The Godfather of Football

"Like in the knockout round of the Dutch Cup last season, Ajax's counterattack was fast and sharp, but at that time Ajax II relied more on Van der Vaart, but now Ajax still has a sharp knife on the left, that is Robben, who was brought in from Groningen this season!"

The Dutch winger's performance in the warm-up match was quite good, winning the recognition of many professionals and fans, and completely suppressing Van der Meyde and occupying the main position of the team.

"We didn't expect that at the beginning of the game, Ajax would be the first to make a threatening shot, and from the process, Ye Qiu's game strategy was not as conservative as some people imagined. His tactics in this game looked more active and aggressive."

When the commentator was analyzing, Watrous kicked off, but Ajax chose to press forward collectively, directly starting to press and press from the frontcourt, and the back line was also pressed very high as a whole, which immediately made the experienced commentator notice the difference in tactics between Ajax and the second team last season.

Sacchi once said that almost all goals scored in open play occurred during the switching process between zone defense and man-to-man defense.

At the same time, Sacchi also said that the key to examining a team's overall strength lies in its transition from offense to defense.

When attacking, the speed and efficiency of the transition from defense to offense determines a team's offensive ability. Because of this, the core of the organization will be constantly moved back in the next few years, from the current No. 10 front midfielder to the defensive midfielder, in order to further shorten the speed and efficiency of the team's transition from defense to offense.

Let me ask, what is faster and more efficient than the defensive midfielder stealing the ball and then launching a counterattack by himself as soon as possible?

When defending, the speed and efficiency of the transition from offense to defense determines a team's defensive ability.

But unlike the need for concentration when switching from defense to offense, the need for dispersion when switching from offense to defense is teamwork.

According to the set of steps that Ye Qiu instilled in the players at the team's tactical preparation meeting, the first is to delay, that is, the player closest to the opponent's ball-holding player will press and press at the first time to delay the opponent's ball speed and ability to organize a counterattack. The purpose and function of this is to win the time difference for the team to deploy defense.

The second is control, to control the area around the opponent's ball-holding player. This requires all nearby players to actively engage in defensive running. However, in order to take into account the physical consumption of the players, especially the offensive players, Ye Qiu's strategy for control is to surround but not force.

That is to say, after the players use running to control the local area, except for the player in front, other players do not take urgent pressing, but closely control the outer area.

Once trapped in the pressing, the opponent's ball-holding player's first choice is to pass the ball, and the pass must be received by someone.

Ye Qiu called this set of defensive strategies of his siege.

In other words, as long as the opponent's counterattack speed is delayed and you are not allowed to counterattack in the first time, I will immediately use the personnel advantage or the player's running to control the local area and wait for you to pass the ball, because the moment you pass the ball is the time for me to intercept.

The advantage of adopting the defensive strategy of siege and attack is obvious. Offensive players with poor defensive ability can also quickly organize a strict defensive system in the shortest time through cooperation to delay the opponent's counterattack time. Moreover, because they are surrounded but not forced, the physical energy consumption of offensive players is not large, because their running and movement are based on the surrounding opponent's supporting players.

This can maximize the guarantee that offensive players use their limited physical energy on the offensive end and contribute to the team.

However, such a defensive strategy is not completely without danger and the risk is also very high.

The first is the collective consciousness of the players, especially when the opponent switches from defense to offense, whether the closest player has enough awareness to stick to it at the first time, and the surrounding players' tactical awareness of assisting defense and controlling the area, as well as the observation and prediction of the opponent's receiving players.

Otherwise, if the opponent is allowed to pass the ball back and forth, there will be a delay, but there is no control at all, and problems will arise sooner or later.

Therefore, to be frank, Ye Qiu's defensive tactics still rely on overall cooperation, but on the basis of Rehhagel's overall defense, more things from other famous coaches, such as Sacchi and Michels, have been added.

Recently, Ye Qiu has been studying Michels' understanding of all-out attack and defense, especially how to organically combine offense and defense.

Just like the high-position defense tactics used by Ye Qiu in this game, which is to push the defense line forward, this will make the team as a whole look more aggressive and offensive, and also increase the intensity of the game and improve the viewing of the game.

PSV Eindhoven is obviously not used to the high-position defense adopted by Ajax, as well as the defensive strategy of besieging the city and attacking the reinforcements in the front field. In addition, Ajax focused on the interception strength of PSV Eindhoven's two wingers in this game, which curbed PSV Eindhoven's best offensive routine.

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“Sneijder and Keita always roamed around the two central midfielders, and the Brazilian defensive midfielder in the middle, Gilberto Silva, almost never made any forward runs, which almost completely cut off the passing routes of our two central midfielders!”

Gretz’s chief assistant coach, Brandts, stood on the sidelines, staring at the game situation with a frown.

If he was confident of defeating Ajax before the game, then more than ten minutes into the game, PSV Eindhoven seemed very passive on the field and could not break through the opponent's defense system, which forced him to pay attention to Ajax's tactics in this game.

Ajax's defense line moved forward, and there seemed to be a big gap behind it, but the problem was that PSV Eindhoven's ball path was intercepted in the midfield, and the ball could not be effectively delivered to the forward's feet. In this way, no matter how big Ajax's loopholes were, you could not take advantage of them.

"We need to reconnect the ball route and move the wing forwards inwards, but in this way, the threat from the wing will be greatly weakened, and the striker will retreat, and the deterrence of the front line will also be weakened. This is equivalent to a double problem!"

Gretz naturally understood this, but he had to make a choice, "If we let them intercept our ball route, we will be suppressed step by step in the end, and let Kezman retreat to support the midfield!"

PSV's Brukink and Kezman are a combination of one high and one fast. Even if Kezman retreats, as long as Brukink can control the situation in front, PSV will have enough strength to launch the second-tier attack.

Sure enough, with Gretz's adjustment, PSV soon found an opportunity.

After Vogel got the ball, he was harassed by Keita and passed it to Kezman who retreated to respond. The latter knocked back to get rid of Sneijder and ran to Van Bommel who got the ball in the gap. After Van Bommel got the ball, he quickly passed a half-high ball.

Brukink used his body to suppress Kivu and headed the ball behind him. Romedal and Abidal competed with speed and rushed into the penalty area after getting the ball before the Frenchman. Fortunately, Abidal and Lucio returned to defense in time. The two of them simultaneously attacked Romedal, who kicked the ball in a hurry and didn't hit it hard.

"Wow, just a little bit, PSV Eindhoven made the most threatening shot of the game. Romedal's shot was very tricky, but he didn't hit it hard, and Grim got the ball. It was a pity!" The commentator on the scene said with regret that if this shot had gone in, it would have been very exciting.

"Ajax's defense line pressed very high after the opening, which caused a lot of trouble for PSV Eindhoven, but it was obvious that Gretz quickly found a way to solve the problem, adapted to Ajax's high defense, and began to turn the situation around!"

After the first time, there was a second time soon.

Kezman still retreated, but this time he looked for an opportunity to pass the ball to Korka on the left. The latter ate up Heitinga one-on-one and crossed the ball all the way to the bottom line. Brookink followed in the middle and headed the ball, but it was slightly higher.

"PSV's offensive has begun to improve, and the pressure on Ajax's defense is gradually increasing!"

Facing professional players, especially for PSV's experienced and excellent professional players, if the weaker side cannot suppress the opponent tactically, then it will soon be suppressed by the opponent in turn.

Just like Ajax, the high defense after the opening easily suppressed PSV, but once PSV adapted to this defense, it would quickly turn the situation around and create more and more threats.

This made Ye Qiu, who was sitting on the sidelines, feel the pressure.

In Ye Qiu's definition, the core element of Ajax's 433 high defense is still the number advantage in the local area.

To achieve this, it can only rely on running, but Ajax is now facing another problem.

Robben and Van der Vaart on both sides of the wing are positioned to the side, in order to open the team's side channels, create offensive width, and also spread out the opponent's defense line. However, this puts a lot of pressure on the three midfielders. Even if all three players can run and cover a large area, they still cannot completely cover such a large area between the three forwards and the back line.

"The formation is still too loose!" Bobby Hams shook his head and sighed, looking at Ye Qiu.

The high-position defense proposed by Ye Qiu is indeed very good, but it requires high execution ability of the players and also has high personal requirements for the players. Moreover, many problems have arisen when it is implemented on Ajax.

The players' tactical execution has progressed very well, and their personal abilities have basically not been a big problem, but now that they are impacted by the powerful Eindhoven, many problems have been exposed immediately. The biggest problem is that the team's three midfielders are under too much pressure. Before, when Eindhoven only had two central midfielders, Van Bommel and Vogel, they could still handle it with ease, but once Kezman retreated, they immediately fell into a dilemma.

The key to attacking the reinforcements is to surround them, that is, to have the advantage of numbers. But if you can't surround them, how can you attack the reinforcements?

Ye Qiu smiled. While they were talking, PSV organized two more threatening attacks, one of which even entered the penalty area. Kezman's shot was blocked by Kivu's foot and went out of the baseline, turning into a corner kick.

"That's why I said that we should play more games with strong teams. This is more valuable than anything else!" Ye Qiu said with a smile.

Whether it was Lazio, Barcelona or Arsenal, problems were exposed in several warm-up matches. Ye Qiu was also trying to solve these problems, but no team could be perfect, so solving this problem would immediately lead to some new problems.

"Let Lucio and Kivu take turns to steal the ball!" Ye Qiu made up his mind.

Bobby Harms was stunned, "Are you crazy?"

The central defender steals the ball, which is too risky, especially since the opponent has a very fast Kezman. Once the encirclement and steal fails, the opponent may hit him from behind, which is almost a sure thing.

"As long as Kezman retreats, we will let the central defender steal the ball, Gilberto Silva's position will be pressed forward, and Sneijder and Keita will continue to maintain the numerical advantage in the area, but Abidal and Heitinga must keep a close eye on the opponent's two Korka and Romedal."

Once the central defender steals the ball, there will be one less person on the back line. If the opponent's two wingers find an opportunity to cut inside at this time, the threat will be great, but there is no absolutely solid defense in this world. The opponent dares to withdraw a striker, so why doesn't Ye Qiu dare to press a central defender?

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Van Praag was sitting in the chairman's stand, and he was very scared.

Leo Beenhakker, who was sitting next to him, could clearly feel that whenever PSV Eindhoven attacked, Van Praag's legs were shaking, which made the seat shake a little, and the feeling was very obvious.

And the sentence Van Praag asked most often was, "Why is PSV Eindhoven attacking again?"

Half an hour has passed since the start of the game. PSV Eindhoven has gradually regained the initiative from the passive position after the opening. Now, it has begun to return to a state of balance. The adjustments made by Ye Qiu and Gretz have played a role and restrained each other.

But Van Praag was right. Ajax was shot a little more in this game.

In fact, it was not just this game. Looking at the warm-up games, Ajax was shot a lot. At first, Leo Beenhakker felt very strange, because according to Ye Qiu's construction of the defense system last season, this season is based on players such as Abidal, Kivu, Heitinga, De Jong, etc., no matter how the defense line is built, it will not be too bad. How can people shoot so many times in every game? This is completely unreasonable!

But after careful research, Leo Benhakker discovered that Ye Qiu was trying a new defensive system, the overall forward pressure!

The purpose of the overall forward pressure does not need to be explained. Leo Benhakker is not stupid, and he naturally knows that it is for attacking.

In other words, Ye Qiu is an advocate of offensive football in his bones. He played in the Dutch Cup last season, and the reason why he was conservative to the point of defending was because he knew that his team was not strong enough. But now that he is coaching the first team, he is unwilling to continue to defend.

It takes time and players to build a team's offensive and defensive system. If Ye Qiu continues to take a defensive attitude, then he will have to pay a great price to transform in the future, and even sell some players, so he simply determined the defensive system of the defense line pressing forward from the beginning.

This requires a certain price, such as the alarming number of shots in the warm-up matches so far.

"Ye Qiu is too bold. He let the central defender leave his position easily. Korka almost took the opportunity to score a one-on-one goal just now!" Van Praag felt that his heartbeat accelerated many times watching this game.

He was always worried that if he was not careful, this game would turn into a one-sided massacre again.

Leo Benhakker noticed that the situation returned to a balanced state, and even Ajax once again froze PSV's attack, but because Ajax itself moved the defense line forward, the main battlefield was PSV's half, so the balanced situation was an advantage for Ajax.

"He is really brave!" Leo Beenhakker laughed. He was getting more and more curious about Ye Qiu. This young Chinese man seemed to have countless secrets. "Although PSV had a lot of shots, there were not many threatening scoring opportunities. It can even be said that there were very few, so there was not much threat." Van Praag looked at Leo Beenhakker. He did not doubt Beenhakker's tactical ability and vision, but he was a little worried. "Every head coach who rebuilds a tactical system will definitely encounter various problems, and while solving these problems, they are also running in the team. So the high number of shots is not a real big problem. It depends on how Ye Qiu solves it!"

Van Praag nodded after listening, "He is young after all and has no experience. If you have a chance, you can give him some advice!"

Leo Benhakker listened and shook his head and said, "This is his tactic. No one knows his pursuit and ideas better than him, and no one can give him real advice. To solve these problems, he can only rely on himself, and we are just a group of bystanders, because we can't understand this tactical system better than him."

Even someone as knowledgeable as Bobby Hams may not be able to give Ye Qiu real advice and opinions on how to solve the problem.

"However, being bold is not a bad thing. At least the main battlefield of both sides is now in the PSV half. At this time, as long as they make a mistake, we can directly threaten the opponent's goal. This is probably the real tactical value of Ye Qiu's high-position defense!" Less than a minute after Leo Benhakker finished speaking, PSV got the ball and prepared to counterattack. The ball came to Van Bommel's feet, and Kezman on the front line continued to retreat to support the midfield.

But this time, when Van Bommel passed the ball to Kežman, Lucio suddenly gave up his position behind him and rushed forward, kicking the ball to Sneijder who was nearby before Kežman.