Chapter 353 Guardiola’s work was successful, the 18-year-old young player shines on the court!
"Half of Manchester City's starting lineup are substitutes, and there are a few guys whose names I haven't seen before!"
"Guardiola is really brave to make such a large-scale rotation!"
"Do they look down on West Bromwich Albion so much?"
After seeing Manchester City's starting lineup, there was a lot of discussion outside, and everyone felt that Guardiola was playing too big.
West Bromwich Albion is a Premier League team after all. It is too disrespectful for you to put so many substitutes on the field! The head coach of West Bromwich Albion also thought so. He glanced at Guardiola next to him with some resentment and his face looked very unhappy.
Guardiola looked very calm, at least on the surface.
He calmly sat down in the coaching booth, turned his head and chatted and laughed with several assistant coaches beside him, seemingly not worried at all about what might go wrong with the starting lineup he had sent out.
The 52-year-old Torrente, who sat closest to Guardiola, asked with a worried look on his face: "Is this really all right?"
Guardiola replied calmly:
"As long as the tactics are successful, there will be no problem!"
This sentence made Torrent even more worried: "What if the tactics fail?"
Guardiola shook his head: "Don't worry my old friend, I won't fail!"
When saying this, Guardiola's eyes fell on Lin Quan who had just appeared on the field.
With Lin Quan backing him up, he felt confident.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the game officially began with the referee's whistle.
People who were paying attention to the game opened their eyes wide, wanting to see what the difference was between the Manchester City under Guardiola and the Manchester City under Pellegrini.
After watching for a while, everyone found the abnormality:
"How did Fernandinho end up in the back line?"
"Is Manchester City's formation 3322?"
"Not really. When attacking, it looks like 3421!"
"The midfielder's positioning is so weird. How many defensive midfielders does Manchester City have?"
"Is it my illusion? Why does it feel like Manchester City has more people than their opponents? Why are they everywhere and have the advantage in numbers?"
Ordinary fans expressed their complete confusion about Manchester City’s formation on the field. The opponent’s defenders did not look like defenders, the defensive midfielders did not look like defensive midfielders, and even the wingers were not what they had imagined.
In this game, although Lin Quan was placed at the right winger position, he often retreated to his own half to get the ball.
He doesn't feel like a winger, but more like a full-back who is in a slightly forward position.
In a corner of the stands, watching Manchester City's formation on the field, Chelsea's assistant coach Rui Faria, who has worked with Mourinho for 15 years, couldn't help but frown and muttered: "Waist defender swinging and winger retreating?"
He just saw it clearly that when the defense was in position, Fernandinho appeared in the center back position.
But when attacking, his position is relatively simple, appearing at the position of defensive midfielder.
The advantage of doing this is that it increases the number of people in the midfield and increases the number of passing points.
Guardiola used this tactic when he was at Barcelona and Bayern. He transformed Mascherano and Martinez, two midfielders, into defenders.
So when Faria saw Fernandinho moving back, he immediately thought of this tactic.
But what is the use of this tactic with the winger retreating? Faria couldn't see through Guardiola's intention for a while, so he could only continue to observe.
People from other teams who came to spy on the information had similar ideas to his. Everyone saw the adjustments Guardiola made to Manchester City.
However, due to their limited vision and inability to guess Guardiola's wild ideas, they could not figure out Guardiola's intention for a while.
After Fernandinho moved forward, Manchester City's numerical advantage in the midfield was revealed, and they quickly organized several threatening attacks.
This made the West Bromwich Albion head coach very alert. He was not a fool and naturally saw where the problem lay.
They didn't arrange any players to restrict Fernandinho! After all, who would arrange someone to restrict the opponent's central defender before the game?
With no one restricting him, Fernandinho became the initiator of Manchester City's attack in the midfield and backcourt.
If his passing ability had not been so strong, Manchester City might have scored goals in their previous attacks.
Fernandinho was seen once again advancing from the back line to the defensive midfielder position.
The head coach of West Bromwich Albion stood up and shouted to the players on the field, asking the team's left winger to move inward and move forward to limit Fernandinho who had become the defensive midfielder.
This move worked immediately. After Fernandinho was restricted, the number of attacks Manchester City launched through him decreased rapidly.
"Haha, is this what the so-called world-famous coach is?"
Seeing that his adjustments had achieved very obvious results, the West Bromwich Albion head coach was very proud and his self-confidence was greatly boosted.
He has always been dissatisfied with so-called famous coaches like Guardiola.
I feel that the other party is just a little more famous, not necessarily much stronger than me! When I defeat Guardiola in this game, my name will also be famous all over the world, and then maybe I can also experience the addiction of being a famous coach.
On the Manchester City coaching bench, after seeing the opponent make adjustments and restrict Fernandinho, Guardiola was not worried but happy, and his posture sitting on the coaching bench became more relaxed!
"It's settled!"
He said to assistant coach Torrent.
As soon as Guardiola finished speaking, the situation on the field changed immediately.
In the 9th minute, when West Bromwich Albion's left midfielder moved inward to restrict Fernandinho who was moving forward, Lin Quan also retreated from the opponent's half to his own half.
The Manchester City full-back who was about to pass the ball to Fernandinho immediately passed the ball to Lin Quan who retreated to receive the ball.
After the opponent's left midfielder moved inward, there was a huge space on the wing.
And because Lin Quan retreated to his own half, this area was not within the defensive range of the opponent's full-back.
Therefore, at the moment when Lin Quan received the ball, no one interfered within a ten-meter radius of him! For a player of Lin Quan's level, leaving him such a huge space to move around was a fatal mistake!
West Bromwich Albion soon paid the price for their mistakes!
In the 11th minute of the first half, Lin Quan dribbled past several players on the wing and assisted Iheanacho to score a goal, changing the score to 1:0. At the moment of the goal, Guardiola in the coaching booth couldn't help but rushed out from his seat to celebrate wildly!
This was his first game as coach of Manchester City. Due to the high attention from the outside world, coupled with his risky changes in formation and large-scale substitutions, Guardiola was under tremendous psychological pressure.
Fortunately, my tactics worked!
Fortunately, Manchester City scored first! After scoring this goal, the game became much easier!
Thinking of this, Guardiola felt relieved.
The head coach of West Bromwich Albion next door was dumbfounded when he saw Manchester City score!
How did the defense suddenly collapse? He scratched his head in confusion, not understanding how his team was defeated!
But in the stands, Faria felt a shock in his heart.
His previous doubts were solved in this attack by Manchester City! It turns out that the combination of these two tactics is Guardiola's real killer move?
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but think in his heart: If Chelsea encountered Manchester City and the opponent used this tactic, how would they limit the opponent?
After Fernandinho's forward run, Manchester City had three defensive midfielders on the field.
To completely restrict these three defensive midfielders, it is definitely not enough to rely solely on the strikers.
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Their midfield has to get involved.
However, the opponent's midfield and frontcourt still have at least five players who need to be guarded. If we devote too much manpower to restrict the opponent's midfield and backcourt, the team's defense will lose its sense of hierarchy, and the backcourt defense will become completely man-to-man defense.
The defense line will also be compressed to two!
What’s even more terrible is that a vacuum zone about 20-30 meters wide will appear between the two lines of defense.
As long as the opponent makes good use of this space, they only need one threatening pass forward or one successful dribble to break through their defense and threaten their goal! And there are no less than five players in Manchester City who can complete this fatal pass!
Manchester City has many players who can complete this kind of unreasonable breakthrough, especially the No. 10 on the field - Lin Quan! This guy's one-on-one success rate can reach almost 100%!
So far, no one has been able to successfully limit him in one-on-one defense! Thinking of this, Faria couldn't help but start to sweat on his forehead.
If he were to coach Chelsea, he felt that his chance of winning against Manchester City, who played this way, would probably not be higher than 10%! Fortunately, Chelsea's head coach was not himself! This result made Faria feel a little relieved.
But can Jose limit Guardiola's tactics? Thinking of this, Faria couldn't help but start to worry again.
…
On the field, Iheanacho, who scored the goal, saw the ball rolling into the opponent's goal and ran wildly in excitement!
This was his first time playing for Manchester City, and this was his first goal for the first team! He had imagined many situations in his mind, but he never thought that his experience in the first team would be so smooth! All this was thanks to the man on the sidelines!
So, after scoring the goal, Iheanacho rushed to the sidelines and gave Guardiola a warm hug.
"Thank you, Boss, it was a wonderful night, I will never forget it!"
Guardiola was also very pleased. He did not expect the opponent's debut to be so successful.
"You deserve it, enjoy the night and enjoy running on the court!"
"Yes, I will. Just wait and see!"
After receiving encouragement from Guardiola, Iheanacho felt very happy and full of strength.
On the field, after Lin Quan and De Bruyne high-fived to celebrate, they stood quietly in the center circle and watched the two people hugging and celebrating on the sidelines.
Iheanacho is very fast and his positioning is smart. The opponent's shot just now was very calm, which left a good impression on Lin Quan.
No wonder he is called the prince of Manchester City, he is indeed something.
Manchester City fans in the stands were pleasantly surprised to see this young Manchester City player, who had just turned 18, score a goal in his first home game for the team.
The team's youth training finally paid off? "What's this kid's name? He's so fast!"
"His name is Kelechi Iheanacho. He was promoted to the U23 team not long ago. I didn't expect him to play for the first team so soon!"
"This level is pretty good. I think with a little more training, he can enter the rotation!"
"Well, we don't have many players on the front line, so he still has a chance to play!"
"I've heard that Coach Guardiola is good at discovering and training young players, and is also very willing to give young players opportunities. Seeing him today, I can see that his reputation is well-deserved!"
Manchester City fans were surprised again and again. When they saw Guardiola's lineup, they were still very nervous.
But I didn't expect Guardiola to achieve such outstanding results with such a group of young players.
This makes them feel that the head coach hired the right person, Guardiola is indeed the most suitable for Manchester City! Some Manchester City fans can't help but enjoy the future:
"With Guardiola's reputation, many young players will definitely come to Manchester City in the future. In this way, one day in the future, our Manchester City youth training camp may be as famous as Barcelona's La Masia!"
…
After hugging Guardiola to celebrate, Iheanacho did not forget to thank Lin Quan who gave him the assist.
If Lin Quan hadn't selflessly passed the ball to him instead of shooting it himself, he would have had no chance to shoot at all.
The game continued, and after scoring the first goal, the morale of Manchester City players was boosted, and they immediately launched a series of fierce attacks on their opponents.
On the other hand, the mentality of West Bromwich Albion players was greatly affected after conceding the goal.
At the request of the head coach, they increased their defense and pressing on Lin Quan.
If Lin Quan hadn't passed several players on the wing just now, they wouldn't have lost the ball so easily.
Therefore, in the eyes of West Bromwich Albion players, as long as Lin Quan is restricted, Manchester City's attack can be effectively curbed.
However, it turned out that they were wrong!
Just five minutes after the first goal, in the 16th minute of the first half, Manchester City scored again! The goal was scored by De Bruyne, and the way of scoring was almost the same as the first goal! The difference was that this time Manchester City's attack was launched from the left.
If the first goal was just an accident, then there would be no excuse for the second one.
In particular, this ball had almost nothing to do with Lin Quan. He tied up a large number of defensive players on the right and did not participate in the attack.
This made the head coach of West Bromwich Albion sweat profusely and feel very anxious.
The opponent scored two goals using the same tactics, almost killing the suspense of the game, but he still couldn't see where the problem was, let alone how to deal with the opponent's tactics.
He couldn't help but glance at the Manchester City coaching booth next door with some fear: Is this the strength of a world-famous coach? (End of this chapter)