The Godfather of Football

After finishing this crazy and crucial battle with Arsenal, Ye Qiu announced directly in the locker room that night that the team would have a holiday the next day, which was Sunday, and everyone would not have to come to Theobald, even those players who had been scheduled to participate in the fifth round of the Champions League group stage on Wednesday.

Although the first team and the youth team were on holiday, Theobald did not seem deserted at all, because every weekend, many fans and parents would bring their children to Theobald to participate in some club activities of Tottenham Hotspur. This is also a move by Tottenham Hotspur to get close to fans and attract young fans from an early age.

This activity attracted many fans and parents every weekend, so the entire Theobald training base still seemed very lively, and Ye Qiu was idle at home. His wife Huang Chu had to go to work, so he brought his two children to Theobald, sent them to participate in the activities, and told the staff to pay attention, and then went to the training building.

Yesterday morning, Mauro Tassotti handed him a document on the [wave-type attack and defense system]. He still hasn't had time to take a good look at it, so he took advantage of the morning to take a good look.

Mauro Tassotti is a typical Italian head coach. His ideas and thoughts are often very profound and meticulous. In this document, he used many details to explain the specific ideas and thoughts of this wave-type attack and defense system, as well as the overall operation mode.

Everyone knows that the 433 tactic has very high requirements for wing players, especially when you have two inverted wingers in front of you, the entire wing is almost entirely handed over to the full-back, but there is a problem, just like the 442 diamond midfielder position, your midfield wing defense will become a weak point.

In other words, just like when Tottenham Hotspur played Chelsea, the attack point is concentrated on the midfield wing.

In general, the wave-type attack and defense system does not actually have much innovation in terms of defense. It is still the overall defense idea of ​​Mauro Tassotti, which is the same as what Tottenham Hotspur has insisted on over the years, such as delaying tactics, such as how to effectively force the opponent to the wing, etc.

The real change lies in the change of the overall formation.

This has to mention Ye Qiu's past use of full-backs. Marcelo on the left and Alves on the right, the forward insertion strategy of the two offensive full-backs is one to go up and one to come back. If the left goes up, the right must come back, and vice versa. If there is no mistake, there will always be only one full-back in front.

Suppose, when Marcelo on the left goes up, the left must be used for attack instead of defense, suppressing the opponent's right.

Therefore, the moment you lose the ball in the frontcourt, the opponent's counterattack will usually not be realized by their own right, that is, attacking your left, because you suppress his right, and it is difficult for him to play a counterattack effect on this side, and according to the principle of wave-type positioning, when the left back goes up, the left center back must be dragged back.

Considering that if the opponent directly counterattacks from the left, when the left is suppressed, there is generally only one option, long pass, so Ye Qiu arranges a taller central defender, or a central defender with excellent air control ability and strong frontal defense ability. Although Thiago Silva is not tall, he has excellent awareness, and Kompany does better than Zielinski in this aspect.

At the same time, Alves's so-called non-advancement does not actually mean that he will be dragged to the back position, or dragged very far back. In fact, he may be just the same as the defensive midfielder Yaya Toure, but he is less inserted and more of a ball outlet on the right side of the team.

Thiago Silva is another ball outlet, because when the left side is pressed up, the opponent's defense line will inevitably tend to defend the left side, and the pressure on the right side will be relatively small. This results in Yaya Toure, Thiago Silva and Alves pressing up on the left. This triangle combination becomes a powerful organization and a stable ball point placed in the back by the team.

The core of the wave-type attack and defense system is switching. When Alves on the right finds the opponent's loopholes and finds an opportunity to take advantage of, he rushes forward immediately, and at this time Marcelo on the left has to retreat, and then the entire left front and right back situation just now is reversed to a left back and right front pattern.

Such a layout can ensure that the team's midfield and backcourt have both stable ball points and can provide endless offensive opportunities for the frontcourt. At the same time, it also solves the weaknesses and deficiencies on the defensive level, especially counterattacks and 433 theory.

If this layout is followed, Tottenham Hotspur can launch an endless attack on the opponent as long as they can seize the initiative in the game, and the opponent's counterattack has only two options, either choose to attack the side with better defense organization, that is, strong attack, or play a long pass and find the back of the attacking side, but the efficiency is relatively low.

Therefore, the success rate of both options is not very ideal. Tottenham Hotspur can maximize the solidity of the team's defense, and Mauro Tassotti has also specially arranged many detailed defensive routes and cooperation routines to further ensure the team's defense's adaptability, which has produced very good results.

However, this routine is just like the offensive routine, which is very detailed, targeted and perfect, but it is too much and too complicated. If a central defender is introduced from outside, he will probably be directly confused by Tottenham Hotspur's defensive system that combines running, cooperation, and defense.

Of course, even in theory, it is impossible for defense to be 100% free of goals from the opponent. This is impossible, because no team's defensive system dares to say that it can ensure that no ball is lost, even if it is only in a perfect state in theory, because as Beckenbauer said, eleven players cannot cover the entire stadium.

It's like playing a jigsaw puzzle. If one piece is empty, you can move it to where you want it to appear by constantly moving and changing positions. The same is true for football defensive tactics. Those areas that you cannot cover are the empty spaces in the jigsaw puzzle, and there are more than one, but many.

Therefore, whether it is offense or defense, it is all about high probability. Any offensive system cannot be based on how to score a goal, but on how to ensure that the ball path is effectively advanced to the 30-meter area. Defense cannot be based on how to prevent the opponent from scoring a goal, but should ensure how to prevent the opponent from scoring to the maximum extent.

Ye Qiu spent more than two hours reading this report. There are many things in it that are his research experience with Mauro Tassotti in the past few years. It is also the result of their discussion with the coaching staff. It can be said that it is the result of a group of people's hard work. Therefore, Ye Qiu is not unfamiliar with it at all, and it looks very fast.

After reading it, he felt that there were still many things that were not mentioned, but basically it was already a very rigorous and detailed system.

While reading it, Ye Qiu also wrote down some of his own ideas in the blank space next to this report, which were some improvements or supplements, as well as some of his own experiences. Next, he was going to return it to Mauro Tassotti and let them further improve it. This will be a teaching material for Tottenham Hotspur's internal coach training in the future.

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After finishing work, Ye Qiu rubbed his slightly tired eyes while walking out of the office and heading towards the youth team area. Because the fans' activities were concentrated in the youth team, they were forbidden to enter the first team. Even in the youth team, they were only limited to certain places.

After all, Theobald would not allow the fans to run around.

When Ye Qiu came to the youth training camp, he heard cheers and screams from children.

He saw many people cheering around one of the fields. There were players in the field showing their skills to everyone on the scene, or to show their skills to the children. This was obviously not a program arranged by the club, but they voluntarily participated in it after arriving at Theobald.

There were a total of five players on the field, including Raul, and the other four were Neymar, Hazard, Coutinho and Ramsey. These players were on one of the training grounds, showing their skills to the children on the scene.

The main performance is to place some dummies that fall down when touched in the front area of ​​the penalty area, and the players have to dribble around these dummies at the fastest speed, but at the same time they cannot knock them down, and then shoot in a certain area, and the shooting angle is also required, and there are fixed restrictions.

This is a very popular entertainment training project in Tottenham Hotspur. Players often use it to bet with each other. This training has very high requirements for players' ball sense, dribbling speed, step frequency and pace, as well as speed change and direction change, body and feet flexibility, etc., reflecting a player's comprehensive technical and physical qualities.

In this seemingly fun and beautiful game, the different characteristics of the players can be fully reflected.

For example, Hazard has very solid basic skills and good physical condition. After all, he is a new generation player who has been cultivated and polished in the Tottenham Hotspur youth training camp over the years. These are almost impeccable, and he is also used to dribbling the ball with small steps similar to Robben and Messi. In this respect, he is very similar to Robben and Messi.

Hazard's speed and explosiveness are also very fast, so he shoots after completing this series of technical actions. He is the fastest and best in the whole process, because this kind of small steps is very suitable for sudden changes in a small range, and Hazard's ability to suddenly adjust his step frequency is also quite good, which reminds Ye Qiu of Robben in the past.

Of course, Hazard is not without problems. He has two more obvious problems now. One is shooting skills. Although his shots have entered the goal, they are not up to the requirements. The angle and footwork are not well grasped. The other is the use and adjustment of his footwork when changing direction.

Top players who are good at dribbling with small steps have a strong ability to change direction, and their speed hardly changes before and after changing forwards. This is an essential element for a top attacker. So when you see Messi, Robben and Ribery changing directions with the ball, they basically don't slow down and just go straight past, and the opponent has no time to stop them.

Hazard will have an obvious pause when changing direction. This is not because of his incompetence, but because of problems with his footwork and self-adjustment. However, this is not a big problem, although it is difficult for the coach to give him any advice. Correction, after all, everyone feels comfortable using their own feet, so they can only rely on themselves to hone and overcome them through competition training.

Whether it is shooting or footwork, Hazard's problems are not serious. If the current development trend is maintained and given time, this player will become a great player and will become Tottenham Hotspur's successor to Messi and Ribery. After that, the best assault killer born in the 1990s did not even rule out developing into the middle.

Compared to Hazard, Neymar's biggest problem lies in his Brazilian style of play. First of all, the technical details are not concise enough. This requires more European games and training to help him wear off those fancy tricks and become more sophisticated. Simple, practical and deadly.

There is also physical confrontation. Brazil’s domestic defense is not at the same level as the defense in European competitions, especially the Premier League and Champions League. The requirements for players’ physical fitness are obviously higher. Neymar’s ball feel and various skills , are all top-notch. If he can properly improve his physical resistance and make his skills more concise and practical, he will become the most outstanding superstar.

At this point, Neymar is different from Hazard. Neymar's ability to read the game, overall view, and insight into game space are very good, while Hazard's assault ability is stronger, but these aspects will They are relatively weak, so Neymar and Eden Hazard, two young players born in the 1990s, look very similar, but in fact their development paths will be different.

Tottenham Hotspur has spent a lot of money on training and cultivating a group of young players. Ye Qiu even regards players born in the 1990s, including Neymar, Hazard and other players, as Tottenham Hotspur players. Tottenham's future hope, so he and the coaching staff spared no effort to focus on developing these new stars.

Ye Qiu can even be a bit arrogant. A group of young rookies such as Neymar, Hazard, Ramsey, Coutinho, Eriksen, Pogba and Phil Jones, no matter who goes out, will be successful. They are the type that can be overtaken by European giants, and they all appear in Tottenham Hotspur's team. This not only improves the strength of the first team, but also brings benefits to superstars including Ribery and Messi. Enormous pressure.

"These young people are really quite good!" Raul saw Ye Qiu standing on the sidelines, walked over with a smile, and said.

Ye Qiu didn't need to think about it to know why Raul showed up at Theobald. It was because Raul had always insisted on training every day. This was a way for him to maintain his condition. According to him, after playing professional football for so many years , he has a feeling that if he relaxes his requirements now, he will not be far away from retirement.

"You are more experienced, please help me give more advice to them!" Ye Qiu said with a smile.

Raul chuckled, "These young guys put me under a lot of pressure. Coutinho's awareness and insight in passing the through ball really reminded me of my good friend Guti. It’s just that his passing skills are still a little bit poor, but he’s still very young.”

Being able to receive such high praise from Raul shows his appreciation for Coutinho, and Ye Qiu has always admired Coutinho. He knows very well that Coutinho has vision and insight. The key is that he must do a good job of passing the ball at his feet accurately to where his eyes see it.

This is not just about passing the ball, but also involves many aspects of details and technical skills.

Football is a very complex knowledge and a very cumbersome system. Anyone who sees an action of a player, often behind this very simple action, represents not only the action of his feet, but also something behind it. There are so many things and connotations, this is the complexity and unpredictability of football.

"How are you doing recently?" Ye Qiu asked with concern.

Since the last time he was injured, Raul's injury has recovered, but he has not played again.

"It's okay!" Raul replied with a smile, but quickly added, "I need some competition to stimulate it!"

Ye Qiu laughed when he heard Raoer taking the initiative to challenge, "That's easy, you do the match on Wednesday!"

"Really?" Raul was very happy to hear this. Wednesday is the Champions League group stage.

Tottenham Hotspur has already qualified with four consecutive wins in advance, and is the group leader. The remaining two group matches are not of great significance to Tottenham Hotspur. Although there are generous bonuses, Ye Qiu is more willing to use it to train young players.

It doesn't mean much to Tottenham Hotspur, but to Raul, it means something extraordinary, because every goal he scores in the Champions League is often setting records, and Raul is setting records. Er himself also knows very well that this record may not last long, because young superstars such as Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and even Franck Ribery all appeared in an era of high goal rates.

Sometimes, as a forward, Raul envies these players because they are in an era that is very suitable for forwards to survive. In this era, due to changes in tactics and the out-of-synchronization of offensive and defensive tactics, it has become difficult for offensive players to score goals. It is getting easier and easier, and there is even a trend of scoring goals.

It was like Tottenham Hotspur had just defeated Arsenal 9:0. In the past, no matter how strong the two teams were, such a score would hardly appear between two teams of such high level, but it happened now, because Arsenal could not keep up with Tottenham Hotspur's pace throughout the game.

In the same way, Raul could foresee that the record he created now would be broken by them in a few years, but no matter what, he still hoped to continue to challenge himself, which is what every professional player who has strict requirements on himself wants to do.

"Come on, enjoy your football!" Ye Qiu smiled and patted Raul on the shoulder, encouraging the Spanish golden boy, and then turned and left the training ground, because he found that many fans were gathering around him.

In the eyes of Tottenham Hotspur fans, Ye Qiu is the supreme authority of this team!