Football career: From winning the championship to becoming a legend

2008年3月1日下午15时，0708赛季英超第28轮展开角逐，红衣白裤的曼联奔赴伦敦的克拉文农场球场挑战白衣黑裤的富勒姆。

It should be noted that Manchester United has not won a single game in London this season, so the media believes that the key to this game is whether Manchester United can win their first victory in London this season.

After all, the visiting team is currently deep in the relegation zone. Among the 20 Premier League teams, it is temporarily ranked 19th, and its recent performance is worrying, with only 7 win and 1 draw in the last 1 rounds.

Even if the home team Fulham wins this game, it will not be able to escape the relegation zone. In addition, the team has only won three home games this season, the same number of away losses as Manchester United. Fulham has only won one of the 3 encounters with Manchester United since 1965, and that was five years ago.

However, Fulham will not give up. Coach Hodgson also made special adjustments for this game. Fultz returned to the lineup, American foreign aid Eddie Johnson started for the first time, replacing D. Kamara, and Simon Davis replaced the suspended Andreasson.

However, although the Finnish veteran Litmanen, who had symptoms of heart palpitations a while ago, has resumed training, he is still not included in the roster.

As for Manchester United, the Red Devils had a goal difference of nearly 10 higher than Arsenal before the game. If they can win at Craven Cottage and the Gunners lose at home, Manchester United will return to the top of the standings; but Manchester United has never won in London this season, and has drawn 3 and lost 2 in the previous 1 away games in the capital.

In order to prepare for the Champions League match against Lyon next week, Ferguson put Ronaldo, Rooney and Carrick on the bench. Former Fulham player Saha started for the first time in nearly two months and formed a forward line with Tevez.

Evra, who had recovered from a mild cold, also returned to the game, but Vidic, who had injured his calf during training, did not play. Wes Brown and Ferdinand played as central defenders together. Also rotating into the starting lineup were O'Shea, Park Ji-sung, Scholes and Hargreaves.

Manchester United has enough personnel reserves to field two very capable starting lineups.

However, as for the personnel adjustments made by Sir Alex in this game, in addition to preparing for the second round of the Champions League round of 16 knockout match next week, it was also because Wyscout's paid analysis report was successfully delivered to Sir Alex three days before the game.

Wyscout's analysis report states that they used Hudl's data analysis of Manchester United's 35 league, FA Cup and Champions League games this season, including running distance and routes, passes and interceptions, heat maps, etc., to make the following analysis of the rationality of Manchester United's lineup...

Although Sir Alex is a very opinionated and experienced coach, he will not easily accept fallacies;

However, Wyscout's report impressed Sir Alex Ferguson from another unique perspective. Perhaps it was in line with the old Sir's football style that emphasized running, speed and balance, or perhaps it was the same problem that Sir Alex Ferguson discovered subconsciously.

The report first analyzes Manchester United's formation and playing style in the last two games. Like other reports, it first attracts readers' attention through some alarmist gimmicks, that is:

1. Manchester United's current main offensive framework - the combination of the four little swans, is seriously mismatched with the formation and tactics;

2. Manchester United's current preferred 4-4-2 parallel positioning formation severely limits the performance of Manchester United's offensive combination and the control of the entire team.

! ! ? ?

Sir Alex Ferguson initially thought that the £50 was a waste: What kind of analysis is this? Was the Wyscout team drunk? Didn't they see the elaborate design of the Manchester United coaching team?

How can it be a tactical mismatch to have two players with strong attacking ability, Cristiano Ronaldo and Li Qi, on the two wings, and two wild forwards in front, who can open up space, retreat to support and cooperate, and flexibly switch positions to disrupt the opponent's formation? How can it be limited in attacking power?

But it must be said that the shocking nonsense at the beginning, besides making Sir mad and laughing, did arouse his curiosity. No wonder so many online novels start with a shocking blow, the only way to keep readers interested is to surprise them!

So Sir Alex continued to read the summary of the report with great interest, to see what the Wyscout analyst team had ordered to come up with such nonsense...

However, as Sir Alex read deeper, he found himself gradually convinced by the data of Hudl cited by Wyscout.

1. When the four little swans are on the field at the same time, the average running distance, number of sprints and key passes per person of the four players have dropped significantly, which is much lower than when they are in a three-person combination or any two-person combination. Among them, the 3R combination has the highest efficiency.

但是爵爷知道这并不代表特维斯是负效果，而是指四人组合出现了3+1小于4，或者2+2小于4的问题。

2. Comparing the performances of Li Qi and Tevez last season, both of them have made progress in assists, threatening passes and goals per unit time, but their running, touching and interception data per unit time have declined significantly.

Of course, this has something to do with Manchester United's strong position on the field, but Sir Alex Ferguson found out by comparing the heat maps that neither Liggey nor Tevez were in their best or most effective starting positions. In other words, both of them were not comfortable playing.

3. This season, the number and threat of crosses from both wings of Manchester United have dropped significantly compared to last season, especially Evra. His sharp assists and runs from behind last season are almost gone this season. This has a lot to do with the performance, style of play and tactical choices of left winger Li Qi.

Sir Alex Ferguson knew this and had thought about it repeatedly before. Taking advantage of Li Qi's strengths does not mean sacrificing Evra's strengths, but if the formation is to focus on penetration and penetration through the flanks, then parallel 4-4-2 is indeed not the best choice.

… (The report also has tens of thousands of words of analysis, which I will not expand on here. After all, all the royalties added up are not enough to cover a fraction of Wyscout's report.)

Sir Alex skipped the data analysis section of Hudl, which was about a hundred pages and about five hours of video footage, and went straight to the solution suggestions given by Wyscout.

Of course, there are many suggestions. After all, these are the truly valuable parts of this report. Otherwise, if you raise questions without providing solutions and methods to solve them, you are a leader, not a comprehensive service provider.

However, Sir Alex was impressed by three of the suggestions.

A. The frontcourt combination of Leeds, Rooney, Anderson, Carrick, Fletcher and Park Ji-sung is the best for ball sharing and midfield control; it is not when Scholes, Giggs and Ronaldo are on the field, mainly because these six people run more distance and have fewer personal breakthroughs with the ball.

B. The counterattack combination of Ronaldo, Rooney and Li Qi is the most efficient, which is the most suitable for Manchester United's fast-paced attacking style;

However, if the four little swans are on the field at the same time, it is recommended that Manchester United adopt a style of full-court pressing and passing and controlling, reducing the need for Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo to retreat and amplifying their ability to flexibly change positions in the frontcourt.

C. Li Qi is more suitable to be the tactical core of Manchester United than Ronaldo. Li Qi's football style is in sync with almost all Manchester United players, and he can even cooperate with Ronaldo to play an off-ball role, but Ronaldo can't.

Therefore, although Li Qi may not be able to make Manchester United's attacking power play to 120% like Ronaldo in certain games or certain time periods, Li Qi can make Manchester United play more than 80% of its strength in 8% of the time, which can ensure that Manchester United will win 80% of the victories they should win.

Maybe it takes a bit of luck to win the Champions League and the FA Cup, but for a long league, at least the level of the Premier League and Manchester United in recent seasons, it can be said that the championship is basically a sure thing...

So Sir Alex Ferguson wanted to verify the authenticity of the analysis in the report, so while he was saving his strength for the Champions League match next week, the starting lineup for this round of games happened to need to be rotated, so he decided to give it a try.

However, Sir Alex did not follow the report's recommendations completely. After all, in addition to technical and tactical skills, football also involves social skills, psychological morale, and injury status, which cannot be analyzed by data.

So Sir Alex still uses the traditional parallel 4-4-2 formation, and believes that this lineup is enough to reveal many problems.

The goalkeeper is No. 1 Van der Sar;

The back line from right to left is No. 22 O'Shea, No. 6 Wes Brown, No. 5 Ferdinand and No. 3 Evra;

The midfield quartet is No. 13 Park Ji-sung, No. 18 Scholes, No. 4 Hargreaves and No. 17 Li Qi;

The two forwards are No. 32 Tevez and No. 9 Saha.

Since Ronaldo and Rooney are both on the bench, the tactical core naturally belongs to Li Qi; so even though Li Qi starts as a left winger, Sir Alex Ferguson gave him a high degree of tactical freedom;

And Hargreaves was required to mainly help Li Qi to fill in the position, and Tevez should also frequently move to the side to support Li Qi.

After the game kicked off, Manchester United's situation did develop as described in the report. Of course, it is not ruled out that Fulham's weaker strength gave Manchester United more room to play in the frontcourt;

However, in the first ten minutes, Manchester United relied on more coherent passing in the midfield and backcourt to make it almost impossible for Fulham to touch the ball; Manchester United's possession rate was close to 85%...

Li Qi also began to frequently cut inside to the attacking midfielder position to get the ball and pass it, leaving the corridor on the left side for Evra to pass and Tevez to pass, which enriched Manchester United's offensive level.

Although Ronaldo and Rooney were not there, Manchester United's attack seemed to be more sharp; and when Fulham had not even organized the first complete attack, Manchester United had already taken the lead.

In the 12th minute, Park Ji-sung received a pass from Scholes and pretended to break through the wing, but suddenly passed a low ball diagonally to the middle.

With a change of direction, Li Qi shook off Fultz's entanglement, cut inside at high speed to the middle to receive the ball, and before Jimmy Bullard made a tackle to intercept, he kicked the ball to Tevez who was in the corner of the penalty area;

After avoiding Jimmy Bullard's tactical foul, Li Qi continued to advance to the front of the center of Fulham's penalty area.

Tevez saw this and knocked the ball across the middle...

Aaron Hughes hurriedly abandoned Saha and flew to block Li Qi's shooting route. Taking advantage of Li Qi's lack of time to enter the penalty area, Aaron Hughes, who was determined to stop Li Qi with the ball, gave up his entire focus and went straight to the lower three routes where Li Qi might touch the ball.

However, Li Qi, who had triggered the breaking point, judged this opportunity very clearly. The real breakthrough point was not in himself.

Because Fulham's attention has been on him, there are already three defensive players rushing towards him, including the one led by Tevez, so there must be a gap in the middle, so Saha should be completely unmarked at this time...

So Li Qi jumped up and missed the ball, and also avoided Aaron Hughes's flying tackle. The ball also rolled behind Li Qi and Hughes, to the left side of Fulham's penalty area, where there was an obvious vacuum area, but there was only a Red Devils player in red shirt and white pants.

It is Manchester United’s No. 9 Saha.

Although the ball was slightly passed behind Saha, the space was too big: Saha turned around to stop the ball, made a slight adjustment, and then calmly shot with his left foot into the far corner. Fulham's backup defense had not yet arrived...

However, Saha had indeed been out of action for a long time due to injury, and he was too impatient in handling the ball. He would have had a better chance if he had dribbled into the penalty area and shot.

And Saha's condition was indeed average. It's not impossible for him to shoot directly into the far corner. When a top striker is not marked, a shot from the front of the penalty area is basically a sure thing. However, Saha's shot was obviously too central...

Fortunately, Saha's shot was powerful enough, and Fulham goalkeeper Niemi could only sit down and dive sideways in a hurry, barely blocking Saha's half-high ball back into the penalty area.