Chapter 1038 Losing is normal, winning is abnormal

Although Yang Huan was unable to stay with the team in Barcelona for too long because he had a lot of things to do, he still took time out of his busy schedule to stay with the team for three days and participated in the team's training throughout.

Moreover, during these three days, he had in-depth exchanges with the team's four foreign players, several local players, and employees in some important positions of the club.

He could see that everyone had a pretty good impression of Pochettino. Although they didn't have the kind of admiration that was said to be there, at least they didn't resist and wouldn't cause trouble for the head coach. Many players even thought that this head coach, who volunteered to be the team's tour guide and lead the group to visit Barcelona, ​​and even took selfies with the players when he was having fun, was actually a pretty good person.

As for the four foreign players, perhaps because they have communicated with Pochettino and all come from European professional football, they all support Pochettino and said that they will fully cooperate with the Argentine coach.

From what Yang Huan has learned in the past three days, it seems that Pochettino has had a very good start at Beijing Guoan.

However, the real hard times came after Young Master Huan left.

According to Pochettino's training plan, the main training items in the past few days have been mainly adjustments.

After all, the players have experienced a long vacation, and their physical condition is definitely not ideal. It was even found that many players' physical data were seriously exceeded. Therefore, Pochettino cannot directly use a large number of players right away.

However, after the adjustment period, there were three training sessions a day, each lasting ninety minutes, and high-intensity training that raced against time. This was enough to make all the players in the team cry and scream, and they were all beaten to death.

During this period, domestic fans kept learning about the miserable conditions of the players in the Beijing Guo'en team's training from WeChat, Weibo and media interviews. Even the captain Xu Yunlong said in an interview with a Beijing Daily reporter that this was the most brutal training camp he had ever experienced.

No one knows what happened to Beijing Guoan far away in Europe, but judging from the players' complaints, they seemed to have been beaten terribly. Could it be that this Argentine coach is really that terrifying?

As a result, many unscrupulous domestic media began to hype, believing that Pochettino had no ability, and that he ignored the specific conditions of the Chinese players and blindly sent a large number of players to conduct intensive training, which led to complaints from the players in the team.

Some media also pointed out that many players in the Beijing Guoan team have complaints about Pochettino. Once the team's performance is not good or conflicts arise, they will rebel at the first time.

There were even media reports that Beijing Guoan's new head coach was too partial to big-name foreign players during training and treated the players unfairly, which led to numerous conflicts within the team. After Beijing Guoan's reorganization, it was on the verge of falling apart before even fighting a battle.

Today an insider came out to disclose the information, tomorrow a certain player came out to accuse it, and the day after tomorrow a certain senior executive secretly told reporters.

This series of reports from the domestic media made it seem as if Jingcheng Guoen was on the verge of death.

Even many Beijing Guoan fans are worried that the team will ruin itself before the league even starts.

But at this time, a reporter who followed Beijing Guoan to Barcelona launched a special report.

This report not only provides a detailed introduction to Beijing Guoan's training in Barcelona, ​​but also interviews with many players, as well as the club's management and staff.

From these reports, all the fans who care about Beijing Guoan can generally feel that the club still recognizes Pochettino very much. Although the Argentine coach's training intensity is very high, the effect is very good and very targeted.

Although it is difficult for domestic players to fully meet Pochettino's requirements due to various influences, after a series of high-intensity training, the players generally responded that they have gained a lot and made considerable progress.

Zhang Xizhe, a young player in the team, said in an interview that through Pochettino's guidance, he has a deeper understanding of his responsibilities on the court and how to better serve the team as a whole.

Another young player, Zhang Chengdong, also said that Pochettino is indeed a very capable head coach and has helped him a lot.

"At the beginning, he asked me to play right back, which made me not very happy, but in training, I gradually found that playing this position was indeed a very good challenge for me, and I gradually began to like this position."

Not only the head coach Pochettino, but also several big-name stars in the team have high praise from the players.

Captain Xu Yunlong said, "A superstar is a superstar after all. When I faced Ibrahimovic, not to mention one person, even the two of us couldn't defend him alone. He is so tall and strong, but his footwork is so flexible and skilled. You can't tell that he is already in his thirties."

"And John Terry, I often partnered with him in training. At first I didn't think he was any different. Sometimes I even thought that the so-called world-class central defenders were just like that."

"But later, one time, I was in a different group from him, and I suddenly realized that when I thought he didn't do anything, he actually did a lot. Even his every move on the training ground was very meaningful."

"After the training session, I asked him, and he told me that a truly good defense is not about waiting for the opponent to enter your defense zone, or even waiting for the opponent to get close to you, but about defusing the crisis before the opponent enters your defense zone and poses a direct threat."

“It’s easy to say, but actually, it’s hard to do.”

"Later, I told Xiaolei, Xiaolang and Xiaozhao that learning from Terry is not only about his training attitude and work ethic, but also about his defensive awareness and experience, which will be very helpful for their growth."

Not only Terry, Ibrahimovic also won praise from this group of domestic players.

Especially the front attackers Wu Lei and Zhang Xizhe, they admire Ibrahimovic and Kaka very much.

If the domestic media had previously questioned Pochettino's inability to control the big names and local players in the team, the direction of public opinion immediately changed with the release of this report from Dongqiudi.

But what is truly convincing are the five warm-up matches played by Beijing Guoan in Barcelona.

Considering that the team had just started training, the warm-up match was scheduled for the second half of the training.

As a result, in these five warm-up matches, Beijing Guoan faced teams of the same level as CSKA Moscow and Shakhtar Donetsk. Although the strength of these teams is not outstanding in Europe, they are at least firmly in the middle.

In the first warm-up match, Beijing Guoan lost 1-3 to CSKA Moscow.

This game was also live broadcasted on WeChat video in China, and all the fans noticed that although the result was not satisfactory, the Beijing Guoan team had the initiative for most of the game.

However, the team was reorganized and the players were unfamiliar with each other, especially the foreign players and local players, it was difficult to coordinate their rhythm.

After the game, Pochettino accepted his first interview with the domestic media. He said that losing was not unexpected to him. He thought it was not a bad thing. On the contrary, he thought the problems exposed in the game made him very happy.

"For the warm-up matches, I told the players not to care about the results, the most important thing is to play our best."

"In fact, everyone can see that we played our part in the game."

Domestic fans were also very satisfied with Beijing Guoan's performance in its first warm-up match, especially the momentum shown in the game and the high-pressure tactical style.

Ibrahimovic is at the front, Kaka and Xabi Alonso are in the midfield, Terry is in charge of the defense, and the entire central axis of Beijing Guoan is extremely strong. Under the leadership of four foreign players, the domestic players basically played the tactics that Pochettino wanted.

Losing is normal, but winning is abnormal.

In the second game against Shakhtar Donetsk, Beijing Guoan lost again, 1-2.

In two rounds of games, Ibrahimovic scored two goals, but the team suffered two defeats.

If in the first game against CSKA Moscow, the team had the advantage on the field but lost the score, then in the second game, the team suffered a double loss in terms of the field and the score.

Although Shakhtar Donetsk has lost a number of high-level Brazilian players, they are not short of money and immediately formed an excellent team. Their fighting capacity is still good and they are at the level of the Champions League.

It is not surprising that Beijing Guoan lost against such a team.

Because the second game was not broadcast live, when the news reached China, fans were generally disappointed. However, many mainstream media, especially the football experts and domestic authoritative football newspapers, praised Beijing Guoan's performance.

The leagues in Russia and Ukraine are about to start. Both CSKA Moscow and Shakhtar Donetsk are in pre-season training. They both hope to use warm-up matches to test the team and adjust the team's condition.

From the warm-up matches, everyone could see that both teams did not hold back at all.

After suffering two consecutive defeats in the warm-up matches, Beijing Guoan's next three warm-up matches were also not ideal, with two draws and one loss, and suffered a winless streak in five warm-up matches.

This also caused widespread disappointment among domestic fans, but it once again proved one thing: even the world's top superstars find it difficult to support a team with superior strength.

Because modern football is played as a whole!

But when fans were generally disappointed and domestic media were worried about Beijing Guoan's new season, technical director Bielsa said in an interview with Dongqiudi that from the team's perspective, the team's progress was very obvious.

However, the Argentine coach did not analyze his statement in depth, which caused a lot of controversy for his remarks.

Many media and fans believe that Bielsa favors his disciples and the team, but some fans believe that with Bielsa's character, he would definitely not do such a thing, so the team is really improving.

But in any case, after playing five warm-up matches and a long period of training, Beijing Guoan officially ended its trip to Barcelona and returned to China from Spain.

This time, the team was greeted by thousands of fans at Beijing Capital Airport.

Although the team did not perform well in the warm-up matches, Guo'en fans still have confidence in the team and hope that the team can prepare well and strive to make a big splash in the new season.

Yang Huan has also been keeping an eye on the Beijing Guo'en team's movements, and even took time to watch two or three warm-up matches. He also feels that the team has indeed made considerable progress, especially in terms of overall performance and teamwork.

It can be seen that Pochettino is implementing his tactical ideas in the team step by step, but it will definitely take some time.

Before the team left Spain, Yang Huan went to the hotel to say goodbye to the players and promised that he would return to China to watch the team's first Chinese Super League game.

But before that, he had to return to the UK to watch a League Cup final.