The Godfather of Football

Sixty-six!

On the desk of the head coach's office at the Cobham training base in southwest London, in front of Villas-Boas was the front-page headline of the Sun, the UK's best-selling newspaper with the greatest influence among British readers.

The cover was filled with two large red Arabic numerals 66, which was the unbeaten record of Tottenham Hotspur after the 16th round of the Premier League. They had played a total of 66 rounds of unbeaten records in the Premier League.

Below the front-page headline was a subtitle, "Will the next game be the end of the legend?"

The accompanying photo was a disappointed expression on the face of head coach Ye Qiu after Ye Qiu's team drew 1:1 with Stoke City away. Anyone who saw this photo would first react that Ye Qiu was very disappointed, even desperate, helplessly desperate, and then have an association that the next game might be the end of the legend.

The entire front page was occupied by Tottenham Hotspur. The Sun really put a lot of thought into designing the layout. The fact that the commercially operated Sun paid so much attention to it and even spared no effort to do such a thing shows that now almost all of Britain, Europe, and even the world, all those who pay attention to football, or even those who don't care about football, will pay attention to Tottenham Hotspur.

With 66 unbeaten games, Tottenham Hotspur ranks fifth in the unbeaten record list in football history, second only to the Ivorian team Abidjan Mimosa, which ranks first with 108 games, the Romanian team Steaua Bucharest, which ranks second with 104 games, the Tunisian team Esperance, which ranks third with 85 games, and the Egyptian team Al Ahli, which ranks fourth with 71 games.

This is indeed a very surprising record, because no matter whether it is ranked high or low, the league competition of all these teams cannot be compared with the current Premier League.

You know, the current Premier League is a mess of competition. There are old giants such as Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool, new giants such as Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, and local tycoons such as Manchester City, Newcastle and West Ham United. In addition to the strong teams such as Everton and Aston Villa, the competitiveness of the entire Premier League is very outstanding. Many fans even regard the current Premier League as a reappearance of the Serie A Seven Sisters period.

But in the eyes of professionals, the competition in the Premier League is more cruel and fiercer than the Serie A Seven Sisters period, because the Premier League schedule is more compact, there are more cup games, there is no winter break, and the climate is not as good as Italy. All of these have created the unique attraction of the Premier League, but also created the fierce competition in the Premier League.

In this case, Tottenham Hotspur can stand out from so many teams. The strength of this team is absolutely unquestionable, but the key to the problem is, who can stop Tottenham Hotspur?

Villas-Boas is a head coach. He is in his twenties and has become independent. He is very similar to Ye Qiu, but he is not as lucky as Ye Qiu. At least in his opinion, Ye Qiu is a lucky man of the times.

Why do you say that?

Take a look at Ye Qiu's resume. When he was in Ajax, Ajax was at its lowest point in history. The youth training staff were poached by Barcelona. Under the lack of successors, he stood out and was promoted to the second team as the head coach because of his outstanding performance in leading the youth team.

At that time, the first team of Ajax fell into chaos and frequently changed coaches, but the second team led by Ye Qiu created a miracle and won the Dutch Cup. This was almost a myth for Ajax, which was already in turmoil at the time, so he took over the coaching position of Ajax, a wealthy team, at a young age.

This is his opportunity, and it is also because he really has such strength!

The timing that Ye Qiu encountered for Ajax was also very coincidental. If he had only dominated in the Netherlands, there would be no problem, because the Dutch Eredivisie did not attract much attention. But he first won the UEFA Cup, and then took advantage of the fact that almost all the top teams suffered a Waterloo to defeat Porto and win the Champions League. That was another opportunity.

The Champions League final that year was called the least influential final since the reform!

Ye Qiu seized both opportunities and did very well, so he naturally left Ajax and the Netherlands, which could no longer satisfy him. In the midst of the scramble by Barcelona, ​​Inter Milan and other top clubs, he came to the Premier League and took over the ambitious Chelsea at that time.

This was the third opportunity in Ye Qiu's coaching career, because Abramovich almost wrote him a blank check at the time. He waved the check in his hand and went to the transfer market to buy the players he needed. So he spent a year to create the strongest Chelsea in history, which is still talked about by countless Blues fans even now.

One Champions League, two Champions League finals, one Premier League title, this is a great gift from Ye Qiu to Chelsea fans, and it can also be seen as the most cost-effective deal that Abramovich has made in the more than eight years since he took over Chelsea.

Boas has been Mourinho's right-hand man since the Porto period, and it is still the same after coming to Chelsea. He can be said to have witnessed Ye Qiu's rise with his own eyes. He even mentioned Ye Qiu to Mourinho once. Although the Portuguese madman said that Ye Qiu was lucky with disdain on the surface, he also said that his most unlucky thing was that he came to Chelsea two years later than Ye Qiu.

From this sentence, we can understand Mourinho's complex mood of helplessness, dissatisfaction, but at the same time admiration.

No matter how well the Chelsea he led performed, in the eyes of all Chelsea fans, he was the one who took over Ye Qiu's team. Most of his achievements had to be divided into Ye Qiu. Even in Abramovich's eyes, no matter how well he did, he still couldn't compare with Ye Qiu.

Perhaps Mendes was right. Ye Qiu was Abramovich's first love, and it was the first love that left him with indelible scars!

Sometimes, Boas had to admit that the successful rise of a head coach requires opportunities. The strength of the head coach can ensure that when the opportunity comes, they can seize it, but there are also many head coaches who have the strength but miss opportunities again and again.

He has always been clear about what he wants to do, so he served as an assistant coach to Robson and Mourinho in order to improve his strength and gain more experience. When the opportunity came, he stood up to coach alone, and then he became a hit in Porto and made a name for himself.

But after coming to Chelsea, he had to sigh that he still fell on the opportunity.

Chelsea is now an aging team. Before Villas-Boas took office, he had a contact with Abramovich, who told him that he would fully support Villas-Boas's reforms in Chelsea and promote Chelsea's reorganization. This time Abramovich showed his determination to completely clean up Ye Qiu's traces in Chelsea.

Even Lampard, including Terry and others who were in dispute because of the friend's wife, were included in the transfer list.

But during the transfer period, Villas-Boas felt a powerful dilemma. On the one hand, he knew very well that the team's problem was in the midfield, and a strong midfielder must be introduced, and there were problems on the back line, but the biggest problem was that Abramovich and Pini Zahavi did not introduce him to a strong midfielder and defender.

Meireles, Lukaku, Romeu, two midfielders and one striker, spent a lot of money, but it did not have much effect on the team's strength improvement, and also sold players such as Zhirkov and Matic.

What's really terrible is that when the league started, when Boas was forced to lead this aging Chelsea and slowly implement his reforms, Abramovich and the management repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the team's performance.

When Boas wanted to carry out drastic reforms, implement youth and technology, and even put Lampard on the bench, but soon, the team's performance fluctuated, and the management began to put pressure on the coaching staff. They didn't want to repeat the tragedy of not being able to participate in the Champions League last season, because they believed that if they lost the Champions League, Chelsea would soon lose the aura of a top team.

Want results and reforms, face the group of veterans in the locker room composed of stars such as Terry, Lampard, Drogba and even Anelka, and promote young players in the team to take on important tasks. Where in the world is there such a cheap thing? Who can do this?

You always praise Ye Qiu and Tottenham Hotspur. Didn't you see that Tottenham Hotspur also promoted Phil Jones and Ramsey after selling Yaya Toure and missing the Champions League? And after selling Fabregas and David Silva, Tottenham Hotspur introduced Vidal and promoted Pogba, Eriksen and others?

Reform must go through pain and must bleed and sacrifice!

Taking over Chelsea, Boas has indeed experienced a lot. He found that he had imagined being a head coach of a giant club too simple before. He thought that as long as he could formulate better, more reasonable and more winning tactics for the team, or as long as he could make the players feel that the team's strength is improving, they would support him.

But after coming to Chelsea, he found that he was wrong, because the management will interfere with your decision-making, and many players in the team will look at you with all kinds of tinted glasses, or even oppose you, and you must lead the team well and get results in this complex environment of interference and resistance.

Let's not talk about anything else. Recently, the media broke the news that Hiddink, who broke up with the Turkish Football Association, said that he would not refuse Chelsea's invitation. This is definitely a big threat to Boas, but the bigger threat is that Mourinho returned to London and bought the luxury house he rented before. Almost all media claimed that Mourinho would return to the Premier League next summer. Which team would he coach?

In addition, Boas found that many people in the coaching staff were a bit hypocritical towards him. He even wondered if someone wanted to take advantage of him and replace him?

Are some players whose interests were damaged by his arrival inciting resistance against him in the locker room?

All of this made Boas feel unprecedented pressure. It was too difficult for him to solve these problems. It was really too difficult!

But he still decided to persevere, because he knew very well that coaching Chelsea was a bottleneck for him. If he broke through it, he would be able to become one of the top European coaches, but if he failed, he would return to the ranks of second-rate European coaches. It was unknown whether he would have the opportunity to coach a top club in the future.

If he wants to continue coaching Chelsea, Villas-Boas must show his strength and level, and must use a victory, a convincing victory to conquer all Chelsea fans and the club's management, and tell them that as long as you trust me and give me time, I will be able to give you rewards!

There is no doubt that the away challenge to Tottenham Hotspur is the last battle for Villas-Boas to decide his position as coach!

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Before this highly anticipated focus battle, Ye Qiu got a report from the analysis team.

Although Chelsea's head coach Villas-Boas repeatedly emphasized that Chelsea's problem is not defense, in fact, in this report, it is very clear that Villas-Boas's remarks are more of a dead duck's mouth.

Perhaps, to some extent, what he said is right, because if defense replaces defenders, Chelsea's defenders are indeed not a problem, but the key problem lies in the midfield.

Of course, many media have analyzed before, for example, Chelsea's two full-backs Bosingwa and Ashley Cole are both better at attacking than defending, and Ashley Cole is not young anymore, and he can't take care of both offense and defense, so the two wings where the full-backs are located have always been a major weakness of Chelsea's defense.

Another thing is the combination of central defenders. David Luiz has never played a satisfactory effect since joining the team, and Ivanovic is also hard to believe that he is Terry's best partner, so Villas-Boas has been adjusting the central defender combination.

But these have not mentioned the key point, the key core factor is Mikel.

Villas-Boas' main tactical formation is also 433, and the tactics he adopts are also high-intensity high-pressure high-defense tactics, and he has always advocated that Chelsea should further technicalize on the basis of Ancelotti.

It should be said that Villas-Boas has grasped the key point, because all high-defense 433 tactics, especially those teams that want to play a ball possession advantage, are crucial to control and organize the ball in front of the opponent's 30-meter area, even if you just pass it horizontally.

Looking at Chelsea's entire lineup, Mikel is teased by many fans as the emperor of horizontal passes. In fact, he is the key player of Chelsea's current style of play, but the key to the problem is that Mikel himself is not a defensive player like Yaya Toure, Mascherano or Makelele.

Mikel's mobility is very poor, so in the game, he looks like a stable ball-taking and ball-distributing point in the backcourt like Busquets, but the problem is here. In front of Busquets is a group of Barcelona players who are very active and have excellent pressing ability. They can share Busquets' defensive pressure.

Just like Tottenham Hotspur now, Pirlo's mobility is also relatively poor, but Ramsey and Vidal, as well as Cavani and others in the frontcourt, can reasonably share Pirlo's pressure, so this is not a problem.

Chelsea's problem is that Ramirez and Lampard find it difficult to take into account both offense and defense at the same time, that is, they can provide support and support to the team in offense, but on the defensive level, they cannot effectively support Mikel.

The same is true for Tottenham Hotspur. If Ramsey and Vidal do not support Pirlo, Tottenham Hotspur's defense will become a mess, but as long as they rush to help and ensure that someone can always be around Pirlo, Tottenham Hotspur's midfield will become stable.

This is no longer a problem of individual players. It is a problem of how the entire defense system is arranged. This is the responsibility of Villas-Boas. He obviously made a serious mistake in dealing with this problem.

Maybe someone will say, doesn't Villas-Boas understand the problem you are talking about?

No, he understands, but he can't do anything!

In the first eight rounds of the league, Chelsea played six wins, one draw and one loss, scoring 20 goals and conceding seven goals. From the perspective of wins and losses, Villas-Boas's team's performance is not bad. At that time, they ranked third in the league, but if you look closely, you will find that they lost the ball in almost every game.

After losing the ball, everyone naturally thinks it is the defender's problem, but the problem is not just the defender, but also that after Chelsea's overall aging, it is no longer appropriate to adopt such high-intensity pressure and full-court pressing tactics, because the players can't run like this at all!

Tottenham Hotspur runs so much in every game, that's because they are young!

Ramsey, Vidal, Eriksen, Coutinho, Pogba, Phil Jones, Sandro, which one is not a young player?

But looking at Chelsea on the other hand, Drogba, Malouda, Anelka, Lampard, Essien, Meireles, Ramires, Mikel, when there are so many veterans over 30 years old, you still insist on running so many tactics, which is a problem in itself.

So, why do you say that Boas is powerless?

The reason is simple, he only knows this set of tactics!

In fact, head coaches are just like players. With the accumulation of experience, their coaching abilities and methods will become more and more. Just like Ancelotti, before Juventus, he only knew how to defend. After coming to AC Milan, he learned to arrange tactics according to the players, and with the accumulation of experience, he played controlling football and transformed Pirlo.

Many players are like this, such as Gareth Bale, who was born as a left-back and was promoted to left winger. He began to run around with speed and explosiveness, played his own style, and gradually transformed from the left to the right. He began to cut inside with his reverse foot, continued to enrich his offensive means, and improved his strength.

Boas's tragedy cannot be blamed entirely on him. Chelsea invited him to coach, but never thought about whether this head coach was suitable for them. They just took a fancy to him and ignored whether the young Boas had the strength to lead this aging Chelsea?

In Ye Qiu's opinion, Boas's trip to Chelsea was a tragedy from beginning to end, a tragedy of a mismatched marriage!