Born to be a coach [soccer]

"Mr. Smith, this is the information about Anton that I have collected recently."

In the editorial office of the Post, Mark Gary handed over the bits and pieces of information he had gathered to his boss, Ruben Smith.The two would meet regularly about Anton's "recent situation" to see what valuable "information" they had collected.

"Anton has taken one day off every month for the past two months to go to London. I don't know who to meet, but he seems to have a house in South Kensington." Mark told his plan, "I checked the address of the house earlier and found that the owner of the house may be the Agnelli family."

Ruben stared at Mark: "Which Agnelli?"

Mark: "'The' Agnelli."

Italy can be called "that" Agnelli family, only the owner of the Fiat Group, the boss behind Juventus, the Agnelli family.

Ruben turned away expressionlessly. He remembered that his intern McQueen had found out early in the morning that Anton was of Chinese-Italian mixed race, his father was Chinese, and his mother was from Italy—but if he was the nephew of the Agnelli family , That's too beautiful.Reuben put his hand on his forehead, wondering why he didn't have this kind of reincarnation skills.

"Got it. What else?" Ruben continued.

"And this video." Mark turned his laptop in front of Ruben and played him a video-this was obviously a video shot by a family handheld camera, and the picture kept shaking.And the shooting distance is very far, but Ruben can still clearly see Anton standing among a group of players, the football is flying fast, Anton stretches out his feet to stop the ball, and stops cleanly and handsomely.

"It's impossible, it's impossible that he hasn't been a professional player!" Ruben seemed to have discovered something extraordinary, "I haven't seen any amateur team player who can stop the ball so cleanly and easily!" He gradually Excited, "It seems that he has hidden a lot of resumes from the world."

Mark is more cautious: "But it may also be a coincidence. Stopping the ball is nothing."

Ruben patted his forehead, where the hairline was gradually receding, and said, "Yes, but this person is worth following. Maybe we can dig out some shocking material soon, which will make the world's eyes fall..." He imagined it out of thin air Looking at such a scene, he reached out and patted Mark on the shoulder proudly, "Come on, work hard! You don't have to follow his news, just be careful."

"As for the bet with Sunderland!" Ruben smiled slyly, "It seems that they are doing well in the FA Cup and the English Championship, right? But I tell you, if they turn around, they will lose. "

Ruben’s judgment is well-founded. The English Championship schedule is very dense. Sunderland will play 2 games in February and 7 games in March, plus the upcoming FA Cup in early March quarter final.Sunderland can be said to be exhausted.

"There are some old sayings in China that are full of wisdom in life. I don't know if this young Italian descendant has heard of them." Ruben stayed in the Han College when he was studying in Cambridge in his early years, and he had a little understanding of Chinese culture, so he developed a habit , "dropping the book bag" from time to time.

"Fish, what I want; bear's paw, what I want. You can't have both... If you insist on having both, you can't get either!"

Ruben said triumphantly, and poor Mark next to him was confused: What are these?

Coupled with the elimination of Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup at home, Anton has achieved nine consecutive unbeaten records after becoming the head coach of Sunderland.At the same time, Sunderland defeated Liverpool and Tottenham, two Premier League teams, in the knockout round.

紧接着，桑德兰2月17日联赛第30轮客场对阵斯旺西，以1：0小胜对手，2月20日主场对阵考文垂，取得了一场4：1的大胜。不败场数增加到了11场，他们在英冠联赛的积分也已经随之涨到了40分。

There are 15 rounds left in the English Championship. If Anton's team can maintain this winning streak, indeed, they can look forward to the possibility of promotion.

In addition, the results of the draw for the quarter-finals of the FA Cup have also been released. In the quarter-finals, Anton's team will play away against Aston Villa.Aston Villa bought their head star Darren Vincent during the winter window, which means that Vincent will sit at the home court of the new club and play against the old club.

In addition, the FA seems to be very happy to see Sunderland play an away game. After all, the luck of the previous draw was too good, and the three consecutive games were at home. In addition, the superstition about the Stadium of Light "appeared" during the match against Tottenham , "Help" the team win, so the remaining seven teams in the quarter-finals do not want to touch Sunderland away.Therefore, it is reasonable for Sunderland to draw away this time.

Unexpectedly, at this time, Sunderland had a small situation. On February 2, they sat at home and played against the relegation team Princeton North Point in the British Championship. On the 23th, Sunderland went to Watford, a suburb of London, where Anton tasted the taste of defeat for the first time since he took office. The team lost to Watford 0:0.After 2 rounds like this, Sunderland has accumulated 27 points and has properly become a mid-range team in the British Championship.

The defeat against Watford has dealt a severe blow to the morale of the Sunderland players.The game ended Sunderland's 12-match unbeaten run.Although this record is already ranked number one in the history of the Sunderland team, but the record was suspended like this, and most of the people who created the record were very frustrated.

Most of what the players experienced was frustration, while what Anton faced was mostly criticism.

After the entire January and February games, he has become a new star in the coaching world, and the entire football world has paid a lot of attention to Sunderland out of thin air.Many bigwigs and celebrities are paying attention to Sunderland's game-because Anton is too young, at the age of 1 or 2, he can't even be called a "young coach", and many famous players are about his age .

If such a young coach can pass all the way, holding the FA Cup in his left hand and the British Championship in his right hand-then the age of the bosses, wouldn't they all live like dogs?

So when Sunderland lost, the entire football world immediately breathed a sigh of relief, and a relaxed and happy atmosphere began to spread. This young man and his team still have weaknesses.

What the bigwigs criticized Anton was mostly because he hired inexperienced rookies without a bottom line: "The more you get to the middle and late seasons, the more experience becomes more important. Sunderland sold their star players, and also sent some wealthy players to compete for the championship. Putting him on the bench with the main players with knockout experience... I can only say that this young head coach has a big heart, a big heart!"

Another criticism is aimed at Anton's use of Vardy.Strange to say, since Vardy scored a goal in his FA Cup debut on the 14th, he immediately fell into a scoring drought.Against Princeton North End, he came off the bench and did nothing; against Watford, Anton started Vardy but had to replace him when the score fell behind in the 67th minute.

"I really can't see what kind of qualities this young man who was promoted from a non-professional team is so valued by Lin Andong." Some commentators commented in their columns like this, "When I saw Sunderland My first reaction to Watford's starting line-up was: biological, it must be biological."

These commentators in England seem to be trying to explain to readers what the Chinese idiom "nepotism" means.

Anton has never been very interested in outside comments.His purpose has always been: Since you have a big heart, you should have a big heart to the end. Let them say what others say, and then use the team's results to slap them back one by one, just like he treated the "Daily Mail" at that time. like that.

But Anton's big heart does not mean that Vardy is also big-hearted.The young man went to Anton with a face of shame: "Coach, you can punish me, it's okay to send me to the reserve team..."

Monk Zhanger Anton couldn't figure it out, and asked why Vardy blamed himself for not being able to score. After thinking for a while, he said: "If you don't want to play for the time being, you can practice for a while. But before that, I want to bring You go to a place. Go, put on your training clothes, do you have a long-distance running task today?"

Sunderland's physical fitness coach has long formulated a physical fitness training plan for each player, including aerobic training such as outdoor long-distance running.Vardy did have a long-distance running mission today, so he quickly changed into his training clothes. When he came out to find Anton, he saw that Anton was also wearing a long-distance running training suit, with a thin down jacket and a windproof cap outside. Curly black hair poked playfully from under the brim of the hat.

Anton took two bottles of sports drinks, called Vardy into the car, and drove him to the beach.Not long after Vardy came to Sunderland, he was not very familiar with everything here. He only heard Anton introduce: "This is Sunderland's Rock Beach, and there...there is the famous Rock Lighthouse."

Vardy was watching, and suddenly heard Anton ask: "Why haven't you warmed up? In such a cold day, if you run without warming up, you will be easily injured."

It turned out that I brought Valdy to the seaside of Rock, not for sightseeing, but for long-distance running.

Vardy hurriedly finished stretching, followed Anton, and started running along a long trail by the sea. On their right was the vast sea, where Sunderland was far away from the European continent.

The wind by the sea in early March is still a bit cold, but it has lost a lot of the bitterness in the severe winter.Occasionally, you can see a few daffodils just blooming, swaying with the sea breeze in the roadside flower garden.

Anton seemed to be familiar with this trail. He led Vardy while running, and the two chatted.Along the way, they met many Sunderland citizens who came here to exercise. When they met Anton head-on, most of them would say hello to Anton: "Hi Anton!"

There was also an old man sitting on a seaside seat, squinting his eyes to enjoy the sunshine, and said hello to Anton, "Anton, good boy, work harder next time!"

Someone also recognized Vardy, "Hey, this is not... This is not the one against Tottenham, the one who scored, that..."

Anton smiled and introduced: "Jamie Vardy!"

Someone slapped the back of the head: "Valdy!"——that's him!

Vardy was ashamed and a little afraid to look up at the fans' expressions.As a result, the oncoming fans passed by them as if nothing happened, and said with a smile: "Come on! I want to see you score!"

Vardy: ...? !

So Anton smiled and said to the young man next to him who was once entangled: "Everyone here knows how to look forward, are you the only one who is still living in the past?"

The author has something to say: I would like to say a few words about the English Championship. As the second-tier league in England, the English Championship has a total of 24 teams participating in a total of 46 rounds. The schedule is very dense.Sometimes the champions of the Championship can get around 100 points.The promotion situation of the British Championship this year is also very delicate. Many teams that performed well in the half have lost the chain... Now that they have reached the 43rd round, it seems that Canary Norwich has a great hope of promotion. Others Nobody on the team can say for sure.Leeds United, who were far ahead at halfway, just lost to the relegation team, and they are not very stable now.However, the more competitive the league, the better it is, and it can keep the suspense until the end.

Sunderland's current ranking in League One is fourth with one game less, which is also very mysterious. . .Black cat, you have to work hard!