The Young Lion

After winning the World Cup, the announcement of England's new squad aroused endless reverie on Fleet Street.

The old goalkeeper Seaman was honorably discharged as expected, but who will guard England's next national goal?

The three goalkeepers in Aldridge's new squad for the national team are James, Robinson and Green. Among them, the 22-year-old Green is regarded as a contender for the next generation. In this generation, the only goalkeepers England can take are James and Green. Robinson, who can take over, the outside world dare not jump to conclusions.

Except for the goalkeeper, Fleet Street is really at a loss for other third-tier players.

Except for Phil Neville, Bart, and McManaman, none of the main players who won the World Cup was recruited!

Owen, Scholes, Beckham, Lampard, Ashley Cole, Southgate, Ferdinand, 7 main players lost the selection one after another.

Obviously, the young coach is giving them more time to rest, not even using the national team, and staying at home honestly.

Because of the match day in September, the England team had a bye in the group of the European Cup qualifiers, and it was just a friendly match.

Gary Neville and Gerrard returned to the national team squad. Missing the World Cup must have infinite regrets for them, but they can only lament the bad luck, and they were injured before the World Cup.

The upper limit of the roster for the competition is 23. In other periods, the number of national teams is generally maintained at around 25-30. On the one hand, it is to select talents, and on the other hand, it also allows healthy competition within the team.

The friendly match of the national team will be held at home, and the chosen home is Anfield.

The day before the players came to report, Aldridge and the national team coaching staff met at Liverpool's training base. He even came earlier and sent Bert and Earle to their grandmother's house yesterday.

The coaching staff of the national team has a new atmosphere, except for the two familiar faces of Aldrich and Jensen. None of the other coaches are well known.

On a sunny afternoon, Stella Marcioni presented Aldridge with a summary of his European Cup qualifier group intelligence collection.

Flipping through the documents in his hand, Aldrich smiled. Nothing was said to Stramaccioni either.

In fact, there is almost no suspense about England's entry into the European Cup.

Look at the opponents in the same group?

Türkiye is the strongest.

Next, Slovakia, Macedonia, Liechtenstein.

Throughout the qualifiers, as long as they have played the two rounds against Turkey, they will be able to ensure that they will qualify for the top spot in the group.

In such a group, is it necessary to deliberately study the opponent?

Even if you really do research, just focus on Türkiye. Studying all the opponents would be an overkill.

It's just Aldridge's way of testing Stella Maggioni's work ethic.

Not to mention, this handsome Italian guy is very serious. Even Liechtenstein, which is not ranked 150 in the world, has collected a lot of information.

Compared with the second-rate football national team, the main lineup will basically not change much for a few years. For a third-rate national team like Liechtenstein, which may not even be called a national team, player information is the most difficult to do. Why? Because you don't know where the opponent will find a group of amateur players to represent the national team. Maybe after playing the national team game, those players took off their jerseys and went to work as courier workers, or sat in the office as white-collar workers. They play football because they are interested in it. The national team is about to play a game, and they go to play a cameo temporarily. There is no serious professional league in China, and the club is between semi-professional and amateur.

It can be seen that Stella Marjoni's opponent investigation report is very detailed.

Except for Stella Marjoni, most of the newcomers to the other coaching staff are selected from within England. For them, it is a career promotion. They used to work in low-level national echelons such as u21 and youth teams.

Aldridge said hello to each other after their initial meeting. Then he handed over the other work to Jenson to arrange, and he jogged around the court in the training base in his sportswear. Then I played ball with the little caddy in the training base, which didn't look like I came to work at all.

The new coach was taken aback. I feel that the young marshal is a dissociated figure. They began to prepare their own tasks under the arrangement of Jenson. They performed their duties. Training was 80% of the work. Ramajoni called over and walked towards Aldridge with him.

Aldridge was already sweating, sitting on the turf of the training ground, waving goodbye to the little caddy. After the other party walked away, Jansen and Stella Maggioni came in front of him.

Jansen sat down cross-legged in front of Aldrich, and Stella Marcioni saw that they were both sitting on the turf, so he sat down too.

Jansen looked at Aldrich, who was distracted, and asked, When will we talk about business?

Huh? What's the business?

Don't pretend to be stupid. England's tactics have changed. You know it well. As the World Cup champion, England still wants to continue to play in the European Cup with 4321. I'm afraid it will be difficult to do anything. Don't underestimate the European powers and learn from experience. The mystery of England's tactics has been lifted, and England still wants to shine in the European Cup?

Aldrich looked up at the blue sky, smiled wryly and said, Yes, this is the real business.

Stella Marcioni was refreshed, and listened carefully to the next content with his head held high.

The 4321 formation used by the England team to win the World Cup has been listed as a classic tactic by FIFA. The overall technique and tactics are clear. In the new issue of FIFA lecturers, it is listed as a key topic for explanation.

It is no exaggeration to say that the England team is being dismembered by the outside world from the technical and tactical level!

And because of the lack of extraordinary creativity, the limitation of this tactic is that there is not much room for change without the unexpected impact of the opponent.

England's own creativity will not change drastically because of winning the World Cup, so technical and tactical changes are a big problem.

Continue to stick to 4321?

It seems to follow the law of the football circle: victory does not change!

But it has its own limitations, plus it will be thoroughly studied by the opponent, and if you persist, you will only fall into the embarrassing situation of the battle of trapped beasts.

Especially after winning the World Cup, the arrogance in the Englishman's bones is unlikely to continue to unswervingly fight conservative defense.

Aldrich's eyes slowly moved down from the sky. Freezing on Stella Maggioni's face, he asked, What do you think England can improve?

Stella Marcioni faltered and hawed a word for a long time.

It's hard for him. He used to understand England from an external perspective. It is really hard to speak without going to the inside to learn more about it.

Aldridge said: People are still the same people. Some young players' skills will improve in the next two years, but in the overall situation, the overall creativity is still not enough to match the European powers. In other words, if you want to transform the team As a starting point for the team, one player cannot be the core to change everything. That is too unrealistic. Jensen, what advantages do you think England has?

Physical fitness, bravery, and unity. If you look at specific players, individual speed advantages, set-piece abilities, and long passes, but these are compared to other strong teams, others have them, and there is no comparison.

Aldrich nodded. Sighed: Yes, what we have, others also have. We may not have what others are good at, so we use our core factors to magnify our advantages on the basis of the entire team, and build a company based on what we are good at. A new tactic in line with our living conditions. The three points you mentioned are almost the same as what I think. Our players have a large running range and good physical fitness. As long as we make reasonable arrangements before facing the big game, we can still reflect this in the big game One advantage. A large range of activities means strong mobility, bravery, hehehe, a bunch of rough guys, technical things are indeed incomparable with European powers, unity, this is probably because our technical ability is not outstanding, so we have the right to the ball The distribution is reasonable, so it seems more united than other teams. For a talented team like Argentina, the distribution of the ball is a big problem, so sometimes it doesn't look like a whole.

Stella Maggioni looked deep in thought, but Jenson's eyes became brighter and brighter, and he said with a smile, Since we want to change, there is only one choice left.

Aldrich nodded and said: Give it a go, it's a success, it's not, there's no way, I think the resignation after the World Cup is also because the team's limitations are too big, since I'm still in this position, the European Cup , and there is no ideological burden, so let’s take another extreme path.”

Stramaccioni was confused and asked, Excuse me, what are you talking about?

Jansen laughed and said: We have worked in Millwall for eight years, and we have summed up some tactics with obvious styles, which will be used according to the team's situation. Among them is a tactic, which we named 'Lions'. Millwall has used it, but it has not been used to the extreme, because Millwall itself is very creative. In England, you can try it. The creativity here is limited, but there are a group of engineers, and they are physically strong and have a wide range of activities. It may not be able to play to the extreme, and it is completely extreme with the previous 4321 two tactical systems.

Stella Marcioni was very interested, and asked: What is it like?

Aldrich whistled and said with a smile, Bring us a drink tonight?

Stella Maggioni was stunned, he didn't expect Aldrich to blackmail so shamelessly.

He nodded and said, Okay, but don't try to fool me!

Jansen smiled and said, Do you know Millwall's defensive strategy for pressing offense?

Well, I generally understand that through high-position pressing and cutting the opponent's offensive formation at the same time, the first line of defense is formed from the forward, and the front field is compressed layer by layer to the center and back field.

That's just a theory, and Millwall can't take this theory to the extreme because of the characteristics of the players, because you can't get Ronaldinho, Henry, Pirlo, 100% into the defense, and their defensive ability It is also pitifully limited, so they use their positions to cut the opponent's point-to-point offensive formation and block the passing line. However, in the England formation, there are indeed a large number of defensive players. They will no longer just It is to cut the opponent's formation through the position, but will directly crush the midfielder in the opponent's third-line formation through crazy running and pressing! The sublimation of cutting is not to wait for the opponent to hesitate or make a pass error, but to We reshape the game through crazy pressing, and this tactic is used to the extreme, which is to use destructive power to form dominance! The visual sense will be a group of lions frantically strangling the opponent, destroying the opponent in a terrifying chaos!

Stramaccioni was dumbfounded.

Is this he-mother still playing football?

Destructive power forms dominance?

This idea was subversive for him.

Aldrich didn't say much, just stood up and said lazily: Let's go, I'm sure you won't be stingy and treat us to dinner by the way.

On the way out of the training base, Aldridge looked at the sunset and suddenly had new expectations for the 2004 European Cup.

In 2004, the Czech Republic, one of the strongest representatives of offensive football, Greece, which reshaped the game with defense to form a dominant force, and France, which gave birth to a new tactical concept but was stillborn, were the hosts of the golden generation.

Aldridge has a new goal, to lead the new England and European powers to hunt Portugal! (to be continued) ()