Super Coach

\u003e While coaching Liverpool in England, Yang Cheng had a profound understanding of some of the connections between Blue football, or British football, and Europa football.

Everyone knows that football was born in China, but modern football originated in the United Kingdom. However, with the occurrence of the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters, England began to make significant changes in tactics, training methods, and youth training player training. If we continue to lag behind mainland Europe, it should be related to the decline of the British economy.

English football, like the British economy, is in decline, but English fans and British people are the same. They always regard themselves as an old powerhouse, take pride in tradition, and do not know how to advance with the times. This further contributed to Yang Cheng's later success. Things that happened during my time at Liverpool.

Once again, after reconciling with Yang Cheng, Steve Haiwei complained to Yang Cheng.

Have you heard of Saki?

Yang Cheng replied, of course.

Have you ever heard of the training method called the shadow game that Saki is praised by many people?

Yang Cheng still nodded.

Then let me tell you, this method was used in training throughout England in the 1960s. It was very common. But when Sacchi used it at his time, it became revolutionary. Do you think it's funny?

From this conversation, it can be seen that the mentality of Steve Haiwei, a veteran English football player, also gave Yang Cheng some understanding of the so-called shadow game.

Yang Cheng made a special trip to get to know Butragueno, who confirmed that in the 8889 season, when Real Madrid ambitiously wanted to challenge for the Champions League, they met Milan led by Sacchi in the semi-finals. Before the game, Real Madrid scouts hid in the bushes to peek at Milan's training, and they saw an incredible scene.

Milan's 11 players trained in a stadium with no opponents and no football.

This is the shadow game that was later praised by countless football people!

The so-called shadow game actually exercises the players' ability to run without the ball and their coordinated reactions.

Ferguson once relayed a sentence from Eric Harrison to Yang Cheng. The latter was the creator of Manchester United's off-the-ball movement. He created a consistent off-the-ball movement system in the Manchester United youth academy. And this system It is also the best off-the-ball running system in today's football, and even the current Real Madrid and Barcelona are ashamed of it.

Eric Harrison said that the reason why Manchester United's off-the-ball movement is excellent is because he clearly sees the technical gap between English players and continental European players. When facing the same high-intensity pressure, , England players have irreparable technical flaws.

We must face up to this huge gap in ball ability. If we want to compete with European teams, we must find ways to make up for this gap, so we thought of our advantage, run!

Through orderly running, we interfere with the opponent's defense and weaken the pressure on the ball holder. This can avoid the shortcomings of our ball ability being exploited by the opponent to the greatest extent. Once we run more, we will have more contact points and control the ball. The pressure we faced naturally decreased, so we used our ability to respond without the ball to make up for the lack of ball control.

This is undoubtedly the core of Manchester United's excellent off-the-ball running system!

According to Yang Cheng's own observation, Premier League teams always advocate being fast. In fact, it is because they have deficiencies in ball possession skills. It is impossible to hold the ball for a long time like mainland teams, even if you can run and run continuously. How long does it take to fast move?

Therefore, we must use the fastest speed to send the ball into the most threatening area to directly pose a threat!

This is the reason why the Premier League's offensive and defensive rhythm changes quickly!

The reason why Wenger's Arsenal is closer to the mainland's tactical system is because his players usually have higher ability with the ball. This makes their ability to control the ball better. Even if they are not as good as Manchester United in running without the ball, they can control the ball. Slowing down the pace, even reaching the level of continental European teams, is tantamount to taking a different type of path from Manchester United.

If the English team makes up for the lack of possession by running without the ball, and continental European football is about controlling the game by controlling the ball, then Yang Cheng's football philosophy is a further improvement on these football ideas. .

Sacchi once said that Yang Cheng is very similar to him in many tactical ideas. For example, both of them have a deep understanding of English football and highly admire the Netherlands' total offense and defense, but they both combine Italy's own high pressure. The defensive characteristics, their concept is a dynamic system composed of players without the ball and players with the ball.

The difference is that Yang Cheng places great emphasis on integrity. Sacchi feels that Yang Cheng's football ideas are more aggressive and proactive than his, because he was based more on the defensive foundation of Serie A football. Pressure and pressure on the field completed the transformation of Milan, but facts proved to be mixed, so much so that Capello later subverted the system left by Sacchi and achieved great glory.

The biggest difference between Yang Cheng and Sacchi is that Sacchi's philosophy is unity. He hopes that all players can follow the same idea as him and abandon other ideas. He can only have his idea, which is exclusive. This is a bit similar to the current Barcelona style, and Ibrahimovic cannot fit in.

But Yang Cheng’s idea is to integrate. When dealing with various football concepts and ideas, he takes the essence and discards the dross. If it can be used for me, I will absorb it. When dealing with players’ personality and technical ability, Yang Cheng also It is to establish an overall large framework, allow the players to perform on their own, and then blend them together to form a whole.

It's hard to say who is better and who is worse, but Sacchi himself has said that his tactics were successful once in Milan, but not in the Italian national team. When they reached the final of the 1994 World Cup, it was the individual performance of the players or Sacchi's football. Success, this is still very controversial.

But Yang Cheng's tactics have been successful from the Bundesliga to Serie A to the Premier League to La Liga. This is indisputable!

Therefore, Sacchi feels that Yang Cheng's integration is actually a step further than his unification. It is at least more adaptable, more dynamic, and more able to keep pace with the times according to changes in football style.

The current football environment is full of flowers, and all kinds of football styles have their place. However, the individual performance of the players should not be abandoned and stifled, because no matter how smart a head coach's thinking is, it cannot be as good as the eleven players on the field. Create and develop anywhere, anytime.”

The team's overall thinking and philosophy are very important. This is what the head coach should insist on. But it also needs players to complete it. Therefore, the head coach should encourage players to perform individually and create on the basis of adhering to the team's overall thinking and framework. Endless possibilities!

This is Yang Cheng's summary of his tactical thinking, comparing the players' understanding of tactics to acting.

The same fool can be interpreted in many different ways. It can be drooling, or it can have a crooked mouth and a runny nose. Different actors can have different understandings, and the stupidity they understand can be integrated into the overall atmosphere and atmosphere of the movie. Within the rhythm, that would be fine, and might even add to the highlight of the movie.

The team's tactics are like a movie. The players are the actors and the head coach is the director. The script and role positioning are given, allowing the actors to perform on their own. The head coach is responsible for mastering the scale and jointly creating a perfect movie!

This is what he wants!

Not long ago, Yang Cheng wrote a paragraph of his own in Melissa Terrio's column, which was once again recognized by Sacchi. He said that the strength of individual players determines the team's tactical play. But there are two things that he feels should not change, one is trust, and the second is running without the ball!

Yang Cheng believes that trust is the basis for any team's combat effectiveness. This is undisputed. Running without the ball can combine the two elements of ball control and space control to achieve a certain balance.

In other words, if your player's ability to hold the ball is weak, you can limit the space by increasing more movements without the ball, thereby disintegrating the opponent's advantage in ball control, just like Manchester United and Chelsea; if you If your players have strong ball ability, then you can tend to increase possession of the ball through off-ball running, thereby disintegrating the opponent's defense, just like Barcelona.

Of course, the specific situation is definitely different, and it has to be carried out according to each team's own situation, and it depends on the head coach to control it. However, Yang Cheng's remarks can't help but refer to the off-the-ball running that he has admired over the years. The dynamic system has been raised to a whole new level.

This also makes people including Sacchi, Ferguson, Hitzfield and others look forward to Yang Cheng's upcoming book. Sacchi even asserted that maybe this will be a book on football tactics theory that Yang Cheng pioneered.

But before that, Yang Cheng's every move was destined to attract the attention of football coaches around the world, but no one thought that Yang Cheng would bring back the shadow training that was popular in English football in the 1960s and Sacchi's short-lived appearance in the 1980s. Moved to the Real Madrid team.

But Yang Cheng's shadow training is definitely different from Sacchi's, just like Sacchi's shadow training was different from England's back then. It must keep pace with the times to be effective.

What Sacchi did back then was to let the players imagine what formation their opponents would have, how they would mark them, where the ball would be, how they would move accordingly, and how they would maintain the team's overall uniformity and balance of advance and retreat.

But Yang Cheng's training method is different. He tells all the players that he will serve the ball. Whoever the ball lands at his feet will start the attack, and all players must move around this player. But the premise is that all markers are moving with the offensive players and marking them closely.

In other words, although there are no enemies on the court, Yang Cheng asked them to assume an enemy with the strongest defense. This is what he gained from the game against Chelsea.

Don't underestimate this difference. This has very high requirements for a team's ability to run without the ball, support and pass. For example, you cannot pass the ball to him when he is facing the goal. Because the defensive player will break the ball at his feet, Yang Cheng will usually blow the whistle when encountering this kind of pass.

Through this training method, Yang Cheng wants each of them to learn how to use off-ball movement more skillfully to tear apart the opponent's defense, and at the same time, let them abandon the opponent's interference and think about how to better protect their own side. The overall movement and running without the ball are orderly and effective, because there are no opponents, and the players can see everything about their own side at a glance.

Just like this time, when Mascherano takes this imaginary ball, he cannot pass it crosswise to Xavi Alonso. He has to assume that the opponent blocks his route, so he can only look at the retreating card. Kaka, passed to Kaka's feet.

Kaká did not turn around when he got the ball, because he had to assume that the opponent prevented him from turning around. So he saw Xavi Alonso running forward, and passed it diagonally back to Xavi Alonso, because this kind of The back-and-forth passes in cross runs are difficult for defensive players to resolve.

Xavi = After Alonso got the ball, he saw that Ronaldinho and Villa were ready. He passed the ball directly to the edge of the opponent's penalty area with a long diagonal pass. Ronaldinho and Villa rushed at the same time. When Villa arrived, Yang Cheng's whistle sounded when Villa entered the penalty area.

According to the rules, entering the restricted area is considered valid!

In other words, Yang Cheng's approach is to deliberately create with players, create and open up more offensive space through running, and prevent himself from being marked by opponents. Once the ball reaches the penalty area, it is effective, because he wants It's about advancing the offense, not scoring.

Maybe some people are wondering, how can everyone cooperate without the ball?

Yang Cheng asked them to shout. When Mascherano wanted to pass to Kaka, he would shout Kaka's name. Then Kaka would predict the speed and direction of the ball. When he caught the ball, he would raise his hand and pass it to the ball again and shout again. This goes on and on, and because of all the The imaginary opponents are all the strongest defenders, so they must be required to stop the ball with one kick and find ways to protect the ball.

For example, Kaká just now, if he did not take the ball back after getting the ball, then Yang Cheng would blow the whistle, because it is assumed that he was surrounded; if Xavi = Alonso did not move forward, and Kaká passed the ball back Yes, Yang Cheng will also blow the whistle assuming that the defensive player is blocking Xavi = Alonso.

The whole process was very harsh and restrictive, and the players were not very adaptable at first.

Yang Cheng divided the team into three groups. Each group had exactly 11 people. He, Paul Bayer and Benitez led the team to be responsible for such training. The 90-minute training session was the last training session of three practices a day. s project.

In Yang Cheng's terms, assuming that the defensive player is your shadow, you have to move to leave your shadow behind and take the initiative. If you stop, your shadow will get ahead of you, so you You have to keep moving, keep passing and receiving the ball, and then form a complete and rigorous offensive system.

Therefore, those fans who came to watch Real Madrid's third training session after hearing the news were very puzzled from high up on the sidelines, because there was neither a ball nor anyone, and they saw Real Madrid players shouting on a field. The names of his teammates and doing all kinds of technical moves were unbelievable.

Because they don't understand at all, what are these Real Madrid players doing?

Even the Real Madrid players who were training didn't quite understand the use of this kind of training that made frequent mistakes. But when they arrived at the tactical meeting that night, when Yang Cheng led the coaching staff to compare the players When watching the training video and analyzing the problems that occurred during the training process one by one, the players immediately understood.

This kind of training can cultivate their ability to handle the ball when encountering strong pressure from the opponent during the game, forcing all players to touch the ball with one foot. It can also cultivate players' reactions during the game.

For example, when the passer here calls his name, the receiver there must react and immediately make his own prediction of the ball's route. Otherwise, it will be too late to make a decision once the ball reaches his feet.

Of course, training is always training. Shadow training can cultivate players' tacit understanding, cultivate players' thinking ability and immediate reaction ability in the game, and increase the coordination of team operations, but it can never give players that immersive experience. The pressure of the environment.

Through the video, Yang Cheng hopes that all players can understand a deeper meaning, that is, running without the ball is not a desperate run, but requires wisdom.

Many times, creating and limiting a space to catch the ball and prevent the opponent from catching the ball may only require you to move a small step to the side. Although this step is small, it is related to the development and restriction of space. The role may be for you to run up. A few kilometers or even a dozen kilometers can’t compare!”

It is easy to run more than ten kilometers, but how to run this small step is difficult. This requires all of you to think more deeply on the competition field and be better at analyzing. It also requires each of you to believe Believe in myself, believe in my partners, and believe in all of us, this is what I hope all of you can master in this summer’s pre-season training!”

In addition to running without the ball, Yang Cheng is also adding more content to the team's tactics, such as pressing opponents during the game.

Pressure is a very important topic in Yang Cheng's tactics, because pressing can change the opponent's rhythm and allow the opponent to play according to the rhythm that one is willing to see and accustomed to. This is the state of one's gains and the other's losses.

But Yang Cheng feels that the pressure in football now should start from the front line, that is, the investment should start from the front line, and the means to achieve pressure is to run without the ball.

For example, full pressure is to press from the front line, with the goal of grabbing the ball in the shortest time; for example, semi-pressure is more about formation consistency and more about delaying the opponent's counterattack. and attack as the goal; there is also false pressure, which is more symbolic pressure. In fact, it is to give players some time to recover physically on the playing field.

Yang Cheng has long instilled these methods of oppression into the players, and now he wants to emphasize how to make changes more smoothly during the game.

Pressing is not only defensive, but also offensive.

When you press against holes in the opponent's defense, even if you don't have the ball at your feet, their defensive pressure will be shared with you, which can reduce the pressure on your own ball carrier.

Therefore, this time Yang Cheng can be said to be a comprehensive summary and improvement of his coaching philosophy. This is also because he has recently been conceiving his own book, which allows him to comprehensively and systematically organize his coaching experience, especially During this period of time on the island, he figured out a lot.

Now he hopes to instill all his gains and accumulations over the past ten years into the current Real Madrid players, because he has a hunch that this Real Madrid is likely to be a rare opportunity for him to achieve his goals, allowing him to Create a perfect team.

If it were anyone else, there would definitely be no way to make Real Madrid's superstars be so obedient, but Yang Cheng can make each of them willingly follow his own arrangements and perform every step diligently. On-site training, devote yourself wholeheartedly to every aspect of training, and then gain gains and progress from it.

All of this makes Yang Cheng full of confidence in the future of the team. He believes that his goal will no longer be so out of reach!