i want to be king

Chapter 48 Am I Like Kluivert?
"When you play at my age, you can easily guess the mind of a 17-year-old young player who has just debuted. It has nothing to do with whether you are doing well or not."

With a laugh, Cruise boiled the problem down to experience.

After seeing Su Dong's questioning eyes, he further explained the question.

Cruise is only 1.8 meters tall. He is actually shorter than Su Dong, and his legs are not long enough. This seems to be a disadvantage, but it is not, because he is a left-footed general with excellent physical fitness and strong confrontation ability.

It is not difficult to defend a rookie like Su Dong, especially for an experienced veteran like Cruise.

He was able to see the path of the ball one step earlier than Su Dong, predict the situation, and defend one step ahead.

Even if Su Dong got the ball, it doesn't matter, his physical strength has an advantage over Su Dong, he can push behind him, and use various small movements to harass and influence Su Dong.

"You know, you're a right-footed player and your left foot is terrible, although I can see that you've been working hard on your left foot, but it's not enough, you have more confidence and certainty in your right foot, so you use it habitually."

"When defending you, I will use various methods to oppress you, abduct you, or even let you use your right foot. I am a left-footed player. As long as you want to turn around and turn right, I can defend it."

After Su Dong heard this, he thought about it carefully, and it seemed that this was really the case.

It turns out that many of the opportunities he thought he was self-righteous were actually gaps deliberately released by Cruise.

This also explains why he can't take advantage of Cruise every time.

After realizing this, Su Dong felt depressed and frustrated.

"Come on, you're only 17 years old." Cruise looked at Su Dong's appearance and said with a smile, "Actually, you have done much better than most of your peers, even better than some 20-year-old centers."

Su Dong spread his hands helplessly, "But I still can't beat you, not even once."

Cruise smiled again. He liked the young man in front of him.

It was nothing at first, but after getting along and fighting for a month, he found that Su Dong had actually been making progress.

Especially when he stands at the moment, looking back, compared with Su Dong when he just joined a month ago, Cruise has to admit that the improvement is indeed quite big.

It only takes one month to close the gap, which is tantamount to nonsense.

But having dreams is a good thing.

"Actually, I noticed that your nickname is Little God of War. Your strong shots really resemble Batistuta. I have fought against him many times in Serie A. It is really similar and has that flavor."

"In addition, I think your running position is very smart, and you have a keen sense of the situation. Many times I actually think I can block you, but in the end you always run out of the line I didn't expect, and then receive the pass. This makes me very uncomfortable when defending."

"In addition, your height should be more than 1.9 meters now. You have solid skills at your feet, strong sense of passing and receiving, and coordination. All these are your advantages. You should maintain and continue to improve them."

"What about the shortcomings?" Su Dong asked with concern.

There is no one who understands himself better than his opponent. Su Dong really wants to know, what does Cruise think of him?
"Your shortcomings are also obvious. Of course, I must remind you that all young players are like this. The advantages and disadvantages are obvious. You are like this, as is Ronnie, and so are Quaresma and Viana. It's just that some young players have played their own advantages under the right occasion and under the right tactical framework."

Su Dong understands this.

"You have an advantage in height, but you are thin, and your strength is insufficient. Whether it is upper body strength, waist strength, or lower body strength, you have to strengthen it, because without excellent physical strength, you can't handle the defender. If you can't handle the defender, your tactical role will be greatly reduced, and even the threat inside and outside the penalty area will be greatly reduced."

When Cruise said that he couldn't hold it, he didn't just mean that he would be squeezed out of the position. More often, he used his body to block the defender, but at the same time as the body was fighting, his technical movements were out of shape, which made the ball unstable and inaccurate.

Su Dong himself feels this way, especially when facing Cruise.

"Your speed is very fast, which is a very obvious advantage, but this can only make you effective when you have space, which is far from enough. As a center forward, you must have the strength to hold the ball, pass the ball, and turn around under the opponent's dense defense. This can be regarded as a qualified center forward."

When Cruise said this, he saw Su Dong's thoughtful eyes and knew that the other party had indeed listened to his words. He was also happy in his heart, and couldn't help asking: "You should know Kluivert, right?"

"Of course, the Netherlands is the center forward." Su Dong blurted out.

"We both joined AC Milan in the same year, but the difference is that he was regarded as a prince to compete with Ronaldo, but no one thought that he would leave dismally after a year. This was not because of his lack of ability, but because there were too many problems in the Milan dressing room at that time. He was the strongest center forward I had ever seen and experienced, even scarier than Vieri."

Su Dong was a little surprised, he didn't expect Cruise to have such a high evaluation of Kluivert.

You must know that after experiencing the dismal situation in Milan, Kluivert has not been as good as before. Even if he performed well in Barcelona, ​​he failed to regain the momentum of development that year.

"Did you know? Center forwards or players on the field can generally be divided into two categories, one is core players, and the other is role players. As the name suggests, core players are the core of the team's offense, organization or defense. The team will build a lineup around him and arrange tactics, while role players are supporting roles around the core players."

"For example, the three current Dutch center forwards are Kluivert, Van Nistelrooy and Roy Mackay. In my opinion, Kluivert is the core player, while Van Nistelrooy and Roy Mackay are role players. So even if Van Nistelrooy and Mackay score more goals, it is Kluivert who can firmly control the main striker of the Dutch national team."

"Even, you may not have noticed that fans are more likely to remember the core players, and no matter how well the role players perform and score more goals, they are often not as good as the core players. The reason is very simple. The role players revolve around the center of the core player."

Su Dong was filled with amazement.

In any case, he never thought that Cruise would say so many earth-shattering things to him, which he had never thought of before, and no one had ever told him.

Is that so?

In fact, if you think about it carefully, you will know that it is true.

Even in the sluggish performance during AC Milan, Barcelona is still willing to spend a lot of money for Kluivert and entrust him with important tasks. This is not only because of Van Gaal, but also because they value the value of Kluivert.

"As a center forward, Kluivert has outstanding physical fitness. His skills of holding the ball with his back and turning to get rid of it are impeccable. He can not only retreat to meet the midfielder, but also pull the side to cooperate with the wings. It can play a role in positional warfare, and can effectively attack the opponent's defense line when counterattacking."

"The only thing he is slightly worse is scoring, but you may not know that his scoring efficiency is 0.4 per game. Although this figure is lost to killers such as Ruud van Nistelrooy, it is already quite high compared to other scorers."

"Believe me, I've been training with him for a year and I know he's a near-perfect center forward."

Su Dong could hear that Cruise really admired Kluivert, even admired him.

"Any team that gets Kluivert only needs to equip him with a good enough partner and organize tactics around him to maximize his role and power. He is the core of the team's offensive end."

Speaking of this, Cruise looked deeply at Su Dong.

"Su, I think you should learn from Kluivert. You are taller and faster than him. I even think that your running ability, insight into the situation, and sense of timing are much better than Kluivert. These are your advantages. You should strive to grow yourself into a comprehensive core player like Kluivert."

"If you want to become a core center forward, you need to do more and better than a scoring center forward, because you not only need to score goals, you also need to do more and play a more important tactical value, but you will get more rewards."

Su Dong never expected that when talking with Cruise, he originally wanted to hear some comments from his opponents, but he didn't expect that Cruise would shock him so much.

Am I like Kluivert?

"Andrei, do you have too much confidence in me?" Su Dong smiled wryly.

"No, no, Su, of course you are far inferior to Kluivert now. Your left foot is too bad. You must train your left foot to be as proficient as your right foot. Your kicking is not reasonable enough. You still have many problems in getting the ball with your back and turning around..."

"All in all, in many, many ways, there is still a big gap between you and Kluivert, but you are only 17 years old, you still have a lot of room for growth, your speed and flexibility are better than him, which ensures that you are better than Kluivert in individual combat, because he rarely does it alone."

"Physical strength, tactical fulcrum and supporting abilities can be cultivated gradually. You still have plenty of time to work hard to improve yourself. The premise is that you should find a direction for your efforts. Don't just regard yourself as a role player responsible for scoring. That would be a pity."

Su Dong was deeply immersed in Cruise's words.

The expectation and encouragement of the Brazilian central defender brought him a huge shock, and at the same time he was faintly excited.

When he saw the determination in Cruise's eyes, he couldn't help asking himself.

can i really do it

(End of this chapter)