Chapter 760: The inheritance of the No. 4 position
Guardiola is really a perfectionist.
He is obviously a Capricorn, but how can he be more picky than Su Dong, a Virgo? From the overall tactical framework of the team to the specific execution details, and then broken down into daily training projects, Guardiola not only broke down his own tactical ideas and instilled them into the players, but also pursued perfection in every detail.
Do you think that's all?
Wrong, absolutely wrong!
This guy even has very high requirements for training grounds.
After arriving at the training base in the United States, he found that although the area was separated by barbed wire, fans could still see the team's training from outside the wire. In order to avoid being watched, especially being photographed by competitors, he directly applied to the team for an advertising curtain to cover the wire fence surrounding the training ground.
After doing all this, he was still not at ease, so he arranged for people to patrol everywhere and check anyone with suspicious behavior.
This gave the players in the sealed training ground the illusion that they were guarding against James Bond.
But to be honest, Guardiola's preparations are extremely meticulous.
Before every day's training, he requires the players to come to the locker room one hour in advance. He and the coaching staff will post different tactical drawings on the wall every day, and then use the one hour before training to explain the contents of the tactical drawings to the players.
Before the players go onto the training ground, he and the coaching staff will reiterate to each player the details they need to pay attention to during training, and they will have a very clear understanding of what they should and should not do.
Su Dong was also very surprised by this, but at the same time he began to understand why Guardiola needed so many assistants.
Currently, the coaching staff of Manchester City's first team has nearly 30 people engaged in various tasks, which is even more than the players of the first team. Compared with the coaching staff of other teams, the number of people is much larger.
Why does Guardiola need so many assistants? The reason is that his preparations are so detailed that he breaks down all the content to the extreme, so he naturally needs more manpower, and he also adds many projects that other teams do not have.
For example, he would videotape every training session and conduct targeted analysis on the video.
Just for this item, it would take at least three or five people to handle it.
Not only that, for such a large team to operate in an orderly manner, especially to divide the work and cooperate, Guardiola needs to have a clear enough understanding and a mature tactical framework so that he can assign tasks to everyone.
After doing this, coupled with a large coaching team, every player can clearly know what they need to do and how to do it.
At this point, Su Dong had to admit that Guardiola was very efficient, unprecedentedly efficient.
Of course, knowing is one thing, and being able to implement it is another.
Guardiola also has a very special quirk, that is, although he looks very elegant and calm, and even a little difficult to get along with, he actually has a rock and roll heart hidden under his appearance.
Every time the team took the bus or before training in the locker room, he would play some rock songs.
As the players joked privately, his cold and arrogant appearance cannot suppress his restless heart!
…
On the tactical level, Guardiola adopted the most authentic No. 4 tactics.
In order to better explain what the No. 4 tactics are, Guardiola even spent an hour making some PPTs to detail the evolution of the entire tactic.
From Brazil's ancient 4-2-4 formation to Michels' 4-3-3 all-attack and all-defense formation, the tactics for the No. 4 position were still unclear at the time, and later Michels' all-attack and all-defense tactics were defeated by Beckenbauer's free man tactics.
What they take advantage of is that the defense of the all-out attack and all-out defense is too weak when switching from offense to defense.
Does it feel familiar?
Yes, this is also what Guardiola's Manchester City is criticized for.
It can be said that this weakness has been passed down from generation to generation.
Because of the natural weakness of all-out attack and defense, in the later Three Musketeers era, the Netherlands' all-out attack and defense was obviously much more conservative, and the positioning was even a bit like the 4-2-3-1 at the beginning of this century.
The number four player at the time was Rijkaard, but his position was central defender.
When Cruyff coached Barcelona, he actually often used the 4-4-2 tactics. The core of the organization at that time was Guardiola who was dragging back in the midfield, but the tactics used at that time were not the current number four tactics.
It was Van Gaal's Ajax who truly made the No. 4 position tactics mature and finalized.
Rijkaard, who returned to Ajax, was unable to take care of defense, so he was placed in the defensive midfielder position by Van Gaal. The team also adopted a 3-4-3, or 3-3-1-3 tactics, and Rijkaard shined in the fourth position.
In 1997, Van Gaal was invited to coach Barcelona. At that time, his plan was to continue to promote his number four tactics in Barcelona, and he believed that Barcelona captain Guardiola was a natural number four player.
What caught Van Gaal off guard was that Guardiola was seriously injured and missed most of the games this season, resulting in Barcelona winning the La Liga championship with an overwhelming advantage, but being eliminated in the first round of the Champions League group stage.
Guardiola did not return from injury until December of Van Gaal's second season as Barcelona coach, which resulted in Barcelona being eliminated in the group stage for two consecutive seasons. Van Gaal was desperate to get the number four position but failed. Although they won the La Liga title in both seasons, they were eliminated in the first round of the group stage in the Champions League.
It should be noted that the intensity of the Champions League back then was higher than the current expanded Champions League.
Although Van Gaal won the league title, he was still questioned because of the lack of breakthrough in the Champions League. In addition, he was a sworn enemy of Barcelona godfather Cruyff, so in his third season as coach, Van Gaal's relationship with the media and fans was very bad. Finally, after failing to win the league title, he resigned in anger.
From beginning to end, Van Gaal failed to get a complete number four player.
He later promoted Xavi, actually hoping that Xavi could fill Guardiola's vacancy, but unfortunately, Xavi was too young at that time and failed to meet Van Gaal's expectations.
However, from Xavi's high praise for Van Gaal every time he is interviewed now, it is not difficult to see that Van Gaal's cultivation of him during that period benefited him greatly.
…
After introducing this history that he had personally experienced, Guardiola was full of regret.
Guardiola believes that the serious injury caused him to lose a lot and affected many people, especially Van Gaal.
It is not easy to find a player for the number four position. Van Gaal moved from Ajax to Barcelona because he wanted to push his coaching career one step further, but he did not expect Guardiola to be seriously injured.
From Guardiola's tone, although he did not say it explicitly, it can be heard that he still has a very high opinion of Van Gaal. In his heart, Van Gaal is the behind-the-scenes hero of Barcelona's rise in recent years.
Especially the youth training reformed by Van Gaal.
This also explains why Guardiola brought Busquets, his direct disciple from when he coached Barcelona's second team, from Barcelona.
This player is very similar to Guardiola back then. His defense is average, but his passing organization, vision and overall view are all his strengths, which perfectly matches the No. 4 tactics in Barcelona's passing and controlling style of play.
However, Guardiola also believes that tactical innovation has been very rapid since the beginning of the new century, especially in recent years.
The position of deep lying midfielder requires certain defensive capabilities and the ability to protect the defense when the team is in defensive position.
This is also the reason why Rijkaard's defense was always unstable after he had Deco and Xavi, and it was not until the introduction of Marcos Senna that the backcourt was stabilized.
Unlike Rijkaard's Barcelona, Guardiola emphasizes pressing in the midfield and frontcourt, so he does not require the defensive ability of the number four player to be particularly high. He thinks Busquets is the best number four player who meets his requirements.
…
Just one hour passed in a flash.
The content was very detailed, allowing Su Dong to basically understand Barcelona's passing and ball control tradition, especially the understanding of the No. 4 position tactics.
Most importantly, he raised Su Dong's evaluation of Van Gaal to a higher level.
Even Su Dong began to think that Van Gaal was greater than Cruyff! After understanding the development of the No. 4 tactics, everyone can see Guardiola's tactical drawings and understand Guardiola's intentions and ideas more clearly.
Don't underestimate this.
Only when players understand these things clearly and implement them on the court, can they cope with the ever-changing situation on the court more easily.
This is why Guardiola creates these tactical drawings and spends so much time explaining them every day.
However, don't think that Guardiola is just good at talking.
On the contrary, this guy was like a devil during the summer training camp.
Especially when conducting physical reserve training, it was definitely the most terrifying devil training Su Dong had ever experienced.
After the experience of the Premier League last season, Guardiola and his team have a clearer understanding of the characteristics of the Premier League, especially the lack of a winter break, so during this season's summer training camp, his training volume has obviously increased a lot compared to before.
He even stated bluntly that he wanted to train the best running team in the Premier League and even in European football.
Passing and controlling the ball, if you want to ensure the stability of the passing and controlling the ball, you need to have enough receiving points, and each receiving point is created by running, so he needs all the players on the court to run.
This requires excellent physical fitness.
Even the excellent physical fitness to cope with running a full 38 rounds of the league.
Because of this, he tailored physical reserve training specifically for Manchester City.
This made all the players who participated in the summer training camp cry and scream, and they were all in agony.
Who would have thought that behind Guardiola's seemingly elegant appearance, there is such a "brutal and violent" side.
It was precisely because all the energy was exhausted in the physical reserve training that Manchester City performed very unsatisfactorily in the subsequent warm-up matches, which once again aroused doubts from the media and fans.
(End of this chapter)
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