not forget to high-five Ye Qiu when he left the court. After Van Persie came on the court, he sprinted directly, warmed up, ran to the center of the front line, jumped a few times, stretched his muscles, and waited for Tottenham Hotspur to kick the ball out, and then he quickly ran in front.

"What are the scores of the other games?" Abramovich asked with concern.

Pini Zahavi shook his head and said, "No change, it seems that they are also in trouble."

Whether it is Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool, the score has not changed at all. From this point of view, these games seem to have encountered trouble, especially Manchester United, which is 0:2 behind Fulham. Did Ferguson never think about making adjustments?

Or did Manchester United really play too badly in this game?

Redknapp has been very successful in Portsmouth this season, and has completely made the Pompey Army a competitive team in the Premier League, which has also won him recognition again. If Manchester United is really defeated in this game, it will definitely push him to a new peak.

After hearing the news, Abramovich breathed a sigh of relief. He felt that as long as Chelsea could keep the current score, the championship would be a sure thing. He even felt that even if the team played a little embarrassed next time, it didn't matter. They would defend it. The most important thing was to win the championship.

Four consecutive championships. In the history of the top league of English football, no team has ever won four consecutive championships.

If Chelsea can win four consecutive championships, it will undoubtedly be a great relief, allowing Abramovich to be proud of himself in London's upper class!

While the three were talking, they saw Ashley Cole take the ball to the midfield once, Messi retreated to defend, the two were entangled, and Fabregas came over at the first time, and the two formed a double attack on Ashley Cole.

Just when the double attack was completed, Ashley Cole fell to the ground and the ball was intercepted.

"What's going on? Isn't it a foul?" Abramovich opened his arms with a look of horror.

After the ball was intercepted, Fabregas directly poked the ball forward, Messi rushed up quickly, continued to dribble forward, and rushed directly to the front, and at this time Van Persie had also quickly cut to the middle, and the two of them double-teamed Boulahrouz from front and back.

At this time, all the Chelsea fans in the stadium were roaring angrily, thinking that the referee did not penalize Tottenham's foul, and they were also panicked about Tottenham's counterattack after stealing the ball.

Borahluz faced Messi and Van Persie behind him. He hesitated and waited for Messi and Van Persie to make a move, because it was two against one, and he could only choose to passively parry, and there was no way to actively block.

Van Persie pointed in front of him behind Borahluz, and saw Messi suddenly pass the ball behind Borahluz, and Van Persie quickly rushed past Borahluz, and after getting the ball, he directly shot with his left foot.

Hilario was powerless to this shot, because not only was Van Persie's shot very fast and powerful, but also because he had no time to react, so he could only stand there, and he couldn't even make a save.

But just when everyone thought the ball would go in and Chelsea fans were screaming in unison, they heard a bang, and the ball went over goalkeeper Hilario's head and hit the crossbar.

Van Persie was determined to score with such a shot, but he never expected that it would hit the crossbar.

The whole audience let out a huge cry, and obviously all Chelsea fans were relieved. If this ball went in, Chelsea would be in trouble.

Mourinho kept yelling at the players on the sidelines, especially at Ashley Cole who lost the ball. He felt that the latter was a bit sticky to the ball and should not insist on dribbling the ball at this time, but should pass it out as soon as possible.

Abramovich also breathed a sigh of relief in the VIP box, feeling a little bit like surviving a disaster. Since the start of this game, he has always felt a sense of fear, because Tottenham Hotspur will suddenly give you a threatening attack from time to time, which will scare you and make your heart beat faster.

"Bolaluz's weakness is still too obvious!" Grant said casually.

But this made Abramovich's face darken, because according to Chelsea's current lineup, Boolaluz is not in the central defender position, but the problem is that Ledley King, the central defender introduced this season for 30 million euros, has not played five games so far this season, and most of the other times he has been recovering from injuries.

Everyone kept mocking and ridiculing Chelsea, just like mocking Real Madrid for introducing Woodgate.

Now Grant's casual words made Abramovich feel very uncomfortable, because if Ledley King had not been injured, he would definitely be able to start, and perhaps the moment just now would not be as dangerous as it is now.

However, just when Abramovich was not in a good mood, Ye Qiu off the court saw something. He realized that the Chelsea players' physical energy had been almost exhausted, so now was the best time for Tottenham to counterattack.

When Tottenham was in control of the ball, the team's overall formation pressed forward. Anyone could see that Tottenham had already made a posture of counterattacking and strengthening the frontcourt attack.

And this scene made all the fans in Stamford Bridge panic!