Football career: From winning the championship to becoming a legend

However, the plot of the game after Ronaldo's goal obviously did not develop as the home audience eagerly expected.

All we can say is that comedy stories about heroic young men slaying demons are just lies for children. The big demons in the real adult world are all very scary and terrifying, just like the Red Devils Manchester United who broke the deadlock and completely took over the game after the situation opened up.

Li Qi sat very deep, almost in front of Ferdinand and Vidic, but the advantage of this was that it shortened the distance for the ball to be passed from the backcourt and provided mutual protection. Birmingham's extremely threatening central pressing in the first half was no longer effective.

Originally, Li Qi's retreat would result in Manchester United having one less player in the midfield and lacking the width of the attack, but because Birmingham pressed too hard, Manchester United did not need to make too many adjustments in the midfield. It was enough to just send the ball steadily to the feet of Ronaldo, Rooney or Tevez. With the personal strength of the three and the open space in Birmingham's backfield, the counterattack could basically be launched.

However, in this case, Giggs and Scholes' functions would overlap if they were on the field at the same time. Moreover, if the current style of play allows for quick passing through the midfield, the two old men would not be very useful. Li Qi could just learn from Pirlo and play long passes in the defensive midfield position. The three Manchester United front line players are strong enough in terms of their skills and running ability, so they do not need such precise short passes.

Sir Alex soon discovered this problem, so in the 60th minute he replaced veteran Giggs with Saha, letting Saha act as a fulcrum in Birmingham's penalty area, while Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez retreated half a square and took turns to launch attacks from near the half court.

However, Ronaldo's goal just now seemed to have used up all of Manchester United's luck in scoring goals, or it could be said that the four top scorers appeared at the same time, resulting in a situation where four monks were fighting for water, which was even worse than three monks having no water to drink...

In the 63rd minute, after receiving a long pass from Li Qi in the backcourt, Rooney chested the ball and cooperated with Tevez in consecutive passes on the right, breaking through Birmingham's defense. However, when Rooney cut into the penalty area, he and Saha were in the same position, and the former could only barely make a low shot through Saha from 10 yards away from the goal on the right side of the penalty area.

The angle of the shot was good and it had bypassed goalkeeper Mark Taylor's fingers, but it was still blocked by Saha, so Rooney's kick was not powerful enough and Birmingham's full-back Kelly returned to defense in time and cleared the ball in front of the far goal line.

In the 67th minute, Manchester United once again launched an efficient and quick counterattack. Li Qi directly sent a half-court pass to the high-speed running route of Ronaldo; the latter stopped and dribbled past two defenders, and then passed the ball to Tevez at the front of the penalty area.

In this ball, Ronaldo obviously wanted to play a wall-to-wall match with Tevez to get past the last two central defenders of Birmingham; but Tevez directly met the ball and shot it. However, this sudden cold shot also penetrated the interception of the Birmingham central defender, but unfortunately it hit the post and went out of the bottom line.

This immediately aroused Ronaldo's dissatisfaction. Indeed, the probability of scoring a goal by two-pass was higher, but Tevez's choice was not wrong. He just didn't score the goal.

However, this situation happened to Manchester United many times. Sir Alex was helpless and could only attribute it to the lack of tacit understanding between the attacking combination in the frontcourt. It would be better if they played more games.

Birmingham coach Bruce was a little helpless as he saw that the new players continued to press but failed to make any progress. They were also repeatedly penetrated by Manchester United's counterattacks and almost lost the second goal many times. So even though they were behind, they could only make adjustments and asked the team to shrink their formation back to the half court and play steadily. However, the home team had little time left and the game was about to end in less than 15 minutes.

When Sir Alex saw that Birmingham had retreated, he played his third card and replaced Tevez with Carrick to strengthen the midfield defense. However, Carrick played the defensive midfielder position of Li Qi, and Li Qi formed a double midfield with Scholes. Sir Alex also wanted to try the actual effect of this midfield combination.

Before the game, Sir Alex knew that Li Qi had experience playing in the middle of the midfield in the national team and the previous club, and his performance was also good. However, Sir Alex felt that the responsibility of the middle of the midfield was too great. If there was not enough tacit understanding and trust, it would be detrimental to Li Qi's subsequent integration into the team if he rashly took over the organization and made mistakes.

Originally, Sir Alex Ferguson just wanted to try out the effect of having Li Qi take on the defensive task in the middle of the game, and leave the organization to the older brothers; but he did not expect that Birmingham's chaotic snatching would directly make Li Qi take on the task, and Li Qi obviously had no problem imitating Pirlo to play as a defensive midfielder, and his defense was tougher and covered a larger area.

However, if Li Qi is limited to the position of defensive midfielder, Sir Alex Ferguson feels that it is a waste of Li Qi's offensive talent, especially the latter's calmness and sense of smell in key positions - in fact, that is Li Qi's breaking point.

So Sir Alex also wants to give it a try, and let Li Qi try to play B2B like Lampard, but there is no need to change the tactical formation rashly. This is a step-by-step process. In the last ten minutes of this game, let's partner with Scholes to see the effect first...

However, it was the first time that Lizzie played in this position for Manchester United, and the team was only one goal ahead, so they did not want to do anything big. The best tactic was to keep the ball firmly under the feet of the iron triangle of Scholes and Carrick. This was a bit like the midfield combination of Barcelona, ​​with Carrick playing Edmilson or Marcos, Scholes playing Xavi, and Lizzie playing Iniesta or Deco.

After figuring it out, Li Qi immediately knew how to play. Although the scene did not look the same as what Sir Alex Ferguson wanted, Sir Alex Ferguson understood what Li Qi was doing after watching for a while. However, the styles of the two teams are completely different, and the rhythms of the Premier League and La Liga are also different. Li Qi had no problem playing like this, which improved Manchester United's midfield passing and control to a higher level, and the effect was great, but Ronaldo and Rooney in the frontcourt were a little uncomfortable.

Therefore, the last ten minutes of the game were nothing but thunder. Birmingham obviously couldn't get the ball from Manchester United, but Manchester United's frontcourt attack was obviously a bit stuck, and the sharp counterattack at the beginning of the second half was gone. Of course, this was related to Birmingham's formation recovery, and also to Li Qi's active imitation of Barcelona's playing style, which changed Manchester United's passing rhythm from a large number of medium and long passes to mostly short passes.

However, Sir Alex Ferguson did not think about making any adjustments. It was just a tactical experiment anyway. Although he did not play the strong B2B like Chelsea's midfield, he imitated Barcelona's technical midfield to control the situation until the end, which was not bad.

In the end, thanks to Li Qi's tentative long pass, Ronaldo scored his first goal of the season. Manchester United beat Birmingham 1-0 away and achieved five consecutive league victories.

@

At the press conference after the game, Sir Alex Ferguson praised Birmingham led by Bruce and even gave the opponent two of the best: "This is the toughest game we have played this season. This is the best team we have met this season. Birmingham played more excitingly in the first half and created more opportunities. They ran a lot, moved very fast, and played very aggressively, which made it difficult for us. I am very happy that the score in the first half was 0-0..."

However, Sir Alex Ferguson obviously wanted to discuss Manchester United's counterattack. After all, facing the strong pressure of the home team, Manchester United did play well afterwards, especially in the second half: "After Li Qi stood up, the situation was different. He played very smartly and creatively. I don't know if it was the experience he learned from his national team teammates, but it was indeed Li Qi's retreat and scheduling that helped us win back the initiative. In the second half, we had a much higher proportion of ball possession, we made better use of the ball, and did a very good job in defense."

"C Ronaldo finally scored in the league today. This kid is so passionate and talented, and his ability seems to have no limit. This goal may have come from a mistake by the opponent. When he dribbled past the opponent, he showed excellent pace control and a calm mentality. His handling of the ball was really wonderful!"

Finally, Sir Alex Ferguson also looked forward to the future: "We are moving towards the best running-in condition. You can see some signs in today's game. Some movements in the frontcourt were very good, although there was a lack of tacit understanding and inspiration in handling the ball. But Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez are huge threats to the opponents, and the forward line is doing much better than before..."

In addition, Sir Alex also revealed two pieces of news, one good and one bad.

The good news is that Hargreaves, who missed recent events due to a thigh injury, has resumed normal training and his comeback is just around the corner.

The bad news is that goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar injured himself in the first half due to a careless save. After finishing the first half, he was replaced by Kuszczak at halftime. Sir Alex Ferguson said that the Dutch goalkeeper will definitely miss the Champions League in midweek...

@

The second day of the game is Sunday. In order to prepare for the Champions League in the middle of the week, Sir Alex gave the whole team a holiday today. After all, it is still important to combine work and rest. The season is still very long...

As a good boss who taught by example, Ricardo still had a sense of humanity, so he naturally wouldn't let the personal training team or the agent team work overtime. So this morning, Ricardo and Sarafina started to teach each other in bed and receive the goods...

After giving everything and entering the sage time, it is a good time for Ricardo to think about life and study recent arrangements and plans. What he has been thinking about most recently is setting up a football technology and big data analysis project company.

Looking at Sarafina, who was wearing a thin, translucent purple gauze pajamas and getting ready at the dressing table to go shopping and watch a movie, Ricardo decided to tell Sara about his ideas. After all, this rich young woman also interned in the family business for a while during the summer vacation. She should have broadened her horizons. It would be helpful to ask her to help with advice and suggestions.

Sara knew about this football technology and big data analysis project and had discussed it with Ricardo before, but she was still young at the time and the suggestions and ideas she put forward were a bit naive.

However, Sara knew that her man had been planning to develop a sports big data analysis system when Ricardo was still in middle school: he hoped to use complete and diversified big data tracking and analysis, and use intelligent software and systems to provide unparalleled information and data for coaches and athletes to track, analyze, and gain insights, thereby optimizing the overall performance of the sport and the team, while reducing the risk of injury to athletes and quantitatively monitoring the recovery process.

Ricardo has been building his own database and system framework code since high school, and he also used school resources to do a lot of it during college.

This summer, Ricardo has begun trying to record data, analyze his physical and technical conditions, and mark and import some videos of Manchester United's friendly matches for analysis...

The overall result is not satisfactory, and there is still a long way to go before it can be used to guide specific practices. However, if we want to develop further, we cannot rely on ourselves anymore. Just marking the game videos requires a lot of human resources. The subsequent database improvement, system upgrades and maintenance are not just a matter of burning money. We must form a team or a project company to execute.

At present, Ricardo only has Lopez, a private training team with four members. These people are mainly good at sports science and rehabilitation. They also know some football theory knowledge. They can conduct preliminary physical and technical analysis of individual players, give reasonable exercise and rehabilitation suggestions, and personally lead the players in training.

However, it is not realistic to ask them to conduct tactical analysis, team analysis, or even higher-level club analysis, including the upgrade and maintenance of big data analysis systems and corporate management, for which they are completely new.

So Ricardo now has to consider whether to recruit and set up his own technical and tactical analysis team and software development team. Ricardo wanted to do this two years ago... But let alone the management team and the company, just the recruitment and interviews, where does Ricardo have the time?

The Football Development Fund was initially entrusted to Raiola and Uncle Charles to help set it up and look for a person in charge. The Shuang Aru sports fashion brand also relies on the resources and management team of Nike, the endorsement brand. Until now, it still entrusts Nike to manage and develop it. I just give some suggestions and directions.

So the two of them just did a brief analysis and realized that the best option for Ricardo, who had to compete, train, and manage girls, was definitely not to build his own team. He could only buy one.

But which one should I buy?

Old Li Qi has worked for some well-known sports big data companies, such as Opta, a sports data platform founded in 1996 and headquartered in London, SAP SportsOne, which is backed by SAP, the world's third largest software manufacturer and supplier, as well as Wyscout, Hudl and Catapult.

However, it is obvious that even if Li Qi can afford the money now, it is not easy to acquire Opta, which has a development history of more than ten years, has stable users and is the official data supplier of the Premier League. It is not impossible to buy things from the German software giant SAP, but it is estimated that cooperation is more appropriate. After all, Mr. Hope, the founder of SAP, is currently mainly running the German Hoffenheim club after retirement.

Seeing Sarah take off her dark blue velvet high heels, and step into the private room of the high-end Japanese restaurant with her beautiful feet in black stockings and purple nail polish, Ricardo couldn't help but feel distracted again. Sarah found that the man didn't follow her, and turned around to see Ricardo staring at her silk feet in a daze. She couldn't help but feel angry and amused: "Ricardo?!"

"Oh oh oh! I was thinking, oh, I have an acquisition target, can you help me see if it's suitable..." The scumbag Li secretly applauded his own chicken wisdom...

The first target was Wyscout, which was founded in Chiavari, Italy in 2004. Raiola was familiar with the company and it was an old customer. They excelled in automated analysis and interpretation based on massive big data.

The second target is Hudl, which was founded in the United States in 2006. They are currently seeking financing. They excel in collecting and analyzing game footage.

The third is Catapult, which was founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2006. The wearable vests they produce have since become popular in 137 countries and have cooperated with 3400 elite clubs.

The fourth company is SportVU, which was founded in 2005 and is famous for capturing 25 pictures per second to capture and track every move of every player.

The fifth is InStat, a company based in Ireland that was just established this year. It is said that its core competitiveness is user-friendly interface...

It’s not that Ricardo doesn’t have the financial resources to take it all. After listening to the scumbag Li’s plan, the little princess Sarah even wanted to take out her own private money to get involved. Oh no, she wanted to take a share.

Therefore, with the support of the wealthy woman, capital is not a problem. Of course, after two months, Ricardo will clear all his U.S. stocks. This will be a drop in the bucket for Ricardo regardless of whether there is support from others or not.

Moreover, the joint layout of sports rehabilitation projects also gave Ricardo a legitimate reason to sell off all his U.S. stocks. Otherwise, there would always be people with bad intentions who would think that there was something wrong with Ricardo.

But it is obviously unnecessary to take over all of them. At least for Catapult's equipment and InStat's friendly interface, Ricardo thinks that he can just cooperate or purchase them, and there is no need to do everything by himself.

On the contrary, SportVU is quite interesting. With further development, it may be able to catch up with Hawkeye and seize the market of future VAR, and then do some tricks that are well known to everyone but useless...

Watching Sarah, who was wearing a dark green one-piece dress, dealing with sashimi while talking about the purchase list, Ricardo thought: It seems that she will no longer hold my embarrassing behavior of staring at her ankles and feet, and she didn't even question where my data came from...

Well, I will send an email to UBS tomorrow and ask them to prepare an acquisition analysis report for me based on the list, with the target date being before Christmas.

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Voice-over: Will readers read [Author’s Comments]?

In each chapter, the author has selected a relevant picture to share in [Author's Words], as well as some background stories. If you are interested, you can take a look and comment.

Old readers can also review the first volume. The author has completed the [Author's Notes] in each chapter and is currently completing the second volume. There is still a part to go, and it is expected to be completed in one month.

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