Chapter 385 Guardiola: Bring Lin Quan’s offensive power to the extreme!
"Damn Mourinho, tell him that if he can't win this game, he should pack up and leave!"
In the box at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea owner Abramovich was so angry that his nose was crooked.
Liverpool now only has the name of a wealthy club but not the reality. He cannot accept the reality that Chelsea cannot even beat such a downtrodden Liverpool.
If this game ends in a draw, Chelsea's top spot will be replaced by Manchester City, and they will fall behind Manchester City by 2 points.
With two rounds left in the league and the game about to end, Chelsea collapsed at home.
Like the vast majority of Chelsea fans, Abramovich could not accept this result at all.
On the field, Mourinho was also blood-thirsty. In the second half, he replaced the defensive players with a large number of offensive players. He put on a desperate attitude and launched a fierce attack on Liverpool.
However, Liverpool's tenacity far exceeded the Blues' imagination. They besieged the opponent for a whole half at their home field and used all the means they could, but they just couldn't break Liverpool's goal.
In the end, Chelsea had to accept the result of being tied by the opponent at home.
The moment the game ended, there was a huge cheer in Manchester City's locker room.
With the help of Liverpool, they returned to the top of the table and are in the lead on the road to defending the league title!
As for the Blues, after being unexpectedly tied by Liverpool, they have lost the initiative.
In the last two rounds, even if they win all the games, they cannot guarantee winning the championship. They still need to look at Manchester City's mood. Unless Manchester City loses or is tied, they will have a chance.
Otherwise, Chelsea will just sit back and watch Manchester City successfully defend their title!
This match received a lot of attention in the UK, and after the game all major media spent a lot of space reporting on it.
Among them are a lot of criticisms of Chelsea and Mourinho.
"Mourinho should be held responsible for today's failure!"
"The Blues unexpectedly lost points and may miss the championship!"
"Abramovich's patience with Mourinho has reached its limit!"
Hundreds of millions of pounds have been invested over several consecutive years, but in return there has been no league title for five years. Not only Abramovich cannot tolerate such a result, but Chelsea fans cannot tolerate it either.
After the game, there were rumors that Abramovich broke into the locker room and had a violent argument with Mourinho in the locker room.
This has intensified outside concerns about Chelsea's coaching position. The madman's second term with the Blues may be coming to an end.
However, the outside world was not surprised by Mourinho's end.
"Mourinho's current situation is entirely due to his own failure to win in the direct confrontation with Manchester City!"
Manchester City has won both rounds of matches against Chelsea this season.
Especially in the second round at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea were 6 points ahead of Manchester City before that game. If they had won, the difference would have been widened to 9 points, which would have basically secured victory.
But unfortunately, Mourinho failed to defend his home court and instead lost to Manchester City at home, giving the opponent precious three points.
This six-point battle is very crucial. Winning by 3 points and losing by 3 points to the opponent is equivalent to deducting 3 points, which makes a total of 6 points.
Chelsea's two consecutive losses mean a loss of 12 points, which is indeed fatal for Chelsea who want to compete for the championship.
"If Chelsea hadn't lost to Manchester City in a row, their lead would still be at least 4 points. If they could beat Manchester City, Chelsea would have won the championship long ago!"
Manchester City encountered such a serious change in the middle of this season that the team's form has been sluggish for several months.
Chelsea failed to seize such a good opportunity, so it is not unfair that Mourinho has been criticized by the outside world.
Manchester City players didn't care about the outside world's criticism of Mourinho. After unexpectedly reaching the top with the help of Liverpool, each of them felt refreshed and their morale was boosted.
So, with such high morale, Manchester City arrived in Munich three days in advance to prepare for the second leg of the Champions League semi-final.
Compared with Manchester City, which has won consecutive games, Bayern Munich seems to be in a much worse state just from the record. They have suffered two consecutive defeats in the league. After losing 0:2 to Leverkusen in the last away game, Bayern Munich lost to Augsburg at home this time.
Not only did Bayern lose the game, but substitute goalkeeper Reina was also sent off with a red card just 13 minutes into the game due to a serious foul. It can be said that they lost both the game and their dignity.
Judging from the two teams' records alone, Manchester City, which has a two-goal advantage and is in high spirits, should be able to easily defeat Bayern, which is "out of form".
However, among the handicaps offered by major bookmakers before the game, almost no one was optimistic about Manchester City's away win.
Even those who were most optimistic about them had the odds set at Bayern giving up one goal.
This is tantamount to assuming that Manchester City will lose at the Allianz Arena, and looking at the handicaps of many companies, they even think that Manchester City will suffer a crushing defeat!
"Do you look down on us so much?"
When Manchester City players learned about the handicap offered by the bookmaker, they were all outraged.
The game hasn't even started yet, and these guys are like sentencing them to death? Why do they think Manchester City is no match for Bayern?
"Although I'm not convinced in my heart, objectively speaking, our chances of winning this game are really low!"
Someone was not affected by the emotion and analyzed calmly: "Bayern has been gathering their strength for a whole week. Even though they lost to Augsburg miserably, if you look at the starting lineup, most of them are substitutes, and the main players were only substituted in the second half.
This shows that they don't care about the result of the game at all, they just use this game to train their players and keep their main players in shape."
Bayern's lead in the league was too big and they had already won the championship four rounds in advance, so in the last few rounds of the game, Heynckes almost did not arrange for the main players to play.
This allowed Bayern's main players to get a long period of rest, and their physical reserves were much better than those of Manchester City's players.
They have reserved so much energy, obviously intending to give Manchester City a good "entertainment" at the Allianz Arena.
In the last game, Manchester City almost couldn't withstand Bayern's attack at their home ground. Now at the opponent's home ground, it is almost wishful thinking to rely on defense to stop Bayern's attack.
Once Bayern scores a goal, their morale will be boosted and they will become stronger and stronger. No one knows how many goals Bayern can score in the end.
Bayern's offensive power is obvious to all, and they have been accumulating strength for so long in advance, so the outside world is optimistic about Bayern, because everyone believes that Manchester City will definitely not be able to defend.
Coincidentally, Guardiola thinks so too.
"Bayern's offense is too strong. We will definitely fail if we just defend stubbornly. So, we have to set up our defense and fight against our opponents at the Allianz Arena!"
Guardiola announced this as early as after the first round of the game.
But many people did not believe what he said at that time, thinking that he was just sleight of hand and said it deliberately to confuse his opponents.
At that time, even some players in Manchester City thought so.
But now, when Guardiola brought up the old matter again, the players saw his serious expression and understood one by one:
Bald Gua is not joking, he is serious!
If we don’t dare to fight against Bayern, and just defend tightly, and want to rely on defense to deal with Bayern, then we will really die without a burial place! “Don’t think that we can rest easy just because we have 2 goals!”
Seeing that some players looked hesitant and seemed to have objections to his decision, Guardiola glanced at them and said bluntly: "If you really think so, then this game will be the end of our Champions League schedule this season, and we can consider preparing for next season's Champions League!"
Seeing how serious Guardiola's words were, everyone fell silent.
"Very good, since no one is talking, that means you support my decision!"
Guardiola quickly took out the tactical board that he had prepared long ago, called all the players over, and then began to carefully explain his tactics to each player.
The players were originally nervous about playing against Bayern at the Allianz Arena, but after listening to Guardiola's tactical explanation, none of them hesitated.
If Guardiola's tactics can work, then they may really be able to win with this tactic! In order to confuse the opponent, hide your true intentions as much as possible.
Guardiola also deliberately practiced defensive tactics in front of reporters and Bayern fans who came to spy on the situation, giving people the impression that they seemed to be afraid of Bayern's powerful offensive ability and planned to deal with Bayern by relying on defense.
This discovery immediately drew ridicule from Bayern fans: "Haha, didn't Guardiola threaten to fight Bayern at the Allianz Arena? Why doesn't he dare to do that now?"
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"Haha, they must be afraid of Bayern's powerful offensive ability, so they can only slap themselves in the face!"
"Thinking of relying on defense to save your life is a bit too naive!"
"I bet Bayern can score at least 3 goals against Manchester City!"
"Too conservative, I think we can score 4!"
"3 goals in the first half and 2 in the second half, I think we can win by five goals!"
"You are all too conservative. Maybe this game will be like the last one against Porto, 8:1?"
"If it's really 8:1, then Gua's face would be swollen!"
…
Because of the departure during the winter break and the club's smear campaign, Bayern fans are very dissatisfied with Guardiola.
They really hope to see Bayern beat Guardiola's team at home and tell Guardiola with practical actions: You are not worthy of us! Guardiola did not respond to the ridicule and doubts from the outside world.
He focused on perfecting his offensive tactics.
Instead of wasting time arguing with these people, it is better to spend more time thinking about how to limit Bayern's powerful attack from the flanks.
To this end, Guardiola specially collected the video recordings of Bayern's losing games under Heynckes in recent years for study.
As a Bundesliga giant, Bayern doesn't lose many games.
Among these limited game videos, there happen to be a few games that Lin Quan played against Bayern during his time at Werder Bremen.
After watching the videos of these games with curiosity, Guardiola's eyes lit up.
Coach Schaff's tactic of placing Lin Quan on the right wing to compete with Bayern seems to be worth learning from?
Compared with Werder Bremen's lineup back then, Manchester City's lineup is undoubtedly more luxurious.
Their reliance on Lin Quan is not as serious as that of the Parrot Army, so although fixing Lin Quan on one side of the wing will affect the team's offensive organization in the midfield and frontcourt, the impact will not be too great.
With De Bruyne, Kroos and others in the team organizing, dispatching and passing the ball, Lin Quan can be completely freed up and allowed to unleash his greatest offensive power!
Thinking of this, Guardiola came up with the best tactic!
That is to combine his use of Messi on the wing during the Barcelona Dream Three Dynasty with Coach Schaff's exchange tactics to maximize Lin Quan's power on the wing! Before Lin Quan appeared, if Guardiola was asked to select the strongest winger, he would definitely vote for Messi.
But now, Lin Quan's sudden emergence makes it difficult for Guardiola to cast his vote.
He has witnessed Messi's peak period and knows how powerful Messi was back then.
But he has not seen Lin Quan's strength on the wing, so he cannot make an accurate judgment.
It just so happens that this game is a great opportunity for him and others to see Lin Quan's strength on the wing!
…
The news from Manchester City soon reached Bayern, and it was learned that Guardiola was practicing defensive tactics and seemed to be planning to use defensive counterattacks against Bayern.
Heynckes called the assistant coaches together to discuss the matter.
"Counterattack is a very pragmatic option for Manchester City, especially since they still have a two-goal advantage."
Bayern's coaches did not doubt this information because they felt that Manchester City did not need to take risks in attacking and could just take advantage of Bayern's mentality of having to press forward and launch a defensive counterattack.
The defensive counterattack tactic is extremely powerful in the hands of a strong team.
With this trick, Mourinho won two Champions League titles and even snatched the Champions League trophy from Barcelona during their heyday.
However, the speed of Manchester City's two wingers is not that fast. Lin Quan and David Silva are both technical players with strong passing, organizing and dribbling abilities, but average speed.
If they really play a defensive counterattack, they will not pose much threat to Bayern, at least that's what Bayern's coaching staff thinks.
Although they think so, Bayern also has to make some preparations in advance.
For example, when Manchester City switches from defense to offense, how to limit the opponent's ball out and organize the opponent's midfielders to pass the ball to the wingers.
After the opponent's winger gets the ball, how to limit the opponent's breakthrough, passing, cutting inside and shooting, especially on Lin Quan's side, his shooting technique is very good, giving him the opportunity to shoot is extremely dangerous for Bayern.
In response to the tactics that Manchester City might adopt, Bayern spent two days practicing various targeted defensive tactics.
Bayern, who has made sufficient preparations, is waiting for the game to begin with full confidence!
On May 13, at the Allianz Arena, Manchester City faced Bayern in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final.
Before the game was about to start, both sides announced their starting lineups.
When Heynckes got Manchester City's starting lineup, he couldn't help but narrow his eyes and realized that he had been fooled.
Kroos' name is on Manchester City's starting lineup, and the left back is Kolarov, who is strong in attack but weak in defense.
With this starting lineup, you're telling me they're going to play a defensive counterattack?
(End of this chapter)