Chapter 465: Central defensive midfielder and three central defenders, Zidane cracks Manchester City's tactics
Schmeichel's outstanding individual performance could not reverse the overall decline.
Manchester City took the initiative in the game shortly after the opening and suppressed Leicester City.
Although Leicester City players tried hard to reverse this unfavorable situation, Manchester City suppressed them at the tactical level.
Guardiola's tactical configuration of three central defenders and a central defensive midfielder made it difficult for Leicester City's frontcourt pressing to threaten Manchester City's ball holders.
They were able to calmly organize attacks time and time again, and thanks to the numerical advantage in the middle, Manchester City firmly grasped control of the midfield from the very beginning.
This allowed them to play the ball forward again and again, making full use of the empty spaces in the side corridors and constantly attacking Leicester City from both sides of the flanks.
Manchester City's style of play made Leicester City very uncomfortable. The opponent's left side was not so difficult to deal with. After David Silva was injured, Navas or Son Heung-min appeared in this position.
The passing and dribbling abilities of these two players are much weaker than David Silva, so they can only act as blasters. After getting the ball, they don't make many changes, either passing the ball from the bottom or cutting inside to shoot.
But the player active on Manchester City's right side is Lin Quan, the best winger in football. Once the ball comes to his feet, he has too many options.
Therefore, Leicester City paid special attention to the defense on Lin Quan's side and did not hesitate to station heavy troops there to deal with him.
But in this way, their formation inevitably tilted a little to the right, which gave Manchester City players a wide range of space to move on the left.
As Manchester City's dealer, Kroos, who got the ball in the midfield, saw this and decisively transferred the ball to the empty left side, creating an opportunity for Son Heung-min.
Son Heung-min understood the hint and took the initiative to retreat, lowering the defensive players' vigilance. Then he suddenly turned back and accelerated, rushing towards Leicester City's half.
The opponent's full-back was caught off guard, and when he turned around to chase, Son Heung-min had already left him a body length away.
"Manchester City's one-on-one opportunity!"
"Chance! Son Heung-min shoots!"
"Schmeichel has done a great job again, he saved the ball. Wait, Manchester City's attack is not over yet, De Bruyne got the ball, and all the Leicester City defenders rushed towards him!"
"De Bruyne passed the ball, who did he pass it to?
It's Lin Quan!!
The ball went in and the score became 0:1. Leicester City players made a fatal mistake in defense. They actually left Lin Quan unmarked. This was a huge mistake! "
In the commentary booth, the commentators were speechless about Leicester City's goal.
The reason for being speechless is that Lin Quan's fight was so easy.
He took advantage of his teammates attracting the opponent's attention and quietly broke into the penalty area. As soon as he ran out of the gap, De Bruyne's pass arrived as expected. All he had to do was to easily receive the ball and shoot into the empty goal.
For a top shooter like Lin Quan, such a comfortable shot is not difficult at all. Even if he is given a hundred chances, he may not miss once.
After the goal, Lin Quan gave De Bruyne a thumbs up: Good pass, Ding Ding!
Just now, at least three Leicester City players rushed towards De Bruyne. Under the siege of the opponent, De Bruyne not only did not lose the ball, but also passed the ball accurately to Lin Quan's feet. This ability to withstand pressure and the ability to handle the ball can truly reflect the value of a midfielder!
De Bruyne straightened his chest proudly: That's right, don't you look at who passed the ball to you?
He was very proud of the goal just now. In fact, he did not see whether Lin Quan was really here, but when the opponent pounced on him, he judged that there was a gap here.
If he could pass the ball, no matter who his teammates were, as long as one of them could receive the ball, he would have a great chance to score.
As it turned out, his judgment was correct, and Lin Quan was also well-informed and really showed up here.
On the sidelines, Guardiola clenched his fists excitedly after seeing Lin Quan's goal.
Lin Quan's final shot was not impressive, but De Bruyne's handling of the ball was eye-opening.
This kid can always create some unexpected surprises for himself.
It seems that there is no ball that he cannot pass at his feet, and his choice and method of passing always make people feel surprised and unexpected.
This guy is a top passer! As long as he is paired with a few top forwards, his assists will definitely be great.
It just so happens that Manchester City has such a striker.
So Guardiola has a hunch that De Bruyne's statistics this year are likely to explode.
This made him happy but also a little worried.
As the saying goes, people are afraid of becoming famous just like pigs are afraid of becoming fat. Once De Bruyne becomes famous, more wealthy clubs will be interested in him.
Guardiola gets a headache when he thinks of these giants waving checks to poach his players.
Since last year, there have been a large number of offers during every transfer window to buy some players from Manchester City.
Kroos, Aguero and even Lin are all in it.
Every year during the transfer window, he feels overwhelmed just by rejecting offers from these clubs.
Now with De Bruyne, the workload has increased again.
In fact, it is very simple to reject offers from other clubs, but the difficult part is the work on the players' side.
If some players are bewitched by other clubs and insist on leaving, it will be difficult for the club to keep them.
It happens that these players, especially the main players, are very important in Guardiola's tactical system. If they are abducted, Manchester City's strength will inevitably be affected.
After this game, the winter transfer window will begin.
He already anticipated that many teams would come to inquire about De Bruyne's price.
…
When Lin Quan shot, Schmeichel had already realized something was wrong and was trying his best to return to defense, but he was still a step too late.
By the time he completed the save, the football had already flown into the goal.
This made him feel very unwilling, unwilling to let the opponent break through the goal he was guarding so easily.
I had performed very well before, but why did I lose the ball in the end?
In the stands, Schmeichel saw his son's frustrated expression and couldn't help but sigh.
The special thing about the goalkeeper position is that even if you have made a hundred or a thousand wonderful saves, as long as you make one mistake, it will become meaningless.
Before Manchester City scored, the situation on the field was already very unfavorable for Leicester City.
Inspired by the goal, the opponent's morale was greatly boosted, while on the other hand, Leicester City's morale suffered a severe blow.
As one side gains strength while the other loses strength, the game may become even more unfavorable for Leicester City.
Thinking of this, Schmeichel began to worry about his son.
In the next games, the goal he guards will definitely face more and more severe tests than before.
I wonder if he can handle it?
Now, what he is most worried about is that Manchester City will score an exaggerated score in this game, and conceding a large number of goals will shatter the confidence of a goalkeeper and make him fall into self-doubt.
On the sidelines, Ranieri obviously realized that the situation was not favorable to his side.
But he had no way to deal with Manchester City's attack, as Manchester City's midfield and flanks were too strong.
With Leicester City's strength, they can only concentrate their strength to deal with one area and have no way to take care of both ends. After all, their individual players are not as strong as the opponent, so they can only rely on the advantage of numbers in local areas to limit the opponent.
However, this would reduce the military strength in other areas, and the enemy's offensive threat would become greater.
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But if we don't do this and spread the military forces evenly, we will be left with loopholes everywhere and will be unable to defend anywhere.
What to do? How to crack Manchester City's offensive tactics? ...
"Haha, quite interesting, Guardiola's tactics are even better than I thought!"
"Manchester City's dominance in the Premier League seems to be stronger than we thought!"
Somewhere in the stands of the King Power Stadium, Real Madrid coach Zidane said to his assistant with a smile.
It was the winter break of La Liga at that time, and he had nothing to do, so he came to watch the focus battle of the Premier League.
Although it is not certain whether Real Madrid will face Manchester City in the Champions League knockout stage, Real Madrid cannot help but be on guard.
If they really encounter this situation and they have not done their homework in advance, it would be very dangerous.
After all, two years ago Real Madrid fell to Manchester City and missed a great opportunity to win the championship.
Whenever Real Madrid fans think of this, they feel indignant and never want to repeat the same mistakes again.
"Would it be better if we gave up pressing the opponent's back line and cut off the connection between Manchester City's two flanks and the backcourt?"
The assistant coach asked a question.
Zidane shook his head: "No, Manchester City's backcourt outlet is at the central midfielder position. If we don't pressure their defenders, their connection with the midfield will be closer, and the ball can still be passed to the feet of the wingers."
In today's football, there is a trend that the position of the team's organizer is moving backwards.
From the initial attacking midfielder, to the defensive midfielder, and now to the central defensive midfielder.
Now, the classic attacking midfielder in football has completely disappeared.
The reason why the classic attacking midfielder disappeared is very simple. The closer the player's position is to the frontcourt, the higher the defensive intensity will be. Under the opponent's pressing or even siege, it is difficult to organize an effective attack.
Once the core of the organization is restricted, the team's offense will be silenced.
Therefore, in order to allow the team's organizational core to get and handle the ball more comfortably, their position is placed at the defensive midfielder.
In this position, the only ones who can threaten them are the opponent's frontcourt players, who are much fewer in number. The pressure and tactics they face are much less, and they can handle the ball more calmly.
However, in today's football world, the development trend of football is becoming more and more tactical and integrated.
The high-pressure tactics are becoming more and more popular, which means that even if the position of the organizational core is moved to the defensive midfielder, there will still be great pressure.
Therefore, in order to relieve this pressure, someone came up with such weird things as wing midfielder and center midfielder.
Although it sounds ridiculous, it is indeed very difficult for the opponent to press in this kind of corner position, and it can indeed reduce the pressure on the midfielder.
The reason why Zidane is not optimistic about Leicester City is that they have not posed much threat to Kroos so far.
This allows Kroos to command and dispatch the ball very calmly, using his broad vision and overall view to transfer the ball to areas where the opponent's defense is weak.
And every time he successfully passes the ball, he poses a threat to Leicester City's goal.
If this continues, Leicester City will have no chance of turning the tables, and their opponents will instead further widen the gap.
"What should we do then?"
The assistant coach was somewhat at a loss. If Real Madrid really met Manchester City in the Champions League and Guardiola used this tactic again, how would Real Madrid respond? "Zidane thought about it and came up with two ideas for solving the problem, but he didn't know whether his idea was feasible.
"There are only two ways to win: offense and defense!"
"Manchester City's main threat is on the flanks, so the defending side can arrange a five-back formation to completely kill the opponent's threat on the flanks."
"Of course, we can also choose another method, which is to use the tactic of flying on both wings, taking advantage of the opponent's weakness of only three defenders and weak wing defense, and forcefully attack the opponent's two flanks."
Attack is the best defense. If the opponent tries to use the flanks to attack, then our team should also use the flanks to completely suppress the opponent's flanks. In this way, Guardiola's tactical system will collapse.
Of course, these are just his idealistic ideas. Whether they will work or not, he will have to go back and test them out to know.
Ranieri quickly made a choice. He saw that Manchester City's two flanks were extremely active, so he asked the team to shrink its formation and strengthen the defense on the flanks.
Once the opponent's attack reaches the 30-meter area, Leicester City's number four, the water drinker, will move back and join the back line to form a five-defender formation.
In this way, the width of the defender's formation is enough to intercept the opponent's flank attack. No matter whether the opponent goes down the bottom or cuts inside, there will be someone watching them at all times and will not give them too many opportunities.
After seeing Ranieri's choice, Real Madrid's assistant coach was secretly surprised and couldn't help but glance at Zidane: the head coach's prediction was actually correct. It seems that Zidane's ability is even stronger than he thought.
As expected, since he is so highly regarded by President Florentino, he is definitely not a mediocre person.
I just don't know if he can lead Real Madrid back to the throne and win their long-coveted tenth Champions League trophy?
Zidane did not notice his assistant's thoughts. After seeing Ranieri make the conservative choice, he immediately perked up and stared at the field intently, wanting to see if this choice could work.
If Manchester City can really be restricted by relying on a five-defender defense, then Manchester City’s days in the Premier League will probably be difficult!
(End of this chapter)