Both brothers also play for Ajax and the Netherlands.

My brother played as an attacking midfielder, while Frank de Boer played as a defender.

Frank de Boer trained in Ajax's youth training camp since he was a child. He was promoted to the first team at the age of 18. He followed Ajax and witnessed the most glorious period of the Ajax family.

When he was a player, Frank de Boer was very good, and his performance in his peak period was recognized as the mainstay of the Ajax/Netherlands defense.

Frank de Boer inherited the Dutch characteristics of all-out attack and defense. While he maintains a solid defense, he is very good at suddenly joining in the attack, especially his sudden left-footed shot or heavy free kick directly into the goal, which are extremely threatening.

At the same time, Frank de Boer's outstanding overall view, control of the game rhythm, and cruise missile-like long passes can often help forwards complete the lore.

When he was a player, the only incident in which Frank de Boer was criticized was at the 2000 European Championships, when the Netherlands played against Italy. Frank de Boer took two penalty kicks, but missed both times, which ultimately led to the Netherlands being eliminated by Italy.

Although he has had such unpleasant memories, Frank de Boer, as a player in the 1990s, is definitely a mainstay of world football.

Frank de Boer is the apprentice of "Chef" Van Gaal, and a good apprentice who is a direct descendant.

When De Boer was a player, he played under Van Gaal. Later, when he was an assistant coach of the Dutch national team, Van Gaal was the head coach of the Netherlands.

Therefore, De Boer can be said to have learned the true skills from Van Gaal in terms of formation and tactics.

When it comes to Van Gaal's status in football, he can definitely be described as a godfather.

Although everyone knows Ferguson of Manchester United and Wenger of Arsenal, in terms of the influence of football coaches, Van Gaal is the most powerful.

After Ferguson retired, not many of his players grew into famous coaches.

The same is true for Wenger.

But Van Gaal not only trained many world-class players, but also trained many world-class coaches.

Although the all-out attack and defense tactics started with Michel and rose from Cruyff, Van Gaal does not seem to be a tactical master of all-out attack and defense and passing and controlling the ball. However, Van Gaal created another Ajax dynasty with his own ideas, created the miracle of 52 consecutive unbeaten games, defeated Milan three times in the Champions League, defeated Real Madrid twice, and eliminated top teams such as Bayern and Dortmund.

You know, in Van Gaal's era, Serie A teams were very strong.

The emergence of Van Gaal directly ended Milan's Champions League dynasty.

Van Gaal attaches great importance to wing attacks and maintaining the overall formation. When Van Gaal coached Jia Fu, Jia Fu's offensive transmission was very smooth, very entertaining, and the winning rate was very high. Every outstanding player could be inspired to realize his potential by Van Gaal.

Van Gaal has trained and promoted Dutch internationals such as Kluivert, Seedorf, Overmars, the De Boer brothers, Van der Sar, Reiziger, Bogarde, and Melchiot. He has also selected outstanding foreign players such as Litmanen, Finidi George, and Kanu who were only about 20 years old when they joined Ajax.

From a tactical perspective, Van Gaal may not be as creative as Michel, nor as capable of developing a tactic into a complete system as Cruyff, nor as good as Guardiola in repeatedly patching and repairing the system. However, Van Gaal is definitely top-notch in terms of identifying and employing people.

Van Gaal's nicknames are Cook, Van Chef, and Van Chef.

Initially, this nickname came from the silly chef played by Fan Wei in the sketch "Selling Crutch", but after the nickname became popular, fans felt that this nickname really suited Van Gaal.

Because Van Gaal can reorganize tactics based on the characteristics of his players. This ability to cook according to the conditions avoids routine and can better stimulate the potential of young players.

The current Ajax head coach Frank de Boer is a direct disciple of Van Gaal. He was taught by Chef Van both when he was a player and when he first became a coach. But in fact, De Boer did not really inherit Van Gaal's mantle.

There is only one person who truly inherited Van Gaal's tactical philosophy: Jose Mourinho.

Even Guardiola cannot be considered as Van Gaal's successor.

Although Van Gaal's basic tactical idea is all-out attack and defense and passing and controlling, Guardiola also passes and controls, and Mourinho defends and counterattacks, but the one who truly inherited Van Gaal's tactical philosophy is definitely not Guardiola, but Mourinho.

The greatness of Guardiola's passing and controlling style lies in the refinement of the routine. Guardiola's passing and controlling style is more beautiful than that of Cruyff and Rijkaard, and the winning rate is also higher. However, if you break it down, there is actually nothing tactically about the passing and controlling style, and it is not as great as imagined.

Why did the transmission and control flow rise?

In football before Michelle, almost all teams adopted a low-post defensive strategy.

The so-called low-post defensive strategy, in simple terms, is to defend only in one's own half. Even the Netherlands, which plays all-out offense and defense, starts with all-out offense and defense in their own half.

This is basically the case with the improvements made by Cruyff and Rijkaard. Tactics like high-pressure pressing are only used at critical moments.

However, when it came to Guardiola, he changed the low-position defense into high-position pressing, and it was high-position pressing from beginning to end.

This is the real core of Guardiola. He regards on-the-spot high-pressure pressing as defense. All the players in the frontcourt press frantically and directly push the defense line and the starting point of the attack deep into the opponent's defense line. This was simply a dimensionality reduction attack at the time.

Therefore, when Barcelona's Dream Team III plays against weak teams, they play like crazy, and when they play against strong teams, they also play very beautifully, which makes people excited just by watching them.

It was also from Guardiola's passing and controlling style that major clubs gradually reacted from their confused state and began to require players to have the physical strength to sprint all over the field, and to have the ability to pass and receive the ball and to break through with the ball.

This tactical style of play, fundamentally speaking, actually inherited the ideas of Michel and Cruyff. It's just that Guardiola stood on the shoulders of Michel, Cruyff, Van Gaal and Rijkaard and learned more.

…

(End of this chapter)