The Young Lion

In the first training match of the national team, the players wanted to make a good impression on the new coach, so they worked extra hard on the court.

After the training match started, Aldridge and Klinsmann no longer managed the team. They stood on the sidelines and observed the game to communicate.

The situation on the court is obviously that the red jersey side is more dominant, after all, their players are obviously stronger than the white jersey side.

On the white shirt side, Barry Town is defending in the middle. Lampard and Gerrard, two players who can't run to death, line up on both sides. Aldridge does not expect him to solve the problem of coexistence of dual virtues, at least, during his 20-month tenure. In the short term, Shuangde will definitely not start at the same time in the national team game. The roles of the two are similar, and only one is needed on the field. In the training game, using Barry to separate the two can at least reduce the two people's activity area. own confusion.

Although the red shirts have the upper hand and control the ball most of the time, it has become a tough battle. They seem to have little means, especially when facing the white shirts with three midfielders. Organizational support ability, infiltration offensive can not be played, Beckham and McManaman, the latter can make a breakthrough, while the former can only rely on his golden right foot to launch some threatening crosses.

The red shirts have a good control of the peripheral placement and continue to attack, but the positional battle is not moving, and the backcourt players have to come up to assist.

In ten minutes, the red shirt's ball possession rate may have exceeded 70%, but there were only 4 shots.

Joe Cole couldn't hold the ball at first, Ronaldo couldn't even grab the body position, and Smith seemed to be invisible.

Ten minutes later, they became familiar with the rhythm of the field and their performance began to improve.

What is England's strength. Neither Aldridge nor the current group of international players could answer.

But England's disadvantage is very obvious.

Continuous attack cannot produce intuitive effect. Holding high and hitting high has little effect. They began to actively try to pass and infiltrate in a small area.

Scholes took the ball and got rid of Barry's defense horizontally, and passed the ball accurately to Heskey before Gerrard's help defense approached. The pass and run failed to form a tacit understanding. Irving went forward and wanted to pass through, but Husky gave the ball under his feet, and the ball passed behind Irving. Brown stepped forward and kicked the ball to Lampard in front.

Before Lampard got the ball, on the wing close to him, Ashley Cole advanced at high speed, Gerrard on the other side also ran forward quickly, and Joe Cole came back to respond.

In an instant, Lampard had three ball options.

Before Scholes came to defend, Lampard passed the ball to Joe Cole in front. Joe Cole did not one-on-one with Butt behind him and observed the situation before receiving the ball.

McManaman came back to catch up with Gerrard, and Beckham came back to press him. Joe Cole slams the ball across the wing, and Ashley Cole dribbles the ball across the wing and moves forward quickly.

Joe Cole turns and runs forward. Gerrard plugged in at a high speed and was close to a parallel position with him. Ronaldo happened to be on Ashley Cole's side and ran to the side to meet him. Ashley Cole gave him an early pass.

Cristiano Ronaldo sprinted earlier than Gary Neville. The two chased the ball together. Neville was blocking Ronaldo's pass. The posture of Ronaldo chasing the ball before the baseline seemed to be passing directly with his left foot. .

Neville expected that he could easily resolve the cross from this brat. He stretched out his foot to block it, but Ronaldo missed the cross. Instead, he stopped suddenly and kicked the ball back behind him with his left foot.

Gary Neville's eyes widened, and he felt extremely embarrassed and aggrieved.

Being tricked by a kid with half-haired hair!

When playing in Japan two years ago, Ronaldo, who was riding a bicycle on the court, wanted to trample the opponent to death. Two years later, his playing style has been simplified a lot, integrating practicality and skills.

Even though he made Neville lose his center of gravity after he stopped and spiked the ball, Ronaldo also stopped and started to explode at another speed. He is still obviously not as good as an adult player in physical condition. Neville was only shaken for a while. Quickly occupied the defensive position, but just as he was standing in position to defend, Ronaldo passed the ball to Ashley Cole behind, who was running inside.

Neville immediately moved to block, just ran two steps, felt the wind behind him, Ronaldo and his shadow intertwined, the ball rolled between Neville and Southgate, Ronaldo and Ashley Cole were clean Neat cooperation!

Southgate blocked Ronaldo from advancing or adjusting the angle of the shot. He was not in a hurry to grab it. If he did, it would be easier to lose his position.

But who knows, Ronaldo passed the ball out the first time he touched the ball in the penalty area, and knocked back at the top of the arc in the middle of the penalty area.

Joe Cole poked the ball forward ahead of Butt and slid it straight to Alan Smith.

Smith swung his leg and volleyed. This guy may have been lucky today. He kicked a beautiful dead corner and the ball crashed into the net.

Boas, who served as the referee on the field, whistled and pointed to the middle circle, indicating that the goal was valid.

After Smith scored the goal, he walked back and gave Joe Cole a high-five to celebrate. He smiled happily and stayed invisible for more than ten minutes. Suddenly, he scored a goal. It was a magical feeling.

Ronaldo, on the other hand, pretended to be cold and trot towards the middle circle with his arms swinging. During the run, he glanced at Gary Neville intentionally or unintentionally...

Aldridge nodded slightly on the sidelines. At least Ronaldo is a little self-aware. He knows that with his stature, if he goes head-to-head with this group of old fritters, he will simply seek his own death. He didn't play single-soldier raids, so he was hired to top the crowd. , at least the effect is achieved.

In recruiting Smith, Aldridge actually took a fancy to his willpower and ability to play the ball. Of course, this is relative. The comparison is a pure shooter like Irving.

However, in these short ten minutes, Aldridge observed Smith's performance on the field, so far he is satisfied.

He fulfilled the requirements when assigning tasks.

Don't stand on the front line waiting for the ball. The early stage is an ambush, and then hit the threat area at a critical moment.

Just now Smith was ambushing on the other side of Campbell before breaking the goal. When Ronaldo passed the ball to Joe Cole, he had a running track towards the middle. Joe Cole goes straight. He shoots right away. There is a certain element of luck, after all, not every shot can hit the dead corner, especially if he does not adjust, but if he adjusts, Campbell and Southgate will close the door to block him.

After losing the ball, the main red shirt team was obviously not reconciled, while the white shirt team's momentum rose sharply. In the next game, the white shirt team seemed to get carried away. I want to take advantage of the victory to chase and score another goal.

As a result, McManaman passed Mills on the left with his personal ability and then made a cross. Heskey headed the goal and the ball was saved by James. Scholes followed up with a supplementary shot and sent the ball into the goal.

Aldridge nodded to Scholes' goal.

In his opinion, Scholes's national team career in the original history is divided into two parts. The first part is from being selected for the national team to the present, and the second half is when Eriksson took over the England national team until Scholes was 30 years old. announced his withdrawal from the national team.

In the first half of his national team career, Scholes performed very well, especially his ability to score goals later, so that he can even become the goal hero of the England national team!

And the second half. Scholes has had a scoring drought for the national team for nearly three years, of course. For midfielders, scoring is not a hard target, but it is obvious that Scholes' scoring ability has been weakened in the national team.

If you watch the game video of England's defeat in the European Cup, Scholes left the deepest impression in the attack is that he can always find the space in the penalty area and appear at that point to pose a threat, although he does not belong to that kind of one He is a player who carries a team forward, but his game characteristics are very much admired by his contemporaries who are also midfielders.

There is a joke that everyone who watches football knows Zidane, and everyone who plays football knows Scholes.

Knowing the evaluation of Scholes by midfield stars in the middle or late stage of this era, such as Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, Zidane, etc., you can understand that this ginger head is an underestimated low-key master .

A master does not necessarily mean a player with superb skills and a delicate and elegant style of play, but is measured by his contribution to his own team and threat to the opponent in the game.

With players like Scholes, Aldridge has a certain degree of confidence in transforming the England national team. Only with good cards can the effect be better.

The training match ended 1:1.

When the players of both sides were off to rest, Aldridge called them together and asked them to sit on the ground in a fan shape to rest. The coaching staff pulled up the tactical board. Aldridge stood in front of the players and asked with a normal expression: The match Finally, let’s talk about my impressions. You must be able to see that the red shirt team adopts a 442 formation, while the white shirt team adopts a 4321 formation. There is a gap in overall strength, but the score is a tie. There are threats and offensives. The two sides are almost the same. Why?

Owen said with a slightly complaining tone: There are too many defenders on the white shirt.

In the positional battle, they encountered a 7-man 4+3 defensive line in the frontcourt, and the range was very narrow.

Aldrich nodded and said: The white shirts have compressed the defensive space in the backcourt, and the red shirts have to tear apart the opponent's defense. What do you rely on? During the period, you spent about 10 minutes patiently organizing the offensive and playing short passes to penetrate. The result? Instead, he was hit on a counterattack and lost the ball. What did the red shirt’s goal come from? After the individual broke through on the wing, he created chaos in the opponent’s defense and broke the opponent’s orderly defensive system. The 30 minutes of the game told us One reality is that the England national team has positional warfare, small-scale cooperation, and lack of ability. In essence, we lack most players with the ability to get rid of the ball and control the ball. Especially in the case of comparison, who are your opponents in international competitions? ?Italy, whose tactical defense is like art, and Germany, who are united and tough, but against teams like Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil, which are more aggressive and have sharp pass control ability, the number of people England can invest in offense will be reduced. We can’t even find our teammates in range coordination, this is the reality and it’s our shortcoming.”

Reality is what you have to admit.

England's league style itself cannot breed a national team that is good at passing and controlling and can play delicate and penetrating offenses. They are used to playing high and high, and they are used to crossing from the side to find high points. Eight sides, but now, outdated.

The players listened intently, and most of them showed thoughtful expressions.

Perhaps, it is precisely because they cannot improve the delicate small-scale pass and cut, so they can only hold high and play simple and rough.

Aldridge looked at Bart and asked: What did you find in the defense that lost the ball just now? If you were close to marking Joe Cole, you would definitely be able to mark him dead. What caused him to attack in series and finally complete the assist. ?”

Nicky Bart spread his hands helplessly and said, The entire middle of the midfield is basically empty, how could I follow him every step of the way?

Aldrich nodded and said: Space. Small-scale cooperation is not what we are good at. Therefore, we need to create the space needed for offense. The larger the space, the more open spaces will be, and it will be easier for teammates to move to form a support point. David, why did you go after Joe Cole when you switched from offense to defense?

After recalling, Beckham said: His position is close to my defense zone. I retreated to help Nicky, and at the same time marked Lampard to insert.

Aldrich asked back: What's the result?

As a result, Lampard didn't get in. Cole, who was closer to the wing, came up. I ran to defend again. He moved forward too fast and cooperated with the Portuguese boy. They cooperated too quickly. As coach you said, they have a lot of space to do this kind of cooperation, which can reduce the turnover rate.

Aldrich snapped his fingers and said, Please remember the main point I want to say. We must make use of our strengths and avoid our weaknesses. The two most critical points are first, space, and second, hiding the point of attack.

The players sitting on the ground rested solemnly. Aldridge was not only instilling new tactical concepts in them, but also winning their respect and aspirations from the bottom of their hearts. Instead of emphasizing the so-called fighting will and spiritual quality, Imaginary things like hard work and momentum, what Aldridge presented to them, has aroused their interest and made them curious, and they look forward to this being the magic weapon for the revival of the England national team. (To be continued..)