The midfield king of football life

Chapter 137 The Weaknesses of 004's Substitute Lineup
After the friendly match with Erfurt, Dortmund went to Bavaria in southeastern Germany.The capital of Bavaria is Munich.Nuremberg Football Club is located in Nuremberg, the second largest city in Bavaria.

Nuremberg's final ranking in the league last season was 10th, in the middle of the Bundesliga.They did not invest much in the transfer market this season. On the contrary, Nuremberg made a net profit of 500 million euros in the transfer market this summer.

In the last friendly match, Dortmund's head coach Klopp has fully affirmed the performance of the main lineup. He is not worried about the performance of the main lineup on the field. What he is worried about is the performance of the substitute lineup in the league or cup.After the start of the league, the cup matches and the Champions League group stage will be vaccinated.The main lineup mainly deals with the league and the Champions League, while the substitute lineup is to share the pressure for the league and take on the heavy responsibility of the cup.

Therefore, in this friendly match, Klopp decided to send a full substitute lineup to play, and use Nuremberg to try the level of the substitute lineup.

July 7, Nuremberg Grundig Stadium, Nuremberg main stadium.Dortmund's friendly against Nuremberg started here.

In this game, coach Klopp used a completely different lineup.Goalkeeper Alomelovich, defender Owomoyela and Kirsch separated on both sides, Santana and Günter in the middle, midfielder Shaheen and Leitner, midfielder Perisic, Li Feng and Gross Cruz, striker Siebel.

The idea in Klopp's mind is that if this lineup can bear part of the pressure of the league, then he can safely and boldly arrange the main lineup to fight tough battles, and use this substitute lineup against some weak teams.Of course, sometimes the main lineup and the substitute lineup can be rotated and combined with each other, it depends on the state of the players at that time.

The same tactical arrangement, different staffing, what kind of difference will there be?Klopp on the sidelines wanted to know, and so did the main players on the bench.

And this game is the first friendly match of the new season in Nuremberg, and the opponent is still the defending champion of last season, so they have a full main lineup this time, and it is also for a test.

At the beginning of the game, the mental state of the players on the Nuremberg field was better than that of Dortmund.When challenging a team of a higher level or better than yourself, you will usually burst out with amazing fighting spirit.

So at the beginning, the midfielders who could drive to Nuremberg were full of defensive presses.On the other hand, on Dortmund's side, the speed of the kicks seems slow, and the mutual passing between the players is not very smooth.Klopp on the sidelines also frowned on this.

Li Feng on the field also felt the same way, and made several mistakes in cooperating with his teammates.Obviously, the ball that could be caught by running one step forward was intercepted by Nuremberg.Li Feng even wondered whether he didn't pass the ball in place or his teammates didn't run in place.

In the 5th minute, Li Feng seized the opportunity and suddenly made a long pass to look for Siebel in front of him. He thought that Siebel would be able to start immediately, and if he caught up, it would be a one-handed goal.But his reaction was more than one beat slower. If this was Lewandows, he might have easily scored.

In the 9th minute, Li Feng kicked forward and looked for Gross Kreutz on the wing. As a result, Li Feng passed the ball steadily to the gap on the route in front of him. As a result, Gross Kreutz reacted a beat slower and was cut off by the Nuremberg players.

Li Feng shook his head helplessly on the field.

Several pass errors made the players more impatient.In a counterattack after being intercepted by Nuremberg, Shaheen and Leitner in the midfielder also lacked tacit understanding. They even let the Nuremberg players easily kill them, and finally distributed the ball to their forwards. The Nuremberg forwards easily pushed and scored.

Coach Klopp's face on the sidelines has long since pulled down, but he still held back and said nothing.

It wasn't until Nuremberg scored the third goal that Klopp made the decision to substitute.

There is no limit to the number of substitutions in the friendly match, so coach Klopp replaced Leitner, Gross Kreutz and full-back Owomoyela at one time, and replaced them with Kyle, Bwaszczykowski and Schmelzer.

Sure enough, after replacing several main players, the rotation between players is obviously better than that of a full bench lineup.This may be a problem of ability matching between players, a problem of awareness.

In the 38th minute, Li Feng received a pass from Kyle in the backcourt and quickly dribbled the ball forward, while Perisic on the other side had already started to go forward.

Li Feng consciously pulled towards Perisic's side. Just when Perisic ran to Nuremberg's defense line, Li Feng kicked a through ball with a strong penetrating power and a very fast speed. The ball passed through the gap between Nuremberg's full-back and central defender. Perisic's speed did not slow down, and he directly caught up with the ball and killed it into the penalty area.Dortmund scored the first goal of the field.

Royce, who was sitting on the bench, said to Gotze: "This guy's ability is probably not worse than yours. It seems that the previous mistakes were not on his side, but on the players who cooperated with him. His passing looks more lethal than yours."

Gotze replied: "Well, it seems that he is worth 1200 million euros and it is not in vain. Maybe he will be a good opponent in the future."

"This season, our task is probably mainly in the Champions League. The league championship is very difficult according to my expectations. Seeing Bayern's bench depth and main lineup, we have no way to compare with them." Royce said to Gotze.

"If our substitute lineup can hold up, it is not hopeless. But if it is in this state, it will be a big problem. I am afraid that coach Klopp also has a bottom line. This year's transfer net investment is only 200 million euros, which does not match the title of champion at all." Gotze said.

While the two of them were chatting, Li Feng dribbled the ball into the middle of Nuremberg, and then split it to Bwaszczykowski, who caught the ball and then swept the middle.Although Schieber in the middle started a little slowly, he still poked the ball in with a sliding tackle and scored the second goal for Dortmund.

At the end of the game, Nuremberg’s Japanese midfielder Hiroshi Kiyotake made a long pass and found Eswain on the wing. After Eswain received the ball, he made a high pass from the wing and followed up into the penalty area. Nuremberg’s high center forward Porter scored Nuremberg’s fourth goal with a header.

This made Klopp on the sidelines very dissatisfied with the defense of this lineup.The final game ended with a score of 4-2, and Nuremberg won the friendly match.

Although the win or loss of this game is insignificant, many problems can still be seen.Insufficient capital investment by the club has made the shortcomings of the substitute lineup more and more prominent.In the beginning, the schedule was not too intensive, but as the later stage, this problem will become more and more serious.

Klopp is now thinking about how to use these substitute players reasonably so that they can maximize their potential.The only thing that makes Klopp happy is Li Feng. His ability is fully capable of taking the position of Gotze, and it cannot be ruled out that he can play better than Gotze.

(End of this chapter)